From TelevisionAcademy.com's interview on YouTube, here are two clips of Creator Joshua Brand discussing St. Elsewhere. Though they didn't remain with the series very long, St. Elsewhere was created by the writing team of Joshua Brand and John Falsey, who would later go on to success with the quirky comedy-drama, Northern Exposure. Before the end of season one, the duo had been saddled with the nicknames, "Dr. Death and Mr. Depression," and were no longer involved with the show's production. In the first clip below, Joshua Brand tells the story of how St. Elsewhere came to be. In the second clip, he explains why his involvement in the show was short-lived. Joshua Brand on Creating "St. Elsewhere":
Thanks to the efforts of nostalgic TV viewers on YouTube, you can watch old promos for upcoming episodes of St. Elsewhere. I have compiled them into a new page added to the main menu bar, "Promos".
Most of them are from NBC broadcasts, and include promos for other classic shows. I am particularly amused by the presence of the short-lived Geena Davis-Bronson Pinchot sitcom, Sara.
Here's a promo for the series finale to get you started on your trip down memory lane:
Video of Howie Mandel, a.k.a. Dr. Wayne Fiscus, discussing St. Elsewhere on a recent episode of The Late Show with David Letterman.
Check it out--on Howie Mandel's recent appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman (I didn't see it, but from the date of the video, it was probably Monday night), Dave brings up how Howie broke through as a television actor. After guessing "Hill House Blues", Howie reminds him that the show was St. Elsewhere, and that he played a doctor, not a cop. He mentions how Denzel Washington got his start on the program, and then launches into an impressive recollection of the E.R. treatment for a gunshot wound to the chest:
St. Elsewhere got nice and dark with this season two storyline--a serial rapist stalks St. Eligius.
Dr. Peter White (Terence Knox) lends an unwanted hand to
Nurse Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry).
In my previous video post, Peter White's Downfall, the disgraced doctor (Terence Knox) had been censured--stripped of his license to prescribe drugs after being bamboozled by an undercover police officer in the E.R. His testimony protected Nurse Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry) from punishment, but the price he paid was stiff: he's been transferred to pathology, his career prospects have been curtailed, and his permanent record is forever marred.
The season two episode "Drama Center" (aired February 15, 1984) opens in the St. Eligius parking lot. A woman is having trouble starting her car in the cold weather when a man in a ski mask appears at her window, offering to help. She declines, but he reappears at the other window and smashes it.
The woman, Roxanne Reid (Allyn Ann McLerie), enters the E.R. reporting a broken wrist. When Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel) tries to take her for x-rays, she confides that she was raped as well, and Dr. Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes) examines her. As she recovers and is visited by a social worker (Jenny O'Hara), she seems to be handling the ordeal remarkably well, despite her husband's discomfort. But at night, she is plagued by nightmares of the assault. Ms. Reid benefits from a therapy session where she works through her trauma.
Elsewhere, Dr. Peter White visits the emergency room and snaps into action when an unconscious man is carried in. While Dr. Wendy Armstrong (Kim Miyori) and Nurse Daniels treat the patient, Peter, the former E.R. physician, pitches in to help, even though he's not allowed to. When they remind him of his restricted status, he grabs Shirley's arm, angry over being stuck in the morgue, and reminds her of the favor he did for her. Later, Peter's friend, Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse), visits him in his new digs. Peter is bitter, and not appreciative of the support. And he has resumed his addiction to painkillers.
This episode was included in the VHS collection The Very Best of St. Elsewhere.
For me, I will always identify Allyn Ann McLerie with her role as Carmen Carlson, wife of General Manager Arthur Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati. I've been a fan of Jenny O'Hara since her role on Beverly Hills 90210 as the grieving mother of accidental suicide victim Scott Scanlan.
In the next episode, "Attack" (aired February 22, 1984), Peter is performing an autopsy in the morgue with his more experienced colleague in pathology, the flaky vixen Dr. Cathy Martin (Barbara Whinnery), ignoring her spiel about the benefits of Tibetan ginseng. Peter's skills are in need of work, and when his drug-fuelled clumsiness results in the destruction of her IPG stains, Cathy gets upset with him for ruining six weeks of work. But the compassionate Dr. Martin can't help but notice that something is off with Dr. White, who fidgets nervously and says he's fine.
Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) returns from his honeymoon and is shocked to learn from Nurse Lucy Papandrao (Jennifer Savidge) that a woman was raped in the parking lot and another was grabbed on the way to the elevated train, but got away. Later, a young candy-striper (Amy Resnick) nervously approaches Nurse Helen Rosenthal (Christina Pickles) and breaks into tears as she describes how a man lured her into a supply closet--the ski-mask rapist has struck again.
