Original Closing Credits From the Series Finale

A clip of the original credits from the series finale, with Mimsie the Cat on life support.

Mimsie the Cat has seen better days.

St. Elsewhere was known for its occasionally morbid sense of humor, and they pulled no punches when it came to the closing credits for the series finale, "The Last One". Under normal circumstances, the credits appeared over an image of a surgical team at work (I believe the shot is from the pilot episode). Following the credits, the MTM Productions card appeared, a spoof of the MGM "lion" logo, with the lion replaced by a clip of a meowing orange kitten named Mimsie. (For St. Elsewhere, Mimsie was outfitted in surgical scrubs. Mimsie wore a policeman's cap at the end of Hill Street Blues, and meowed in the droll voice of Bob Newhart at the end of Newhart. There were other versions as well.)

For "The Last One", the surgery picture was replaced with an image of Mimsie lying unconscious, hooked up to a beeping heart monitor, and as the credits end, the beeping changes to a flatline. After killing off patients and doctors alike for six seasons of St. Elsewhere, they killed off Mimsie the MTM cat.

Here's a YouTube clip of the original closing credits from "The Last One", without the NBC announcer. From what I've heard, the Hulu version does not include this special credits sequence. So enjoy it here!

William Daniels Interview

William Daniels, St. Elsewhere's Dr. Mark Craig, discusses the show in an interview about his career.

The Television Academy Foundation has posted an interview with William Daniels from August, 2017. On YouTube, the interview is conveniently broken down into clips, but you can watch the whole thing on the Television Academy Foundation website.

Here are the links:

William Daniels complete interview at interviews.televisionacademy.com.

YouTube playlist of selections from the interview.

It's all good, but for St. E related stuff, check out:

• On working with his St. Elsewhere castmates
• On working with an advisor while preparing to play Dr. Craig
• On winning his first Emmy award
• On why St. Elsewhere resonated with viewers
• On St. Elsewhere being canceled after the first year
• On shooting walk and talks on St. Elsewhere
• On getting cast in St. Elsewhere
• On doing medical jargon on St. Elsewhere
• Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels on playing a married couple on St. Elsewhere
• On their separation storyline on St. Elsewhere
• On Bonnie joining the cast of St. Elsewhere

Replica St. Eligius Snow Globe

The Queen Of Snow Globes has created a replica of the snow globe from the series finale.

The Queen of Snow Globes's
stunning replica of the
legendary series finale
artifact.

Thanks to Jim Mitchell for this tip... Leah Andrews, the Queen of Snow Globes, has described a custom snow globe project that was requested of her: a reproduction of the snow globe from the final scene of St. Elsewhere's series finale.

Follow the link above to read about her process for creating the snow globe. The video link in the article was to my YouTube video of the final scene, which perished along with the rest of the videos in my channel. As you may know, the final scene of St. Elsewhere depicts autistic child Tommy Westphall staring into a snow globe containing the St. Eligius hospital building, and it is suggested that the entire series was a figment of Tommy's imagination as he spent his days staring into the globe.

Want one for yourself? According to her comment at the bottom of the post, the Queen of Snow Globes can duplicate her work on this gem as a custom project for $1000 USD.