One Scrubs Actor Would Regularly Be Told To Simply Ad-Lib Their Lines

Bill Lawrence gets a lot of the credit for writing “Scrubs,” but he was more than happy to take advantage of Neil Flynn’s comedic genius at times. While speaking to Vulture in 2018, Lawrence confessed that Flynn was asked to ad-lib whenever the writers of the beloved sitcom were in a lurch. “If we couldn’t think of a janitor line, the script, it would say ‘Janitor,’ and underneath it, it would say, ‘Neil say something funny,'” Lawrence recalled.

So, what’s an example of one of Flynn’s most memorable improv moments? The one that stood out to Lawrence occurs in the Season 8 episode “My Lawyer’s in Love,” during a scene where Janitor tries to give Ted (Sam Lloyd) some romantic advice. He tells a story about getting into a topless fistfight with a duck at the side of a road — and yes, it’s also implied that the duck took its shirt off.

The scene gets a lot of praise from fans of the acclaimed workplace comedy, and Lawrence is more than happy to take credit for it. “That is one of the many moments that people come and say that was so funny. I’m like, ‘Thank you,'” Lawrence said.

While Neil Flynn was allowed to put his own spin on Janitor’s dialogue, he doesn’t want fans getting the wrong idea. The actor revealed that some folks believe he came up with all of his lines, which isn’t true. What’s more, many of his improvised moments came about from filming scenes with a specific co-star.

Flynn described, “People will sometimes say to me, ‘Is it true that you made up all your lines?’ Of course that’s not true, that would be chaos. There’s another person in the scene with a scripted line! So sometimes I was allowed to ad-lib. Oftentimes with Zach [Braff], we would change the dialogue a little bit.” 

Now that the “Scrubs” revival has been renewed for Season 2, Flynn might have more opportunities to ad-lib as Janitor. Of course, it remains to be seen if he will be part of ABC’s “Scrubs” revival moving forward after only guest-starring in the first installment.