The ski mask rapist picks his moment.
Director of Medicine Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) orders the hospital locked down and hires extra security to interrogate visitors like City official Joan Halloran (Nancy Stafford), who wants to hire undercover cops to pose as orderlies. In the cafeteria, Rosenthal, Dr. Jackie Wade (Sagan Lewis), and Dr. Wendy Armstrong (Kim Miyori) debate whether they should fight back if attacked. Wade has seen too many women beaten up for resisting, while Armstrong wants to fight back, as she has read that women who fight back are less likely to be depressed afterwards. Rosenthal doesn't want to rearrange her life and give away her power.
The female staff are treated to a rape prevention meeting from the security consultant, who advises the women not to "get hysterical". They are not assured by his statistics about the unlikeliness of being murdered or the airhorns he hands out to them for protection. Cathy Martin, on the other hand, feels that her aura will protect her--rapists seek out victims, and she doesn't project a "victim aura".
Dr. Wayne Fiscus tries to help out by organizing an escort service for the women at the hospital, but Dr. Annie Cavanero points out the flaw in the plan--"how do you know you haven't signed up the rapist?"
Nurse Shirley Daniels has obtained a license to carry a can of mace for self-protection. When she enters a secure prescription drug storage room, she hears noises and springs into action when a man rushes at her from the shadows. The attacker, however, turns out to be merely a thief who picked the wrong drug closet on the wrong day, and he is charged only with criminal trespassing, to Shirley's dismay.
Meanwhile, Dr. Peter White is not having a good night. We join him as he fails to perform with a prostitute at a seedy motel, and he explains that it was the night of his wedding anniversary, and he and Myra were all set to go out and have a good time when their kids started acting up, triggering the same fight they always have--Myra feels Peter is too lenient on the children and he feels she's too hard on them. He expresses his frustration with family life and leaves.
Back at St. Eligius, Dr. Cathy Martin is at work in the morgue when a ski-masked face appears at the window. The assailant enters, and despite Cathy's aura, he advances on her. In the struggle, she pulls off the ski mask and reveals the identity of the rapist--Dr. Peter White. The clip cuts off the ending, but after she pulls off the mask, he threatens, "If you tell anyone, I'll kill you." Roll credits.
To keep the clips shorter, I decided not to include the "red herring" storyline. In "Drama Center", Dr. Annie Cavanero is dating Dr. Christopher Rant (Michael Goodwin), the moonlighting physician who dumped an indigent patient on St. Eligius in "A Pig Too Far". At Annie's place, Chris won't take no for an answer, and Annie has to fight him off with a face slap. In "Attack", we see Annie enter the rape prevention seminar--she has just had one last fight with Chris, who was getting grabby again, and left with a "to hell with you." Goodwin has a similar build and height to Terence Knox, and both characters kept grabbing women forcefully, so the guy in the ski mask looked like it could have been either of them.
"That's why lions sleep in trees." I always enjoyed the show's dark humor. I hope rape prevention lectures are delivered with a bit more sensitivity nowadays.
Wendy intends to fight back because she's heard that victims are less depressed afterwards if they resist. This is some pretty brutal foreshadowing, as we shall see.
Some even more brutal and amazing foreshadowing--Wayne says to Jack about the panic that has gripped the women at St. Eligius, "I guess we'll never know what the women are going through." In season four, Jack gets raped while doing community outreach work at a prison, and is then stalked by the assailant after he is released in season five.
Video of Cynthia Sikes, who played St. Elsewhere's Dr. Annie Cavanero, taking on Heather Locklear on Battle of the Network Stars in 1983.
Cynthia Sikes, Heather Locklear, and Howard Cosell
Here's some quintessential 1970s-80s nostalgia--remember Battle of the Network Stars? Television stars from CBS, ABC and NBC would compete for network television supremacy in physical challenges. Someone has graciously preserved several clips of these contests on YouTube.
St. Elsewhere is represented in the following video clip by Cynthia Sikes, who played Dr. Annie Cavanero in the show's first three seasons. She takes on a young Heather Locklear in the obstacle course, with a play-by-play and post-contest interview conducted by legendary ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell:
Sikes falls behind after the monkey bars, but Locklear, then 22 and starring on T.J. Hooker, stumbles after clearing the wall and loses her lead. Sikes pulls away after this misstep, and Locklear can't compete with Sikes's long, graceful stride. Victory to NBC!
And as a bonus, here are two clips of Mark Harmon, Dr. Bobby Caldwell himself, representing his pre-St. Elsewhere series, the prime-time soap Flamingo Road (which also featured Sikes in a recurring role). In both clips, Harmon, the former starter on UCLA's football team, demonstrates his prowess on the obstacle course. In December 1981, he dominates against Falcon Crest's Lorenzo Lamas, and in the second, from May 1982, he sets an event record against Dynasty's John James. Cosell is in fine form, especially in describing the agony of Lamas, who injures himself.
