The 12 Best Jokes From Season One of ‘Childrens Hospital’
For whatever reason, Rob Corddry’s web-series-turned-regular-series Childrens Hospital remains criminally underrated. An Airplane! like monsoon of jokes, it’s pound-for-pound one of the funniest TV shows ever. Even the first season, made up of only 10 brief episodes of five minutes each, packed in more punchlines than most full-season sitcoms. Not to mention, they were delivered by a cast that featured pretty much every actor that made an alt-comedy fan laugh at any point past 2000.
Here are some of the best jokes from the halls of Childrens Hospital, a hospital that’s named for its founder Dr. Arthur Childrens, but also happens to be a hospital for children…
Rob Huebel, Questioning the Results of An X-Ray
“I don’t trust these things, they’re not even in color.”
Rob Huebel and Nick Offerman Discuss Relationships
Officer Chance Briggs (Nick Offerman): So your girlfriend broke up with you, who cares? I’ve been divorced four times, you see me cryin’?
Dr. Owen Maestro (Rob Huebel): Yeah. Right now, you’re crying.
Briggs wipes away a tear.
An Inquisitive Yarmulke Touch
Dr. Kat Black (Lake Bell): Glenn, stop. We’re breaking up.
Dr. Glenn Ritchie (Ken Marino) slowly reaches toward his yarmulke.
Dr. Kat Black: No. It’s not because you’re Jewish.
That’s A Massive Ward
“And so it is my pleasure, and honor, to open up Childrens Hospital’s very own… Genital Ward.”
Dr. Black Doesn’t Remember Lola Lying About Her Brain Tumor
Dr. Kat Black (Lake Bell): Hey! You have a brain tumor? Why didn’t you tell me that?
Dr. Lola Spratt (Erinn Hayes): I did tell you, okay? It was a lie that I told Owen to break up with him. Remember?
Dr. Kat Black: No… God, your tumor must be affecting my memory.
Nick Offerman, in A Flashback to 9/11
“I hope we invade Iraq.”
Dr. Richie, After A Nurse Refuses to Help With An Operation, Saying He’ll Do It Himself
Frustrated, holding entrails: Well where do I put this shit?
An Important Surgical Step
During an operation to cure Chief (Megan Mullally’s) of the physical ailments that require her to walk with arm braces, the doctor lifts out a bloody arm brace and drops it in the bucket.
Cutter Spindell’s Writing and Directorial Debut
A jab at shows giving series regulars a chance to direct and pad their resume, one of the episodes begins with a fake behind-the-scenes interview with Rob Corddry as “lead actor” Cutter Spindell. We learn that this episode was both written and directed by Spindell, in what’s going to be his behind-the-camera debut.
The episode then begins, and it’s a full five minutes of shaky, nauseating footage and highly racist jokes shot from the perspective of a brand-new character, a Puerto-Rican doctor with dwarfism.
‘Don’t Forget to Set the Snow Globe’
That same Cutter Spindell episode ends, of course, with a reveal that it had all been a dream, at which point Megan Mullally, playing herself, tells Rob Corddry, “Go back to sleep. And don’t forget to set the snow globe.”
After which, he shakes a snow globe and sets it on the bedside table like an alarm clock.
Dr. Richie’s Big Dream
Dr. Richie: One of these days, I’m gonna get a real job, in a real hospital. With real, adult patients. Tiny breast implant?
Nurse (handing over tiny breast implant): Tiny breast implant.
Bleeping Out Jesus Christ’s Name
Every time a character exclaims “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ,” it’s bleeped as if it were an unsafe-for-broadcast curse word.