PASADENA, CA–Day Two at the semi-annual TCA press tour started with a laugh. Working hard at that was the cast from the new comedy series Childrens Hospital, which began as a series of short webisodes but now airs on “Adult Swim” on Turner Broadcasting’s Cartoon Network.
Among the cast of the medical spoof were Rob Corddry, Megan Mullally, Canadian Malin Akerman and Henry Winkler. Corddry, who appears throughout the short episodes as a surgeon wearing bloody clown makeup, created the series after a trip to a real children’s hospital with his young daughter. He says “Adult Swim is the Internet of television,” a place to make comedy away from the usual barrage of notes writers and producers normally get from networks. “Although weirdly we got a lot of notes from NBC,” said executive producer Jonathan Stern. Notes like, “More Alec Baldwin.”
The cast tried too hard to be funny, typical of press tour comedy show sessions. After one lull, somebody said, “we have time for 17 more questions.” Future episodes were described as “like Tron but with tons of nudity.” Corddry asked if he could take one question prepared for fellow Turner Network star Dr. Drew and then asked the reporter if she was molested as a child. Somebody else asked what the blood budget was on the splatter comedy; the cast all donated we were told.
Hey, it’s a tough room.