The St. Elsewhere Experience presents a series of videos chronicling the show's most controversial storyline.
Dr. Peter White (Terence Knox) breaks down after learning
he has lost his drug-prescription privileges.
If the Emmy Awards were ever to hand out a Special Jury Prize for audacity like they did at Cannes in 1996 for David Cronenberg's Crash, they would be hard-pressed to top the 1983-84 season of St. Elsewhere.
Terence Knox's Dr. Peter White was originally supposed to get killed off early in the first season since he was such a screw-up, but Knox proved compelling enough to earn quite a bit of screen time as he cheated on his wife with multiple partners, separated from her, and got himself hooked on painkillers.
At the end of season one, he had hit rock bottom, but when season two (miraculously) rolled around, it looked like Peter was getting his groove back. He reunited with his wife, kicked his drug habit, and began developing a talent for diagnosis. But nothing stays good for too long at St. Eligius. Especially when the writers decide to push the envelope...
Yes--for the first and possibly only time in network television history, St. Elsewhere made a regular character a serial rapist. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
I am posting these videos for a few reasons. For one, I want people to be able to comment on this one. A popular sentiment I've heard is that the writers went too far on this one, and it's just not believable that a character would do something like this. I would imagine that nowadays, a story like this would be grounded in a deeper understanding of the psychology behind sexual assault. So feel free to tear this one apart!
Another reason--I found Peter White utterly fascinating. Like a train wreck. One that takes out three main characters. I wouldn't be surprised if NBC execs felt the opening credits were too long and they wanted the producers to thin the herd. Or if they wanted to themselves. (Sounds like the Sword of Damocles hung over every actor's head, unless the producers liked them... you can tell which ones, because they stuck around, got screen time, and didn't get raped in prison.)
So I'm starting the series with a pair of videos that set the scene for Peter's dark descent.
Peter's good fortune comes to an end in the seventh episode of season two, "Entrapment":
His poor judgment lands he and Nurse Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry), his unwitting accomplice, before the Medical Review Board for dispensing prescription drugs without a license in the season's twelfth episode, "Hearing":
For me, Dr. Peter White is one of the worst bad guys ever to appear in the opening credits of a network television series; probably the nastiest villain of the decade. Knox is very effective at making Peter downright awful, yet strangely watchable.
I also enjoy Conrad Janis as Ralph Tanney, who, judging from his courtroom skills here and in upcoming episodes, is possibly the single greatest lawyer in the history of the world.
St. Elsewhere broke ground with this story about using medical marijuana to treat chemotherapy symptoms in 1984.
Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd) sees "what all the
fuss is" about cannabis.
This is one of the many reasons Norman Lloyd is awesome--his comedic chops and pathos in this episode from February 3, 1984. His character, Dr. Daniel Auschlander, fights a battle with liver cancer throughout the entire run of St. Elsewhere. He was originally slated to die off after four episodes, but Lloyd proved to be too good to jettison so early, so his cancer went into what Lloyd has described as "the longest remission in television history".
Auschlander's recurrent chemo cycles affect his ability to do his job, and by the middle of season two, he's feeling particularly beaten. In the season's twelfth episode, "Hearing", his oncologist, Dr. Morton Chegley (Arthur Taxier), suggests several options for relieving his patient's pain, and laments that he is not legally permitted to prescribe THC caplets, which, he hears, are quite effective.
Auschlander is not warm to the idea of circumventing the law, but his symptoms push him to take action. He spots Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel) in the cafeteria, and asks if the young doctor might be able to point him in the right direction. Wayne, delighted by the notion of the septuagenarian taking a walk on the wild side, has no luck with his old connection, but enlists the help of orderly Luther Hawkins (Eric Laneuville), to whom Wayne must admit he approached because he assumed that an African-American ghetto-dweller would be able to score some dope.
His assumption was correct, and soon after, Fiscus and Hawkins are supervising the elderly experimenter on a trip to a convenience store, to find the ideal munchies for the occasion. They have some serious explaining to do to a skeptical police officer when it becomes clear that the test subject can't handle his smoke.
The next day, Dr. Auschlander confides to Dr. Fiscus that the whole experience--the undignified behaviour, the night of sleep lost to hallucinations, and the ill effects of a junk-food-munchie-binge--was not worth repeating, and that he'll endure his chemo symptoms without chemical enhancement.
Enjoy the clip!
I don't know if this was the first "medical marijuana" storyline on network television, but it certainly brought up the issue long before there was such a thing as the "medical marijuana industry".
