What do you get when you take Scrubs, slash the budget dramatically and then do lots of acid? You get this very bizarre comedy from 1991, based on an improv stage show.
The storylines, such as they were, centred around the decaying, underfunded St. Christopher's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. It's so underfunded that the staff rarely extended past the small cast, and they only seemed to have one operating room. There was a Matron, two Doctors, two Nurses and an Orderly. Not surprisingly for a TV show in a hospital, there were storylines centred around murder, deception, pregnancy and, well, whatever the hell the writers had to work with.
The real appeal of the show came from the heavily-improvised, Writing by the Seat of Your Pants storylines, which were written only days before the episode was to air. This was due to the creative team deciding to take the approach of the original stage show, and having the audience vote on whichever plot twists were to occur next. This, of course, left little room for an actual budget, which meant that the main "hospital" set consisted only of the reception, the poorly-stocked ER, and some offices, with the rest appearing as a canteen (in one scene only) and a mural representing a hallway.
The characters were:
- Dr Ray Good, your average kind-hearted surgeon
- Dr Richard Lovechild, a sleazy surgeon who is after:
- Nurse Pam Sandwich, the Naïve Newcomer
- Nurse Effie Shunt, a nurse with a crush on Dr Lovechild
- Matron Dorothy Conniving-Bitch, a...yeah
- Warren Cronkshonk, the (rather filthy) Orderly
- Det. George Slabb ("Slab-bub")
- Bill Schwartzenhameneggenberger, a Serial Killer with whom Matron Conniving-Bitch was in a relationship
The Show contained examples of
- '80s Hair: Dr Ray Good has a mullet.
- Betty and Veronica: Pam has trouble deciding between the good Day Good and rich asshole Richard Lovechild.
- Blackface: When Slabb goes to India, everyone is in blackface.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Nurse Pan Sandwich, who never takes off her pair of surgical gloves.
- Disney Creatures of the Farce: Pam is followed by plastic animals held up by wires when she rides her bicycle.
- Driving a Desk: We get obvious fake backgrounds behind Pam when she's on her bicycle.
- Gargle Blaster: One character's "friends" are trying to corrupt him before his wedding night. After all else fails they resort to a glass of PURE ALCOHOL! (which is steaming ominously). He takes a swig, immediately declares that he's going to get his rocks off with a nearby prostitute, then collapses unconscious.
- Never Learned to Read: When Warren gets a letter informing he's been dismissed as hospital administrator, he remembers he can't read.
- No Swastikas: When Matron Dorothy Conniving-Bitch first gets control of the hospital, she wears a Nazi-style red armband with a letter M instead of a swastika.
- Portal Slam: A Running Gag is to have special effects allow characters to walk down a corridor that's clearly painted onto the background. If Matron Conniving Bitch tries to follow them, she'll just walk into the wall.
- Stylistic Suck: It ran on this! The best example of this would be the car chase between Slabb and Lovechild, which is done with slot cars. Also the Mural of the hallway, which was only ever mistaken for an actual hallway.
- Too Important to Walk: Richard claims he never learned to walk until he was 10 because his servants carried him everywhere.
- Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: Effie flies off as a winged ghost when she gets run over.
- With Catlike Tread: Matron Dorothy Conniving-Bitch, who snuck around while saying "Sneak sneak sneak sneak sneak".
