CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL - Season 1 & 2 DVD | ©2011 Warner Home Video

The thin line between the web and television is slowly going away, as the hilarious short-form comedy series CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL began as a web series and migrated over to Adult Swim.

Created by Rob Corddry who also plays Blake Downs, the clown-faced surgeon, the series sends up medical dramas with absurdist surrealism. The third season of the show arrives tonight on Adult Swim.

The beauty of the show is the short-form that Adult Swim offers (under fifteen minute episodes) and Corddry and his fellow executive producers Jonathan Stern and David Wain have mastered this form. It also allows them to bring in a pretty solid cast including Megan Mullally, Henry Winkler, Malin Akerman, Lake Bell, Ken Marino and some cool cameos as well (HOUSE‘s Lisa Edelstein and Jon Hamm appear in the Season 3 premiere).

To fill us in on the show, Corddry takes five to discuss CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL.

TAKE 1
On the inception of the series …
“The actual idea for the show was born out of an actual experience I had with my young daughter in a children’s hospital,” says Corddry. “And I am a big fan of medical shows, but it’s become more of a parody of TV drama in general and the tropes of that – not so much just medical shows strictly.”

TAKE 2
On being on Adult Swim …
“The great thing about being on Adult Swim , or as the Canadians call it, ‘Adult Swim,’ is that it’s pretty much the Internet of television,” says Corddry. “We can get away with whatever we want, which is great, as you can see from the numerous abortion and rape jokes in our trailer.”

Ken Marino and Rob Corddry in CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL - Season 3 | ©2011 Warner Bros./Darren Michaels

TAKE 3
On the migration from a web-based series to a TV series …
“When we first did it on the Web, it was five to six minute shows and I said I would never do television because I didn’t think it would sustain itself longer than five and a half minutes – basically this kind of absurd comedy,” adds Corddry. “And I think at 11 minutes, 15 seconds, we reach our saturation point. I can guarantee you it will never be longer than that. And I’m hoping longer television shows will just get shorter.”

TAKE 4
On the being scripted, but also improvised as well …
“It is very scripted, but we have some of the best improvisers working,” says Corddry. “So it would be silly not to allow for that and some of our best stuff is improv-based.”

TAKE 5
On writing for the show …
“This being our third season, we are still kind of honing it, and what we have done this season and last season was get a group of our friends together and basically have a couple hours of brainstorming. Then we go away and kind of fashion the material a little bit. [After that] we do that again with the stuff we like and we basically hone it down to a handful of stories, we put them all together and the three of us either go away and write or we assign other people to write episodes for us. I’ve recently become a huge fan of HOUSE. I really do truly love that show. And this season has become more HOUSE-based than GREY’S ANATOMY, if anything.”

Click on link for: CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL – Season 3 premiere – “Run Doctor Lola Sprat, Run”

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