A lot of TV shows have done the "pot" episode, where the joke is that the characters get high and act stupid. For me, this is one of the better ones. Credit that to the writers (Mark Tinker, John Masius, Steve Bello, Robert Daniels), director Charles Braverman, and, of course, the great Norman Lloyd.
When the police officer asks Dr. Auschlander for "his story", Auschlander relates that when he was a boy, his father used to take him to the Metropolitan Opera House. This is the same story, almost word for word, that he tells Dr. Westphall at the end of the series' third episode, "Down's Syndrome".
The first in a new series of videos featuring St. Elsewhere's Emmy winning performances and episodes.
Inspired by the article from On Call: The Official Newsletter of the St. Elsewhere Appreciation Club that told the stories behind St. Elsewhere's performance at the Emmy Awards, I am preparing video clips showcasing these great moments from the show's history.
The fourth episode of St. Elsewhere's rookie season turned out to be a special one--it featured two of the three acting performances that would be honored at the 1983 Emmy Awards (the third will be featured in the next post). Doris Roberts and James Coco, both veterans of stage and screen and old friends, played homeless couple Cora and Arnie. Their relationship comes to a crossroads when Cora learns that her feet need to be amputated, and she won't be able to look after the mentally ill/challenged Arnie anymore.
Doris Roberts & James Coco in "Cora and Arnie", Part 1:
Doris Roberts & James Coco in "Cora and Arnie", Part 2:
As was mentioned in the recent On Call post, there was an uproar from the St. Elsewhere camp come Emmy time because regular cast members were cut out of nominations and the win by guest actors who were featured for just a single episode. It wasn't until 1986 that the Outstanding Guest Actor categories were reinstated, but by that time, guest stars Roberts and Coco took home awards, guest Piper Laurie earned a nomination (in 1984), and Hill Street Blues guest stars Barbara Babcock (for Lead Actress, 1981) and Alfre Woodard (Supporting Actress, 1984) would win Emmys for St. Elsewhere's MTM competition.
If you're a fan, I highly recommend purchasing the official St. Elsewhere season one DVD release, which includes a commentary track of "Cora and Arnie" featuring Mark Tinker and Doris Roberts. The featurette and stories about Tim Robbins (in his first professional acting job) are worth the purchase price (to a fan like me, anyway).
I've never seen a clip of the awards ceremony, but according to Roberts, she won hers first, and gave her purse to her friend and fellow nominee to hold while she accepted it. When Coco was announced as the winner in his category shortly thereafter, he had no choice but to carry the purse with him and explain to the audience it wasn't his.
A funny clip from season two: Roberta's marital issues with Victor accidentally get broadcast on the hospital's P.A. system.
Victor's wife Roberta (Jean Bruce Scott) spills the beans
about her failing marriage to her friend, St. Eligius's operator.
There seems to be a market for St. Elsewhere clips on YouTube, so as I'm researching other pieces, I'll be watching out for scenes that work well as stand-alone video clips.
This scene is one of my favorite gags, from the season two episode "Attack". Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) has rather impulsively married his new girlfriend, Roberta Sloan (Jean Bruce Scott), who is a patient of the hospital's psychiatrist, Dr. Weiss (Philip Sterling), and a candy striper in the hospital. After an absence of a few episodes, Victor and Roberta return to work, but without the glow of connubial bliss you'd expect from returning honeymooners.
Turns out Roberta has a list of grievances, but she's not sure if she can confide in her friend, St. Eligius's operator. The operator assures Roberta that she can be trusted, and that she wouldn't breathe a word of Roberta and Victor's marital problems to anyone.
A call interrupts their conversation, and when Roberta fetches a pen so the operator can take a message, she accidentally switches on the microphone of the hospital's public address system. Unbeknownst to them, the remainder of their conversation is broadcast throughout the hospital. The gossip has everyone in the hospital spellbound until Nurse Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry) calls the operator to inform her of the mishap.
I've been watching this stretch of episodes, and if you remember, the two young lovebirds both have issues with commitment and relationships that they discuss with the hospital's psychiatrists, Dr. Weiss and Dr. Michael Ridley (Paul Sand). It seems really strange to me that two mental health professionals would recommend that two people who barely know each other should get married (Weiss himself facilitated the proposal). Of course, that makes for better TV, so I'll willingly suspend my disbelief here.
Video of St. Elsewhere's classic ending: the whole series was imagined by Tommy Westphall, Donald's autistic son.
Tommy Westphall (Chad Allen), the real creative force behind St. Elsewhere.
It's been great to actually get some feedback from readers of this site! I can say that this post is here by popular demand (i.e. two requests).
