David Wain Talks Spinning Off ‘Childrens Hospital’ Into ‘Medical Police’ For Netflix

When Decider caught up with David Wain, we found the writer/director/producer occupying a Hollywood office on the same floor of Jax Media as his longtime comedy collaborator Michael Showalter. While Showalter’s team focused on the upcoming third season of Search Party, which moves from TBS to HBO Max this May, Wain’s plans seemed even more ambition if not also audacious — a wall of his office covered with note cards outlining a week or more in the life of Today’s Special, a topical daily sitcom which WarnerMedia ordered a four-episode pilot for in November.

Wain has been on the cutting edge of digital comedy since the turn of the century, making short films for his live comedy shows with Showalter and Michael Ian Black, debuting a webseries (Wainy Days) on the streaming platform My Damn Channel in 2007, helping Rob Corddry take his webseries Childrens Hospital to TV with Adult Swim and winning multiple Emmys for it, and adapting his first feature film, 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer, into two separate spin-off series (a prequel and a sequel) for Netflix. He’s directed multiple feature films amid all of that, including The Ten, Role Models, Wanderlust, They Came Together, and A Futile and Stupid Gesture.

His most recent trick he pulled off, getting the funny folks of Childrens Hospital out of the hospital and around the world on an action-adventure caper called Medical Police. The ten-episode season debuted this month on Netflix. Just about everybody is back, from stars Rob Huebel and Erinn Hayes, to Rob Corddry, Malin Ackerman, Henry Winkler, Lake Bell, Ken Marino, plus some more famous stars who pop in and out of the action. Wain co-created Medical Police with Krister Johnson and Childrens Hospital’s Cordrry and Jonathan Stern, with Wain directing half of the episodes.

DECIDER: So, Medical Police, what are we calling it: A spin-off? A sequel?

DAVID WAIN: We had a series, for those who may not know, on Adult Swim for seven seasons called Childrens Hospital, and this was a quarter-hour long show that was in the form of an hour-long medical drama, but it was a really stupid comedy and we loved making this. And we did it for seven seasons, as I said, won some Emmys, just had a great time. And then when that ended, we were like, what else can we do in this universe? And so Krister, Jon, Rob and I came up with this idea of a spin-off show that’s bigger in scope. It’s half-hour long episodes, and it’s an action-adventure Mission Impossible, James Bond-type genre, but it’s in the world of Childrens Hospital and primarily featuring two of the characters from the show, played by Rob Huebel and Erinn Hayes, but also includes all the other actors from Childrens Hospital as well as others. It was really fun to do. And it’s all the same sense of humor. It’s Childrens Hospital but in a very different canvas. And we shot it, both in L.A. and in Croatia. It takes place all over the world and it’s kind of a blast.

What kind of crew and equipment did you have for that?

Well, it was the same as any typical low-budget cable show we had a small crew and we had our you know, we shot it on usually two cameras, video. And our show was, for Netflix, on the very on the lower end of the budget and schedule, so we had to use tricks that we’ve learned over the years to move very fast and cleverly, make a little look like a lot.

It’s quite an adventure, though, for a show that actually began before Adult Swim, wasn’t it originally the CW Seed?

Before it was on Adult Swim. It was on this CW network or not CW, some kind of Warner digital platform that’s long gone (note: Children’s Hospital debuted with an apostrophe in the title on TheWB.com in 2008). It was the brainchild of Rob Corddry, originally when there was a writer’s strike. And he found a way to do this web series as something to do. And he just called whatever friends were around. And that became the 10-episode web series, first season of Children’s Hospital. And then we went on to make it into more of a full-fledged TV show on Adult Swim after that.

And became the first web TV show to win an Emmy! (The Daily Show‘s web-exclusive “Correspondents Explain” videos won the first Emmy for Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program in 2011. Childrens Hospital won in 2012-2013)

We were so psyched to win that first Emmy. But in a way there weren’t that many other possible categories that were very few potential nominees insane. Short Form, comedy, something like that.

But you are no stranger to that, since you had previously won the Webby Award for your own series, Wainy Days.

Right. I had the webseries Wainy Days and before that, you know, a decade before that we had done the Stella shorts, which was originally on a website called Comedynet.com. They had given us literally $500, I think, per short. We mainly used them just to put up in front of our live shows we did in New York, but that became sort of a viral series of sorts. First, people passed them around on VHS tapes, believe it or not, it was that long ago. And then we put them out on DVDs just that we made by ourselves. And then they eventually I mean, we’ve we did those starting in 1998 and YouTube, just to get your bearings, didn’t even start going until 2007 (after Google acquired it in November 2006). But I’ve really been myself making those kind of shorts since I was 12…and also just for everyone’s bearings I’m 50 right now.

That’s why I asked you with Medical Police in terms of the crew, and the process and the equipment because how much of that has that changed over the years?

