My Musical

The episode follows the story of Patti Miller, (Stephanie D'Abruzzo), a patient who mysteriously starts hearing everyone's speech as singing.

The episode's music was composed by Fordham, Scrubs' resident composer Jan Stevens, The Worthless Peons' Paul Perry, Tony Award-winning Broadway orchestrator Doug Besterman, and the Avenue Q writing team of Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez.

In the style of a traditional musical, this episode follows a two-act structure[2]—with the acts separated by a commercial break instead of an intermission.

he believes Ms. Miller is suffering from a psychological problem (as opposed to a neurological one), and tells him to run some tests and "turf her to Psych."

Carla has brought Isabella to the hospital, and everyone is cooing over the new baby, when Elliot comes in and announces happily that she just bought a new house.

Cox breaks into a rapid-fire delivery ("The Rant Song") of the litany of annoying things J.D.

Dr. Cox breaks the news to Ms. Miller, pulling a curtain for privacy that also signals the end of the act.

Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence is a self-confessed musical theatre "nerd," as are many of the writers.

Neil Flynn and John C. McGinley were the last two guys to admit that they'd done a lot of musicals and stuff, but being actors, they had.

"[4] Scrubs had previously dabbled in the musical genre, including a West Side Story parody in the episode "My Way or the Highway," and a Broadway-style finale in "My Philosophy."

However, Lawrence had long been unwilling to do full musical episode, because of difficulties making it "organic to the show,"[4] and because of the amount of work that would inevitably be involved.

[2] Long-time Scrubs writer Debra Fordham took the challenge, and contacted the show's medical consultant, Jonathan Doris, who provided her with several case studies,[5] one of which ("Musical hallucinations associated with seizures originating from an intracranial aneurysm", published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings)[6] became the basis for Ms. Miller's condition.

But, perhaps the most notable contributors were Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, the writers of hit Broadway musical Avenue Q. Marx and Lopez's involvement came at the suggestion of Braff, who overheard Fordham asking producer Randall Winston if it would be possible to get actual Broadway composers to work on the episode.

[8] Fordham suggested Will Mackenzie to direct the episode, because of his Broadway experience as Cornelius Hackle in Hello, Dolly!

[8] The show features ten musical numbers, whose titles appear in the closing credits: "All Right", "Welcome to Sacred Heart", "Everything Comes Down to Poo", "Gonna Miss You, Carla", "The Rant Song", "Options", "When the Truth Comes Out", "Guy Love", "For the Last Time, I'm Dominican", and "Friends Forever/What's Going to Happen".

[2] Filming the sequence involved over 50 extras[5] and Busby Berkeley-style top shot kaleidoscopic choreography, which was achieved with a crane-mounted camera.

[5][12] The inspiration for the song came when one of the show's medical advisors, Jonathan Doris, shared his observation with Fordham that stool samples seemed to be asked for at hospitals no matter what was being diagnosed.

"[5] Fordham had long been a LuPone fan (which is the reason D'Abruzzo's character was named Patti Miller).

[15] Janitor's section in this song ("It all started with a penny in the door") refers to an incident in Scrubs' pilot, "My First Day," when he became convinced J.D.

[2] Carla does not march during this song, except for a few "painful steps" in this sequence, due to Reyes' aforementioned fractured pelvis.

[5] It was a late addition to the episode, brought on because, according to Bill Lawrence, "All the modern musicals like Jekyll & Hyde have these really overwrought love songs, so we really wanted to have one between J.D.

She emailed D'Abruzzo, who she knew to be a big fan of the show, "and, no exaggeration, five minutes later, she sent me a list of 30 [moments]", including Turk performing an appendectomy on J.D.

"Guy Love" was the first of two music videos released by NBC on YouTube in advance of the episode's air date — the other being "Everything Comes Down To Poo".

In addition, the night before "My Musical" aired, actors Zach Braff and Donald Faison appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

and after an interview with the host, Braff grabbed a hand held microphone that was hidden in his chair and the two began singing "Guy Love".

The sequence was filmed two months after principal photography, to give Judy Reyes' pelvis enough time to heal for her to be able to tango.

[5] Every question Carla asks during the first verse was an issue in a previous episode - she grew up in Chicago,[16] she was in medicine eight years before meeting Turk,[17] their wedding song was The Beatles' "Eight Days a Week",[18] and Turk struggled with remembering her middle name.

[4][20][21][22] This comparison was also made by Bill Lawrence, who credits Buffy for inspiring Scrubs' propensity for "big" episodes (such as this one, the multi-camera "My Life in Four Cameras", and the Wizard of Oz parody "My Way Home").

[4] The singing abilities of the cast (Chalke in particular) came under some fire, but most critics agreed that most were competent, and that anything beyond that simply did not matter.

[4][20][23][24] Reyes and Faison were the only members of the cast (besides the Broadway star D'Abruzzo) to receive praise for their singing abilities.