This is the classic ending from the series finale, "The Last One", which originally aired May 25, 1988. I've posted the clip on YouTube. (May be blocked in some countries, particularly those that get Channel 4.)
Yes, they did the it-was-all-a-dream ending...sort of. During the finale, we get some emotional closure for most of the show's characters, including Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel), who has completed his residency, Dr. John Gideon (Ronny Cox), who has quit after a disastrous run as the CEO of St. Eligius, and Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders), who has returned to St. Eligius with his autistic son Tommy (Chad Allen) to reclaim his post as boss after spending most of season six in New Hampshire.
Donald is listening to opera music in the office of long-time colleague and opera buff Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd), who had passed away earlier that day. (In "Time Heals", we see how they met. In 1945, an angry, teenaged Donald Westphall calls the hospital's new Jewish doctor a "kike," earning him a slap from Father McCabe.) Tommy is watching snow fall through the window.
Then we see an exterior shot of the hospital, and we get a new perspective. Tommy is sitting on the floor of an apartment, holding a snow globe in his hands. We learn that "Auschlander" is his grandfather, and his father, "Westphall", is a construction worker, whose crew just finished the twenty-second storey on a building. (This was the 22nd episode of the season.)
Turns out Tommy spends most of his time staring into the snow globe, which contains a miniature building inside that looks an awful lot like St. Eligius, and his father wonders what he sees in there all day. We viewers know the answer--he imagines his father and grandfather as the heads of the hospital in the snow globe, and he apparently dreamed up a fifty-two year history of the place.
I'll write more about the ending later, and another time, I'll share my thoughts on the implications of the "Tommy Westphall Universe", the intertextual phenomenon that logically follows from this scene's revelation. For now, enjoy the clip!
St. Elsewhere's greatest episode, a chronicle of the hospital on its fiftieth anniversary, is available on YouTube.
From 1965: Rookie nurse Helen Rosenthal (Christina
Pickles) meets young Luther Hawkins, whose mother
is working upstairs.
It's hard to dispute that St. Elsewhere has one episode that stands out as the series' single best offering. "Time Heals" parts one and two were the seventeenth and eighteenth episodes of season four, airing on back-to-back nights on February 19 and 20, 1986. The episode was St. Elsewhere's most decorated, winning four trophies at the 1986 Emmy Awards, for writing, art direction, sound mixing, and costuming.
The two-parter used flashbacks to tell the backstories of several characters, jumping back and forth by ten-year intervals. It's easy to see why they won Emmys for art direction and costuming--you can tell at a glance whether you're seeing St. Eligius in 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975 or 1985.
The episode features guest stars Kate Mulgrew, Brian Kerwin, William Russ and John Scott Clough as the O'Casey family. Terrence O'Casey (Kerwin) has been admitted with mysterious symptoms, and it's up to an injured Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse), whose diagnostic skills leave much to be desired, to figure out what's wrong. Jack explores the O'Casey family history at St. Eligius to find the answer.
Thanks to YouTube user Janewayish for posting these as part of a tribute to Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager.
Elliott meets Mrs. Hufnagel's son, Alvin, and bids her a final farewell with a burial at sea.
Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) brings mirth to a
grieving Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd),
with some help from Gary Larson.
At last, we've reached the final chapter in the saga of Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop), St. Eligius's most memorable patient. Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst), is a carrying the box that contains her ashes, which Dr. Wayne Fiscus (Howie Mandel) assumes contains cookies. After Elliott explains what the box is for, Wayne tries to convince Elliott that his obligation as a doctor ends when the patient dies, but Elliott feels bad for the medical mismanagement that led to her demise, and he feels that she deserves to have her burial wishes carried out with respect. Elliott intends to have a memorial service in the chapel and bury her at sea, to which Wayne responds by suggesting he just flush her down the toilet.
In the chapel, Elliott is having a solitary moment of remembrance for his departed patient when he is joined in the chapel by a despondent Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd). Auschlander is mourning the death of his old friend, Dr. George Wyler, who was featured in a three-episode arc earlier in the season. Dr. Wyler was a Nobel-winning humanitarian who worked in Africa, but ran afoul of the government in his adopted homeland, and returned there knowing that the consequences would be dire. And lo, they were--he was greeted with a hail of machine-gun fire. During George's visit to St. Eligius, he and Daniel shared some meaningful moments while playing the chapel's organ, so it was a fitting place for Daniel to mourn his old friend. Elliott approaches, and can't but giggle at the Far Side comic in the newspaper sitting on the organ ("The real reason dinosaurs became extinct"), which brings a smile to both their faces.
Alvin Hufnagel (Boyd Bodwell) bids his mother a curt
farewell before kicking his guests out of his new apartment.
