‘Scrubs’: The Mistake That Lasted 5 Seasons and Drove Elizabeth Banks Wild
In a long television history of medical shows, few have done what Scrubs managed to do. While medical dramas have been a staple on network television for several decades, few balanced comedy with the drama how Scrubs did. It was a meticulously researched comedy that still packed the punch of a drama like Grey’s Anatomy. However, one mistake lasted over five seasons and drove Elizabeth Banks crazy until she joined the cast and was able to fix it.
What is ‘Scrubs’?
Scrubs debuted on NBC in 2001. While many medical shows offered gritty, somewhat realistic depictions of the hospital, they often swayed toward melodrama and ignored the lighthearted part of things. Balancing this lightness with some dark subject matter, Scrubs offered fans of the medical genre something somewhat different.
The biggest sell of Scrubs might have been its cast. While most of the cast was unknown or synonymous with smaller roles at the time, it made several of its members bigger stars.
Zach Braff, who played JD Dorian, has since become a successful film actor and director. Donald Faison, who many fans may have known from Clueless, became a household name with more star power. From Sarah Chalke to John C. McGinley, Scrubs made several actors big-name stars regardless of their past experiences.
While the show was an unabashed comedy, that doesn’t mean it ignored more realistic aspects of its premise. The show employed several medical advisors to ensure that no matter what happened on the screen, it was based on somewhat realistic premises.
Fans adored it. For most of its nine-year run, the final two on ABC as cast members began to jump ship, the show was a massive hit.
Several notable guest stars came and went throughout its run, but Elizabeth Banks did something extra notable when she donned the titular garb.
Elizabeth Banks joined the show
As the show got more popular, its guest stars began to get bigger, too. In season five, Elizabeth Banks, who was already making her name on the big screen, joined the cast in the recurring role of Dr. Kim Briggs, a urologist.
A divorced doctor, Kim was revealed to be a longtime employee of St. Vincent’s hospital. However, JD had a switch inside his brain that meant he never saw married women. After the divorce, however, he began to notice.
Before long, JD and Kim were in a relationship, and before long, Kim was pregnant. JD and Kim tried to make it work but eventually went their separate ways. However, with a kid, the two remained cordial.
While all of this was major, however, Banks’ greatest contribution to the show may have been fixing an error that drove her crazy for years before she finally joined the cast and had the power to fix it.
Flipping things around
During the opening credits of the show, fans could see an x-ray sign in the background. However, if they paid close attention to it, they realized that the sign was backward.
Perhaps, owing to her cinematic eye for detail, Banks noticed this when she was merely a fan of the hit comedy. However, when Kim was introduced to the audience, one of the first things she did was flip the errant sign and tell them it had been bugging her for years.
It was a meta-joke that echoed Banks’ real-life concerns. It also was a great introduction to the character. Regardless, sometimes fans of the show, be they megastars or extras, become so entrenched with them that they notice these small things.
Who knows what mistakes have still gone unnoticed, but lucky for the creators of Scrubs, Banks caught the errant sign, and they found a way to incorporate the gaffe into her character.
