Everybody’s beating me to them! Better post this now…

Originally posted by China Guy

Would the Bob Newhart show qualify as a medical comedy? He was a dentist.

Actually, Bob played a psychologist. You’re probably thinking of Jerry, a dentist whose office was across the reception area from Bob’s.

To try to chear up the E/R-ER controversy, there was a medical sitcom called E/R that lasted 22 episodes in the 1984-1985 season on CBS. It starred Elliot Gould, who was well-known in movies of the 60s and 70s (MASH*, of course, but anybody remember The Silent Partner?).

From Harry and Wally’s Favorite TV Shows by Harry Castleman and Walter J. Podrazik (New York: Prentice Hall, 1989):

Disguised as a spin-off from The Jeffersons, E/R is actually an adaptation of a long-running Chicago theatrical production set in a hospital Emergency Room. The concept was developed by the Organic Theater Company, whose ensemble members researched the topic by visiting real-life emergency rooms for a sense of the truth is stranger than fiction routine there. The play E/R was a huge success and proved particularly popular with medical people who nodded knowingly at such incidents as Dr. Sheinfeld’s [Gould’s] removal of a bloody light bulb, intact, from the rectum of a patient.

As far as the thread title goes, there have been medical comedies. In addition to the ones already cited, I can recall Temperature’s Rising with Cleavon Little; and House Calls, which is what Wayne Rogers left MASH* for.