Wayne and Elliott then pay a visit to Mrs. Hufnagel's apartment, which Elliott has inherited. Wayne discovers a personally autographed photo of Bobby Orr, and Elliott explains that she was a season ticket holder to the Bruins; however, the seats have been left to Ernest Borgnine. (Wayne feels that Fuji was the real star of McHale's Navy.) He finds a baseball glove that was given to her by Ted Williams, which tells Wayne he can keep. Elliott is planning on selling the stuff, or giving it away, with the exception of the gerbil, which has joined its owner in the great beyond. Then there's a knock on the door. It's Alvin Hufnagel (Boyd Bodwell), who immediately recognizes his glove in Wayne's hands. He gives Elliott a particularly dirty look.
After playing with the dead gerbil, Alvin gets down to business. "You stole mother's affection," he accuses Elliott. Elliott tries to explain how they bonded over the death of Murray Robbin, but Alvin is convinced that he deliberately charmed the old woman with the intent of being included in her will. He's hurt that she didn't leave him anything, but he's a little too sensitive to hear Wayne's criticism about never having visited. When he calms down, Alvin has to admit that they didn't get along. Elliott tries to make Alvin feel better by giving him the computer, but the dejected son wants everything, which the good-hearted Dr. Axelrod concedes without a fight. He invites Alvin along for the burial, but he's not interested, and wishes her a terse, "Goodbye, Mother."
Elliott delivers Mrs. Hufnagel to her final resting place.
In a moving final scene, Elliott delivers what he hopes are appropriate final words, from Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake:
Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble in the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!
He pours out her ashes, and bids a final "Goodbye, Mrs. Hufnagel," before tossing the rose from his lapel in the water.
And so ends the saga of Florence Hufnagel, ashes to ashes, dust to dust:
There's one last bit of Hufnagel mythology left over. In the season six episode, "Night of the Living Bed", which aired three days before Halloween, 1987, Mrs. Hufnagel is believed by many at St. Eligius to be making her presence known once more. The room where she died seems to be haunted, its lights and TV flicking on and off on their own. Eventually, the bed starts shaking, the floor starts shaking, and the floor opens up and pulls the bed down with it. But it turns out not to be a haunting--the magnetism from the new MRI machine installed on the floor beneath was just too much for the old facility to handle.
So that doesn't quite count as another appearance. As the Gluck family always said: "it is better to be despised than forgotten."
Our friends in Europe come through again... The same YouTube channel that houses the first two episodes of season two are also featuring the episode six from season two, "Under Pressure". This is a favorite of mine, as it marks the first appearance of Mr. Entertainment (Austin Pendleton), the singing janitor, and psychiatrist Dr. Michael Ridley (Paul Sand).
Also in this episode: "The Troubles" come to St. Eligius in the form of young Irish patient Eddie Carson (Eric Stoltz); Nurse Rosenthal (Christina Pickles) gets arrested the day before her breast reconstruction surgery; Eve Leighton (Marian Mercer) recovers from her heart transplant surgery; Dr. Craig (William Daniels) has a secret admirer and security threats; Dr. Westphall (Ed Flanders) is tough to be around.
Mrs. Hufnagel is gone but not forgotten as Elliott meets with her lawyer, who is settling her estate.
Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) admires Dr. Elliott
Axelrod's (Stephen Furst) size 10EEE wingtips.
The nineteenth installment in the saga of Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop), the late doctor-tormentor extraordinaire, is much shorter than the previous two installments, but even though the sickly old woman has left the corporeal realm, she still manages to impose on the staff of St. Eligius.
Dr. Elliott Axelrod (Stephen Furst) is dressed in a suit, which the wise-cracking Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) comments upon by asking "who died?"
"Mrs. Hufnagel," Elliott deadpans, explaining that the lawyer handling the late patient's estate asked to meet him that night. Elliott is expecting to have been willed something, to which Victor warns, "Whatever it is, you don't want it. The old bat didn't own anything, a ham radio, a couple of gerbils, maybe..." But the goodhearted Axelrod still thinks it pays to be nice to patients.
Elliott meets with Bradford Norton (Michael Fox), senior partner of the law firm Norton & Inch, which had represented the family since Goody Gluck's first Salem Witch trial. It turns out the only beneficiaries named in Mrs. Hufnagel's will were Elliott and a reptile park. Mrs. Hufnagel, ever the early adopter of technology, recorded a video will, enabling Florence Halop to make one final appearance on the show.
Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop) leaves Elliott with words
of wisdom: "Try not to use me as a benchmark to judge
other women."
