Childrens Hospital - Season 3

I feel like this year, Childrens Hospital really cemented itself as the best show on Adult Swim that isn't The Venture Bros. Maybe not the highest praise with some of the channel's best stuff no longer airing,but that doesn't mean Hospital isn't itself great. Television comedy is doing extremely well in general right now, but Hospital definitely holds its own against some of the better known shows that have the privilege of airing before midnight. The entire cast is great, the writing is sharp and unafraid to go anywhere, and they seem to be able to draw from a bottomless well of ideas, sending up medical dramas, the business of television, and pop culture in general. There seems to be nothing they won't try.

Plenty of episodes that would be wacky digressions on almost any other show feel pretty standard on Childrens. Kids being trapped in quicksand, a doctor's former police partner being trapped in a blocked off ward with insane patients, an episode all about a creepy, possibly nuts ambulance driver, all just seem like another day at the office for the staff. I loved the return to the news show that went over the history of the show last year and explores all of the cast members' various spinoffs, and stuff like the Our Town parody and the brief Party Down reunion was great as well. The latter is a good example of the show's fantastic casting, which can get pretty much everybody you've seen in alt comedy, and even guys like Jon Hamm, to show up and do something silly for a few minutes. Every episode is unique, and though they're only about 11 minutes long, most of them have more fresh gags than most episodes of sitcoms that are double the length. Season four is coming, and the wait won't be that bad with the way the show has caused an influx of solid comedies parodying various genres of hacky television.