I got a chance to talk to Rob Corddry at Comic-Con this year at a roundtable interview and while it was brief (I think it lasted like 4 minutes!), it was still very cool to talk to him.
I love his show Children’s Hospital on Adult Swim. He plays ‘Dr. Blake Downs’, the clown doctor who believes in the ‘healing power of laughter’ as opposed to medicine. And if you’ve seen the show, you know that belief always leads to pretty disastrous but funny results.
Rob spoke about the show, being the guy in charge and not kissing Megan Mullally.
For the full interview, click onto the audio link above or download from iTunes.
What’s it like being in charge, does it feel good?
Rob: It’s so good. So good. I just say ‘no’ arbitrarily. I’m like a roman Caesar. “Yes, No, give me some ham.” It’s fantastic.
With the kids in the background, have you guys got any bets on set who can be the worst in front of the kids? To see what they can get away with before the parent steps in?
Rob: No, oh my God no. Oh my God no. Most of the time, I talk a truck driver and I’ve got two young children of my own and I can’t believe they haven’t sworn yet. But no, God, we would feel terrible.
One day this girl was just talking about her dad and how kind of horrible he was like, ‘yeah my dad makes us do this.’ Painting the picture of like this awful father. Any parent that lets their children do something like that is just a bad parent. There’s no argument against that- that kids should be in any way affiliated with this business, especially the show.
Do you feel a little bit creepy getting into the makeup?
No, I definitely don’t feel… Like, I was saying before that the makeup is sort of modeled after John Wayne Gacy. It’s got sort of cute little eyebrows. Nah, it doesn’t creep me out.
I think it’s kind of a cliché, like people enjoy saying that clowns are scary, but I don’t really buy it. It’s kind of a cute thing to say. Clowns are really just kind of uninteresting. Clowns are kind of dumb and clowns take themselves way too seriously.
When this show was first coming together was there an pet peeve you had about popular medical drama’s that you wanted to satirize?
Rob: Not really. The show became, or is becoming, more of a parody of TV dramas in general. But that said, I was a huge fan of St. Elsewhere, so we’ve paid homage to that in a lot of ways. Mash we’ve paid homage too. I think Grey’s has definitely given us some fodder but we’re not just making fun of that show as well. It’s really just sort of dramatic tropes.
You always seem to have a moment with Megan Mullally‘s character, are we ever going to see that moment follow through?
Rob: Here’s the thing, I can’t as the writer, the head writer, I can’t write myself making out with somebody. I wrote a scene where, in the new season, where Megan Mullally makes out with every single doctor and my character takes off before she gets to him because he’s autistic, essentially, he can’t handle it. But like, I sort of wrote myself as autistic so I wouldn’t have to make out with anybody. Because it would just feel creepy. My wife, she’s cool with it, she doesn’t care. I should exploit it.
