SCRUBBING AWAY A ZONK!

On this week's episode of 'Scrubs', during one of the exchanges in the continuing battle of retorts between Dr. Cox and Dr. Kelso, Dr. Kelso sneered:

"Oh, Perry, you're so edgy and cantankerous. You're like House without the limp."

'House' is the medical show on FOX starring Hugh Laurie as Greg House, a brilliant, Sherlockian-styled diagnostician. It was a big move by the writers to acknowledge the show, as it is the chief competitor in the same timeslot occupied by 'Scrubs'.

But 'House' is also in the same TV universe as 'Scrubs', so they presented us with quite a big "Zonk!".

The discrepancy is only big in its subject matter, though, because it presents no real challenge to overcome.

Even though 'House' takes place in Princeton, New Jersey, and the Sacred Heart Hospital of 'Scrubs' is probably in California (There has to be a Sea World nearby.), Drs. Cox and Kelso probably know of Dr. House, if they don't actually know him personally. The reputation of Dr. House would be well-known within the medical community all across the nation. I'm not sure if he even bothers to follow the practice of "publish or perish", but his work must have been written about in various medical journals in the past.

And it's possible that Cox and Kelso may have met House at some medical convention at some point. (As another possibility, Dr. Cox may have gone to med school with either Dr. House or his friend, Dr. Wilson.) If so, they probably talked with him long enough for them both to get a grasp of House's barbed and withering style of conversation. So that when Kelso mentioned House, Cox understood the reference without need for further splainin.

That way, we were spared hearing Dr. Kelso ruin my splainin by calling 'House' a TV show.

Yeah, I can see how that would play out: "You're like that guy on the TV show that's crushing our nards in the ratings!"

BCnU!
Tele-Toby