Never one to miss the opportunity to cut someone down, she acknowledges that it must have been hard for Elliott to make friends with "that Mack truck tire around your waist." In a classic comedy device, she accuses Elliott of having a schoolboy crush on her, and when he protests that he didn't, she correctly predicts on video that he would complain, and responds from the beyond "You did, too! Shut up, chubs." But she liked that he cared about her, and that he cried on her shoulder when Murray died. She leaves him with the Gluck family creed--"It is better to be despised than forgotten."
Then they get down to business--her estate was worth $250,000. Elliott gets everything left after $75,000 goes to Earl's Reptile Park, and they deduct medical bills, mortgage costs, gambling debts, helicopter rentals ("Florence was quite an aviatrix"), state and federal inheritance taxes, and legal fees resulting from "a regrettably undecided lawsuit against American Samoa." That leaves $137.65 for Elliott, which should be enough to cover the boat rental and a breakfast special, as he has been entrusted with disposing of her ashes at sea.
Here's Mrs. Hufnagel's final appearance on St. Elsewhere, in "Tears of a Clown":
I've left in the final shot which includes a glimpse at the relationship between Dr. Jack Morrison (David Morse) and his college-student girlfriend Clancy Williams (Helen Hunt), who has been reduced to being his babysitter now that Jack has to redo med school on top of his duties as a resident. The argument that erupts in this scene leads to the end of their relationship. I love St. Elsewhere's long, continuous shots that would flow into the next scene.
Other trivia:
The Salem Witch Trials took place in 1692. It has been established that Gluck family (Hufnagel is her married name) came to America shortly after the Mayflower, which made the passage in 1620. Goody would have been lucky to have legal representation, as most accused were not afforded the opportunity. The Trials forced the legal system in the new colony to tighten up its game, like not allowing testimony involving specters as evidence, requiring proof and not just hearsay, etc.
Mrs. Hufnagel checks out of St. Eligius one last time, and William Daniels picks up an Emmy.
"Cretan" Nurse Lucy Papandrao (Jennifer Savidge) tries to fix
the bed for Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop).
In Edward Copeland's 30th anniversary retrospective, this section covers the show's most memorable recurring character, the acid-tongued patient who just wouldn't go away, Mrs. Hufnagel (Florence Halop). The show's writers had come to love writing the "Hufnagel Spot" in each episode, delighting in spinning out insult after insult at the expense of the show's main characters.
At this point, she's been re-admitted at least six times, each time with a more serious ailment. But the show's medical adviser insisted that in real life, a patient spending that much time at a hospital would have one of two fates: either she'd get better and be gone for good, or she'd succumb to her illness(es), and be gone for good. Left to the whims of St. Elsewhere's writers, the choice was clear.
In "Murder, She Rote", Mrs Hufnagel is recovering from open-heart surgery to repair an aneurysm. She buzzes the nurses' station, where Nurse Lucy Papandrao (Jennifer Savidge) is loath to answer yet another call from the abrasive patient. Hufnagel had been trying to adjust the bed so she could sit up, but like most things at St. Eligius, the bed malfunctioned. In her annoyance, she addresses Lucy as "cretin," but then covers by claiming she was referring to Nurse Papandrao's ethnicity, as her descendants hailed from the Isle of Crete. After calling the Greeks "a distrustful lot" and getting a shot in at Aristotle Onassis, Mrs. Hufnagel does something uncharacteristic: she thanks Lucy for the help.
Her bed has malfunctioned again, this time at the foot end, when Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) arrives to check up on the post-op patient. You know she's not doing well when she mistakes the pale blond doctor for his colleague, Dr. Philip Chandler (Denzel Washington), and says her chest feels "like Buddy Rich's snare drum." Victor needs to check her potassium levels, but Hufnagel refuses to be pricked with a needle, and then confuses her doctor for a former regular customer at the diner she owned with her husband (called Flo & Eddie's). She complains about the food, which she claims is causing the bubbles in her head (like Lawrence Welk). Ehrlich, already late for rounds, loses his last shred of patience and leaves, her potassium levels unchecked.
Luther (Eric Laneuville) finds no pulse, and St. Eligius claims
another victim.
Once again, we see Nurse Papandrao get another buzz from Hufnagel's room, but this time she ignores it. Orderly Luther Hawkins (Eric Laneuville) is making the rounds, collecting garbage. This sets up one of St. Elsewhere's most memorable images -- this time, her bed malfunctioned on both ends, and she's trapped in the folded-up bed. But she's not moving. Luther checks her pulse and her arm goes limp, call button still in hand. Finding no heartbeat, he calls a code.
