Childrens [sic] Hospital (originally titled Children's Hospital as webisodes) is an American dark comedy television and web series that parodies the medical drama genre, created by and starring actor/comedian Rob Corddry. The series began on the web on TheWB.com with ten episodes, roughly five minutes in length, all of which premiered on December 8, 2008. Adult Swim picked up the rights to the show in 2009 and began airing episodes in 2010. The storyline centers on the staff of Childrens Hospital, a children's hospital named after Dr. Arthur Childrens. The hospital sporadically (and usually without reason) is mentioned as being located within Brazil despite making virtually no effort to conceal that the series is shot in Los Angeles, California, except for the fifth season, which was set at an American military base in Japan. Corddry is part of an ensemble cast portraying the hospital's doctors, which also includes Lake Bell, Erinn Hayes, Rob Huebel, Ken Marino and Megan Mullally. Henry Winkler and Malin Åkerman joined the cast starting with the second season as a hospital administrator and a doctor, respectively. Zandy Hartig and Brian Huskey recurred throughout the show's run, eventually joining the main cast for the fifth season. The show ran for seven seasons; its final episode aired on April 15, 2016.

Synopsis

Childrens Hospital is a product of TheWB.com. Its webisodes are about 10–12 minutes long, each narrated by mainly Dr. Cat Black (Lake Bell) in Season 1, and by Dr. Valerie Flame (Malin Åkerman) in Season 2. The show mocks such medical dramas as St. Elsewhere, House, Grey's Anatomy, General Hospital, Private Practice, Chicago Hope, ER, Scrubs, and Holby City.

Broadcasting

Though Comedy Central made a competing offer, the show was picked up by Adult Swim after Corddry decided the comedy style was not suited for the half-hour format Comedy Central wanted. Adult Swim offered half-hour or fifteen-minute time slots, and Corddry chose the latter. The original season one webisodes began airing on Adult Swim on July 11, 2010, in groups of two with a new faux-commercial in between the groupings of two webisodes. The channel then debuted the newly produced season two episodes which began airing on August 22, 2010. On September 1, 2010, Childrens Hospital began airing on the Canadian television channel G4. In Winter 2013, the show was picked up by Much. In Australia Childrens Hospital premiered on cable on Comedy Channel on January 26, 2011, and on ABC's free-to-air channel ABC2 during May–June 2013. The series began airing repeats on American cable channel TBS beginning October 20, 2014.

Cast and characters

The series revolves around the medical staff of Childrens Hospital, featuring an ensemble cast. These actors receive top billing in the credits:

Recurring

"Behind the scenes"

The series occasionally presents fictional "behind-the-scenes" episodes, supposedly chronicling the production of the series. These episodes portray Childrens Hospital as a long-running medical drama and typically feature interviews with the self-absorbed, eccentric cast members (also fictional characters). The first such episodes were presented as clips from a fictional 60 Minutes-style newsmagazine entitled Newsreaders, which was later spun off into its own Adult Swim series. These fictional cast members have stories of their own:

Episodes

Production

During the first three seasons, portions of the show were filmed in North Hollywood Medical Center, the same former hospital used for filming Scrubs and several other movies and television programs, until its demolition in 2011. As a parody of the live episode "Ambush" of ER, the season two finale (aired November 7, 2010) was promoted as a live broadcast.

Reception

Ratings

Despite the low ratings compared to other cable television series, Childrens Hospital still has received its highest ratings to date on its midnight (Eastern Time) slot. On Friday, September 3, 2010, it pulled in 525,000 viewers while the next Sunday yielded 551,000 (in the 18–34 demographic).

Awards

Related projects

The mock television advertisements presented with the Adult Swim broadcasts of Childrens Hospital season one tied into future Adult Swim programs. A commercial for a crime procedural parody led to the show NTSF:SD:SUV:: (National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle), which ran from 2011 to 2013. Similarly, a commercial featuring Chris Elliott promoting a fictional health drink called "Nutricai" turned out to be a tie-in with an episode of Eagleheart, one episode of which featured Elliott's character joining a multi-level marketing business selling the product. Some episodes of Childrens Hospital featured a fictional TV show called Newsreaders, a parody of the CBS show 60 Minutes; this led to Newsreaders being picked up as its own show on Adult Swim, premiering in January 2013. Former Daily Show co-executive producer Jim Margolis served as showrunner, developing the series with Childrens Hospital creators Wain, Corddry, and Jonathan Stern. In 2011, Corddry stated that the cast and creative team of Childrens Hospital were working on doing a movie together, separate from Childrens Hospital, with a different story and characters. In 2020, Netflix premiered Medical Police, a ten-episode spinoff of Childrens Hospital. The show stars Hayes and Huebel as Lola and Owen, who are recruited into a globe-spanning mission to uncover a conspiracy behind a global pandemic and find a cure. Åkerman, Bell, Cera, Corddry, Marino, and Winkler also reprised their Childrens Hospital characters as guest performers.