The creative process of making something, telling a comedy story is similar. No matter what you’re doing. For me, it’s figuring out the best way to visually tell the story and work with the actors and figure out the script and figure out the comedy and what’s the tone and all that is basically the similar idea. But obviously, if you’re running around with your own camera on your shoulder and just screwing around with your friends, that’s what that is and then if you have a big crew and you have to have other considerations of hundred people on your set and marketing and budgeting and a network and layers of approval and all that stuff, you have to kind of, hopefully incorporate those into what you’re doing but still be focused on the core of telling the story and making it funny and whatever you’re doing.

Okay, so for Stella, for instance, there’s you, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black. Yeah, how many other people are, are involved in the making of a Stella video?

Well, when we were doing those shorts, and not to be confused with our series we did on Comedy Central, it was. Often it was just the three of us and one other person that was holding the camera. Another friend of ours, at first it used to be John Hamburg or whoever. Sometimes we have two people, you know another person holding a microphone or just helping out maybe three and in in the fancier ones, but that was about it.

How long did it take you to make a video for them?

One of us would write the script and it would take half an hour. And then we would shoot it usually in a few hours in an afternoon usually, and sometimes it was either the day before or the day of our live show that we were going to show it so we then cut it together also extremely quickly. And I think a lot of why those shorts, to me, are funny and really have a certain special tone to them, is because of the lack of overthinking in them. It was truly just whatever our instincts were, and also no censorship, clearly, of what just there is deeply offensive. But part of I think, what works is they’re just like, ‘Oh, my God,’ and why they just have a lot of weird ideas in them because there’s nobody and being like, ‘Ah, let’s not, that seems too strange. That’s too out there.’”

Right. And they’re also like you said, it predated YouTube or any of the other sites that came along.

That’s why we genuinely thought 100 people would see it at a nightclub that night. And that was the end of it. And so that’s another reason why maybe we were so unrestrained in those shorts, comedically and otherwise. Whereas then we went to do our series on Comedy Central, which was inspired by an outgrowth from those same shorts, but a totally different animal. We’re writing scripts, we’re getting notes from network, we have a budget, we have certain content restraints that and instead of trying to fight against those, we decided to reinvent what we’re doing in a different format that that isn’t working against those and so those were a much more plotted stories. It was a half hour show. Much less running around dildos, other things.

So when it came time to make and shoot Wainy Days, YouTube had just come on the scene but then there were these other sites Funny or Die, CollegeHumor, My Damn Channel.

And at the time, YouTube was just one of them. It wasn’t clear that YouTube was going to be the only game in town at all at the time. And yeah this guy, Rob Barnett started this thing My Damn Channel and he came to me and made an offer that was really great which was we, you know, we’d like to be in business with, you do literally whatever you want, and we’ll pay you X amount per short that you make and that’s it. No notes, no nothing. And so I was like, that’s awesome. how am I gonna say no to that? So with that in mind, I came up with this simple idea. Each short involves a different attempt at me having some kind of relationship and Based on the years when I was single, because I had just gotten married or just been with my wife at the time. And so I just started cranking those out. And it was super fun and involving actors and friends that I wanted to work with. And that process also was a very quickly writing something. And then it was a little bit bigger than those Stella shorts, we’d have a little bit of a crew, but it was usually still very, very small, maybe six people. And we’d shoot usually one day or more than one in a day and edit them and put them on.

Were you concerned with that in terms of what kind of audience you were going to reach into the size or demographics?

No. I mean, that was also another thing where the stakes are so low, which allows you to have more fun with it. Rob Barnett wasn’t upset if we didn’t get X number of views. It’s a real problem or anything and I wasn’t, I mean, it was very unsophisticated versus what one might try to do today with marketing or getting web traffic. But I just shot what I thought was funny, and did it. And it was a fun it was a it was fun to do because at the same time I was doing my first big studio movie, Role Models, and that was a whole other side of it where, you know, many armies of marketing people are chiming in before you put pen to paper and saying this is important. This is important. So it was it was exciting for me creatively to be doing both of those at the same time.

What did you learn from Wainy Days that you were able to bring to Childrens Hospital?

Well, everything I’ve done, I learned a lot and just sort of kept honing the same general process. My batting average kept going up; how to make something funny and how to and what pitfalls can be, and a lot of the the scrappier stuff I’ve done, like Wainy Days and a lot of stuff with The State and the Stella shorts helped inform things that have to be more planned out and cost more money because you see the end result of where not to overthink, where not to over judge and where to where, what things to take seriously and what things to have fun with.

But, you know, most of your previous projects though, those were sketch based and then Childrens Hospital is an 11-minute series. No ads. Eleven minutes, just straight joke, plot, joke.

