Fake Doctors, Real Friends: 10 Things We Learned About Scrubs From Episode One
9. The Bulk Of The Series Was Filmed In A Real Hospital
When filming for Scrubs, Bill Lawrence wanted to create a genuine feeling that what we were watching was truly based in a hospital. While most productions would create a set to resemble exactly what they needed, Scrubs actually took over an old, abandoned hospital for all of their shooting.
The pilot was shot in a different hospital before the season was picked up, but once the series got into its full swing, every bit of production took place within the walls of the same building. The cast's dressing rooms were old hospital rooms, as were the writing and editing rooms and everything in between.
Even bar and apartment scenes were created within the same hospital with production building the sets in the many hundreds of rooms available to them. This gave Scrubs a layer of authenticity that could never have been recreated in a set.
It wasn't until the black sheep of the series, season nine, that the show decided to use a traditional set. Just one of the many aspects that saw the final season fail to live up to that which had come before it.