7 most memorable musical TV episodes

Scrubs: “My Musical”

When the sitcom Scrubs decided to do a musical TV episode during its sixth season, it used its hospital setting to its advantage.

After a woman collapses in a park, she wakes up to find everyone around her singing. She is brought in as a patient to Sacred Heart Hospital where we see the musical numbers through her eyes.

When she isn’t watching the doctors, the show’s usual comic banter resumes. But when she’s in the picture everyone around her sings.

This leads to some hilarious original songs, including ones composed by the team from Broadway’s Avenue Q, Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez. From the medically, uh, instructive, “Everything Comes Down to Poo” to the rapid-fire “The Rant Song” to the bromance- celebrating “Guy Love,” the songs feature clever wordplay and fun examinations of the characters’ relationships.

The episode moves the show’s plot along too, surfacing difficult conflicts between J.D. (Zach Braff) and his roommate, Elliot (Sarah Chalke), and Turk (Donald Faison) and his wife, Carla (Judy Reyes).

Seeing the singing and dancing through the eyes of a random hospital patient was a great gimmick. And the musical genre fit this quirky show well.

We eventually discover the patient hearing the singing has an aneurysm that’s caused her world to go musical. At the end of the episode, her aneurysm is removed and things go back to normal.

But it’s clear the patient misses the musical that had been happening around her, as does the audience.