Yeah. I mean, we realized though that even in even as dumb as the Stella shorts, were or anything we’ve done, no matter how short it is, it still needs a story and a beginning, middle and end or it’s really just, I mean, a string of jokes gets boring after 20 seconds. I think, you know, it doesn’t it doesn’t have some arc to it or something. You’re following some spine. And I really did, sort of, you know, when I made the first feature film, Wet Hot American Summer. And then when you’re doing, the longer the form, the more you have to follow and evolve real storytelling structure. And so I think we just put more effort to it that into that. And depending on how long was so when we’re doing the 11-minute episodes on Childrens Hospital, it was super fun to try to we usually had between three and five different storylines that all had a beginning, middle and end within the 11-minute span of one of those episodes as if it was an hour and a half or an hourlong drama. And it was fun to have the discipline to figure out how to tell the story so quickly.

Since you did win Emmys for it. What was the adjustment process like in terms of getting audiences and the industry to recognize that this is as valid a form as the 22-minute sitcom?

I mean, I don’t know that we ever really did do that. As much as we won those short-form Emmys and sort of JV I mean, not to not to belittle it, it was a great honor and I’m thrilled to have done it but…

They’re the same statues, though, right?!

They are statues, and I have three of them somewhere. And but also unfortunately, I think Childrens Hospital still lives in that kind of cult, you’ve got to know about it, world. I think people like you who focus on comedy all the time have maybe a different, filtered view of this but but I think that’s true of most shows these days. Now, you know, there’s so many TV shows there’s so much content, but I think if you ask the average content consumer, “What’s Childrens Hospital?” they would have no clue. But I think that those who know it, love it and that’s great and that’s been largely true of most of what I’ve done is it’s sort of that niche of small but very devoted.

How would you compare the Childrens Hospital fan to the Wet Hot fan?

Similar. And then, you know, I think all of the totality of the work I’ve done has given me a lot of fulfillment and a lot of joy because the people who like it really love it, and it matters to them and they care and they tell me about it and it feels good. But it has, you know, kept my earnings at a certain ceiling, but I’m fine with that.

Well, that just gives you stronger street cred.

Helps keep me hungry. Keeps me scrappy.

Well, for years, you know, you know, I live in New York and for years, you would do Wet Hot screenings and celebrations.

Yeah. and I was always the first to like, celebrate my own stuff. shamelessly.

But with all the talk, you know, all the talk from those loyal, devoted fans about doing something did it did they ever dawn on you during those years that what would end up happening would be Netflix would be the way?

No, no, definitely not. I mean, we we had heard clamors from fans for years to do something more with it. Do a sequel. And Mike (Showalter) and I, early on were like, well, let’s do a prequel. And we wrote a screenplay for it. And it was very, very different than what we ended up doing. But we never occurred to us to do anything but another movie. And as we were struggling with figuring out that screenplay, in a more serious way, right around the time, we looked around, and we’re like, wait a minute, there’s this new thing, Netflix, and that’s really what this should be. And it’s funny because it was only a few years ago now, but it was like 20 eras ago for Netflix. And we went in there, it was a very small office and we talked to the head of the company and said, “What do you think about this?” He’s like, “Sure, let’s try it.” It’s very different now. But that was an incredible experience to be able to do that. And, you know, for me to rebuild that world from all those years ago and be obsessive about it and pretend that every detail and in that original movie is like a part of a constitution of something that you have to pay attention to. And this is kind of fun.

I’ve read TV critics and other filmmakers talk about what Netflix the effect Netflix has had on on TV and movie on TV in terms of turning TV into essentially five-hour movies or 10-hour movies. Do you agree with that having been through the process and being a filmmaker yourself?

Definitely the ones that I’ve worked on have been that way. And it I find it frustrating as a viewer sometimes because people are like, “You really got to watch this thing. And you know, the first 10 hours are a little slow but then then the second 10 hours really starts to pick up,” I’m like, geez, who’s got time like that in an adult life? But as a maker, it is exciting because you really have a big canvas to work on. And certainly the two miniseries of Wet Hot American Summer we did, were really in every way process-wise movies. The episodes were divided into basically like chapters but we shot it all at once, you know, we didn’t shoot it in episodes and we thought of it all as one big mega script and that’s really what it was. Medical Police, a little bit less so but also similar we shot it all at once the same way

Although that’s got to be more of a drastic change because Childrens Hospital you’re doubling up from 11 minutes — and physically getting out of the hospital.

By design, we literally never left the hospital location once while we were shooting Childrens Hospital. In the case of Medical Police, every scene is in another country, basically, and another world and you know it we wanted to do the extreme of like, that kind of genre but we were working on a similar budget to Childrens Hospital. So it was it was a lot of cleverness. And we, you know, we couldn’t really even afford to move locations within Los Angeles that much. And so we just faked it all the way. But it was fun. You can see that, and we got a lot of a lot of bang out of shooting in Croatia. But yes, the canvas and the time of each episode, yeah, it changes the whole feel of it. It’s a very, very different show. But if you’re a fan of Childrens Hospital, it’s the same ultimate sense of humor.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Medical Police on Netflix