Friday, March 9, 2007

“Why Being Really Lonely Is Sometimes Super Awesome.”


I can sometimes have a little bit of an obsessive personality, but this is beyond that. This is full blown absolute love-it-so-much-I-wish-I-was-in-their-world obsession. I LOVE SCRUBS. I've been watching it since it first premiered six+ years ago, so in a way it feels like this show has grown up with me. It's made me laugh(and sometimes I laugh so hard I cry) and it's made me cry. It is the perfect balance of comedy and poignancy. As much as I love Grey's I think it's an even better hospital show. Scrubs has made me laugh and cry at the same time.

What's not to love about Scrubs? It has an amazing cast (yes, I've spoken quite a few times about my love for Zach Braff), great writing, and incredible directing (Zach Braff has even directed a few episodes, including my favorite, which I'll go into in a moment). Another part of the show I love is the music. I read an article recently in which Christa Miller (she plays the character of Jordan, and is creator Bill Lawrence's wife) picks most of the music, and a lot of times the cast gives it directly to her rather than Bill Lawrence. I love the fact that the cast is so involved in the show. I think you can tell the difference between the cast of a show that gels perfectly and one that doesn't sail as smooth (ex. Grey's).

Anyways, I thought I'd post some of my favorite musical clips that cement my love for this show even more. And no, I won't post the clip of "How to Save a Life" but I will tell you, Scrubs was the first show to use it last year before anybody else had even heard of the Fray.

One of my favorite episodes of Scrubs is (coincidentally directed by Zach Braff) their 100th episode "My Way Home" in which they do a full tribute to The "Wizard of Oz". I'm actually not a huge Oz fan (childhood nightmares and stuff, actually spurred by the traumatizing sequel "Return to Oz"). One of my greatest delights after the purchase of my mom's new high-def TV was watching the bright colors pop off the screen. This was an episode made for one of those TVs. True to Oz, the episode is bursting with color. That's one of the things I LOVE about Scrubs, they follow through down to the tiniest details, even the color choices.

This first clip is the introduction to the episode, which has two very funny musical moments, the first of which led me to use the phrase "It. Was. Awesome." way too many times, and also sets up the whole Wiz premise of the episode.



This second clip always makes me tear up. I don't know if it's the heartfelt conclusions to each of the character's stories or the amazing rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", but it never fails to get me a little misty eyed. Also, take a look at this amazing shot. First it zooms in on Ted's Band on the roof, and then it pans around the outside of the building, looking into various rooms where the characters are successfully facing their fears. I would love to know if this was filmed with a green-screen, or if they were filmed in the rooms we see. I know that Scrubs is actually filmed in a hospital building, so the building and all of the rooms on the set are real, rather than stages. From the looks of the people in Elliot's room when the camera is panning away I want to say they are really being filmed in those rooms. If so, I think Zach Braff accomplished an amazing shot. I'm curious to hear the film buff's opinions on this one.



This next clip is something put together by somebody on YouTube of their favorite Scrubs musical scenes. I've realized that there are so many incredible musical moments that I could fill up far too many blog entries with clips, so instead I urge you to start watching Scrubs, and discover them for yourselves. Back to this clip, look out for the last music number, which I think is a precursor to the amazing musical episode that just aired.



Another aspect about Scrubs that I adore is the fact that longtime fans get a big payoff from the writers in inside-jokes. Sometimes a joke will span across multiple seasons, and other times it'll be in a few episodes. After Scrubs was put into syndication my brother DVR'd EVERY episode, so I rewatched everything from the start this winter. I didn't realize just how long certain jokes had been going for, even extras (such as Colonel Doctor or Dr. Beardface) have been around since the early days. Two of my favorite on going jokes are the incredible love story of Turk and JD (don't YOU want a love like that?!) and Dr. Acula, JD's screenplay. I don't know about you, but I would definitely pay to see a full length Dr. Acula if it was made with the Scrubs cast. The second clip is one of the earlier introductions to Dr. Acula. Unfortunately I couldn't find all the references, probably because NBC has been patrolling YouTube as of lately.


Guy Love


Remove the . and you've got DRACULA

So for all the Scrubs lovers out there, I'd love to hear about your favorite episodes and moments. Like the time I heard an unreleased song on Scrubs (the first song featured in this clip) and tracked down the author and pretty much stalked his websites and any other sites with his music until the song was released. I actually PAID for a song off of iTunes!

By the way, the subject of this post is taken from a super funny quote in this week's episode. I LOVE quoting Scrubs :)

(sort of unrelated note: while looking for a cast picture I discovered this picture with Sarah Chalke wearing a dress I own!)

6 comments:

Leslie said...

I admit that I'm no hardcore fan of the show, but I know enough to know that I should be. Anyhoo, a dear friend of mine LOVES Scrubs and always makes me watch the clip of Turk doing the dance from Bel Biv DeVoe's "Poison." Hi-lar-ious.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=fvVZegDnbJU

TYT said...

my mom loves Scrubs too...probably not as much, but she would definitely agree with you. She thinks the show is cute. I will have to watch it one of these days, for sure.

Burdamania said...

Donald Faison is freakin' ageless, looks the exact same now as he did in Clueless.

Mags said...

I know, he's kind of amazing in every way

Anonymous said...

i don't know you and this will be super random but thank you for obsessing over scrubs like i do

Anonymous said...

hahahah i was trying to remember the title of JDs blog...thanks!