Television doesn’t often give us a good, crazy parody that consistently targets the tropes of one genre, but when it does, we certainly get the right one. It’s possible that the best of the best when it comes to wacky TV is Childrens Hospital. The Adult Swim comedy has made its name by striking at everything that’s tired and typical about dramatic medical shows. But, it looks like the seventh season will be the last, as creator Rob Corddry has decided to end the show, and he’s revealed how this conclusion came to him.
Over the last couple of months, I had a feeling larva that transformed into a thought caterpillar, and, to continue the metaphor, then became a decision butterfly…Then, as so often happens, the final decision was just a magical moment of like, Oh yeah. That's what I should do. It's time. We did it.
Rob Corddry spoke to Vulture about making the conscious decision to stop Childrens Hospital after this season. It does sound like the idea was already percolating as they filmed the seventh season, but that the urge to end things (or make some kind of grand gesture regarding the show) just got stronger and stronger the closer they got to finishing the season.
Childrens Hopsital is a parody and dark comedy that relishes poking fun at medical dramas in the best ways. The series takes its inspiration from a host of such popular dramas, such as Grey’s Anatomy, ER, St. Elsewhere, House and the daytime soap opera General Hospital. Characters frequently bed one another, die and come back to life, lose their memory of medical knowledge and even conceive children with other children who have an advanced aging disease. And, in a riff on the Robin Williams film Patch Adams, Rob Corddry’s character, Dr. Blake Downs, spends all of his time at the hospital (and, really, away from work, too) in terrifying clown makeup and painted scrubs that appear bloody.
In his interview, Rob Corddry also lets us in on the fact that his final decision to end the show came less than a week before the interview, which happened to be just a few days after they finished post-production on Season 7. Meaning that the series finale was complete without anyone, even Corddry, knowing that that’s exactly what the episode was going to end up being. But, fans shouldn’t be worried that Childrens Hospital will end on the wrong note. As Corddry says:
The very final moment was one of my favorite moments anyway, but now it really puts a bow on the show.
Well, as sad as it’ll be to have to go without new Childrens Hospital episodes after this season, at least the show will go out the way it wants to. There’s nothing sadder in TV than a formerly good show lingering past its sell-by date.
