I talked to "Turk" the other night.
Fans of
Scrubs who've caught the latest episodes will recall that the show which aired a couple of Tuesdays ago (Nov. 9th; the first of two that guest-starred
ER's Julianna Margulies) had a sub-plot where Dr. Chris Turk, played by Donald Faison, changed his cellphone number to "1-916-CALL-TURK." Usually these phone numbers mentioned in films or TV shows aren't working numbers, because of issues in years past where the writer made up some number and it turned out to be a real number of an innocent bystander, who got a ton of weird phone calls as a result. Not this time.
The phone # turns out to be real, all right, but it goes to a phone that stays on the set where
Scrubs is filmed. Calling it, as it turns out, will usually get you to a voicemail message recorded by Donald Faison, playing in character as Turk. In the message, you are told that the show - which currently airs on NBC's Tuesday at 9:30 Eastern, 8:30 Central, is going to move in the near future to 9PM, 8PM Central. Not quite yet, but soon, so it's good to get that heads-up. The message also urges fans to head on over to
PCAvote.com, where voting for the People's Choice Awards is going on right now.
Scrubs is nominated, and so is Zach Braff ("J.D.") for both his role on this show, and for his recent film role. "Turk" wants you to make sure you cast your votes there. Unfortunately, no mention of DVDs is made on the voicemail.
However, every blue moon the phone will be answered by somebody from the cast or crew of the show. How cool is that? I've gotten reports of people who have talked to writers, to creator Bill Lawrence, to actors for recurring characters like Robert Maschio ("Todd") and Sam Lloyd ("Ted"). A few have reported talking to Zach Braff. Many of these reports mentioned that the cast/crew member talked to said that DVDs were on-the-way. So I gave it a try myself the other night, and "Turk" himself - Donald Faison - answered the phone!
Faison was extremely nice, and we talked for several minutes about the show, and I had to tell him how much I've been enjoying it. After filling him in about this site and how I'm the News Director here, I asked him to tell me about DVDs. He responded that it's accepted as a fact among the people who work at the show that
Scrubs is coming to DVD in the first part of next year, but says that noone among the cast or crew has recorded any interviews or commentaries so far for extras. He felt sure that this will happen, though, and indicated that everyone there is eager to see these discs. We chatted a bit more, and then I let him go. He was very nice, and I invited him to drop by here and to send notes to either Gord or myself anytime he wanted to. Donald, if you're reading this, thanks so much for your time the other night...I really enjoyed it! If anyone else wants to try calling that number, go right ahead. Word is that the folks at the show will keep randomly answering it for a little while, but not forever. And don't forget that they're mostly going to be taking next week off for the holiday..."Turk" needs some turkey!
Before I jumped onto my keyboard and told you all that DVDs were on-the-way, I wanted to check in with the folks at Disney/Buena Vista about this. After all, last March we
passed on word from Zach Braff that the DVDs were coming, then in July we had to
update that with new word from Braff that the DVDs had to be held off for a bit. So I thought it was best to check in with my contacts at the studio, which owns the Touchstone division that produces
Scrubs.
The good news from the studio is that there ARE plans to put
Scrubs on DVD in the late Spring 2005 timeframe. Internet rumors had mentioned "May" as a tentative month, and Disney confirmed that this is the direction their thoughts were going. Everything's subject to change, of course, and official announcements won't be made until after the first of the new year. But right now things are looking good for Turk, J.D., Elliot, Carla, Perry, and The Janitor.
Stay tuned, and we'll fill you in just as soon as we know more. In the meantime, don't forget that next Tuesday's episode looks really good: it guest-stars and was directed by Matthew Perry, who played "Chandler Bing" on
Friends. I'm looking forward to it, and to these DVDs. We'll keep you updated on those discs, okay?