When we return from the act break, it's official -- after 17 episodes and 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts, Mrs. Hufnagel is dead. On the way to the morgue, Luther informs Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels) that one of his patients has passed away. When Luther explains that her cardiac arrest may have been triggered when she was swallowed up by the bed, Chief of Services Dr. Daniel Auschlander (Norman Lloyd) can't help but burst into laughter. Dr. Craig doesn't find losing a patient so funny. Director of Medicine Dr. Donald Westphall (Ed Flanders) agrees that the case had been manhandled from the start, but Craig goes a step further -- she "was murdered, same as if she'd been knifed in an alley," and he is determined to see that the guilty parties pay.
In surgery, Dr. Craig tells Ehrlich that he didn't see notes on Hufnagel's chart and informs him that she died ("with a snarl on her face...crushed by her bed like a clam," adds anesthesiologist Dr. Vijay Kochar (Kavi Raz)). Craig doesn't accept Victor's excuses for not cutting through his patient's anxiety and checking her potassium levels, and Craig hasn't ruled out Kochar as a suspect, either. He warns them that they'd better have their alibis together at the mortality conference.
Dr. Mark Craig (William Daniels) doesn't appreciate the
conclusion that Dr. Jacqueline Wade (Sagan Lewis) has
reached.
Dr. Jacqueline Wade (Sagan Lewis) and an unnamed pathologist perform Hufnagel's autopsy, and Jackie admits that for the first time, she doesn't care about a patient dying. She has found what likely caused her cardiac arrest -- the papillary muscle ruptured. When she reminds Dr. Craig that he nicked it during surgery, distracted by Ehrlich whining about cake frosting, he is aghast at the suggestion that he had made such an error. He insists that it must have been a pre-existing defect, and that the post-op notes he dictated after the procedure will reveal the truth (in his mind, that it must have been Wade who did it).
Later in his office, he listens to the tape. After jumping ahead a few times, he hears his own voice say the words he didn't want to hear: "detected small surgical nick on the mitral papillary muscle..." After ducking a phone call and re-listening a couple of times, he pulls the cassette out of the tape recorder and destroys it. He tries to go about his work, but he can't forget what happened.
The mortality conference begins, and Dr. Annie Cavanero (Cynthia Sikes) feels like she's in an Agatha Christie novel where everyone is a suspect. Ehrlich offers remorse for ignoring Mrs. Hufnagel's distress when he last saw her, but Dr. Craig is unusually forgiving (though he does tell Kochar, a frequent target of his abuse, to "book a passage to India"). After Dr. Chandler presents the first case, the matter of Mrs. Hufnagel's death is raised. Mark insists on handling it himself.
Here's the clip of Mrs. Hufnagel's blackly-comic end, Dr. Craig's determination to find who's to blame, and (at the thirteen-minute mark) the mortality conference where he must face the music.
Ladies and gentlemen, your 1985 Emmy winner for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, William Daniels.
What I love about this story is that Dr. Craig insisted that he would give hell to whomever was responsible, and despite his ego, he holds true to his word. He may be brutal and demanding, but I have to respect him for eventually fessing up and holding himself to the same standard he holds others.
Some trivia, and by "trivia", and I mean trivial... The case Dr. Chandler presents at the mortality conference refers to the death of one Jeffrey Sagansky, a 32-year-old executive who collapsed in his screening room on Friday night between 8 and 10. I did a bit of research to figure out this joke.
Jeff Altman, Mitsuyo Nemoto and Keiko Masuda, a.k.a. Pink Lady and Jeff. Anyone know which one is Mie and
which one is Kei?
Tartikoff and company had their misses, too (like Manimal, or the decision to cancel Buffalo Bill). One of those weak spots was NBC's 1984-85 Friday night schedule, which featured two new series: the sci-fi fantasy V from 8 to 9, and the violent police action-drama Hunter from 9 to 10. V turned out to be a major flop with critics and viewers--not good when you're making the most expensive series ever produced at the time, at a cost of one million dollars per episode (and yet still filling it out with stock footage).
Hunter had the misfortune of being scheduled against CBS's juggernaut Dallas, but halfway through the year, executive producer Stephen J. Cannell held a private screening of an unaired two-part episode for Tartikoff in an effort to convince him that the show needed more time to attract viewers. The network boss agreed, put the show on hiatus for two months, and brought it back on Saturday nights, where ratings slowly began to climb. The following year, the show was retooled and became even more popular, and it stayed on the air for seven seasons.
I'm guessing the in-joke is that the writers felt that Sagansky's position at NBC became untenable after Cannell convinced Tartikoff that Hunter deserved another chance in a better time slot, coupled with the disaster that was V, or something like that. Things worked out just fine for Sagansky, though; he left to become President of Production and later President of TriStar Entertainment.
One of my goals with this blog is to tell the stories behind these quirky, arcane references. Why? Because I can. Thank you, Internet.
