Play One on TV

The “Play One on TV” schtick serves as the title and inspiration for my web site. Imagine my glee at finding not one, not two, but three scholarly investigations into the origins of the phrase, “I’m not a real doctor, but I play one on TV.” Guiltless obsession is a wondrous thing to behold.

These articles were found at Language Log, a gathering point for professional linguists. Personally, I would normally go nowhere near a gang of linguists for fear of suffering a degrading public conjugation and etymologization (which may not even be a real word). However, these people seem to be an approachable lot, even if they do use words like “bilateral trill” as casually as I would use the word “wedgie.”

Something I learned from their work — the concept behind the “fake doctor hawking real medicine” gimmick came not from Peter Bergman, a.k.a. Dr. Cliff Warner, but from Robert Young, a.k.a. Dr. Marcus Welby, featured in a commercial for aspirin in the mid-1970’s. What made this commercial campaign different was that he wasn’t going on as “Robert Young, who plays Dr. Marcus Welby on TV.” He was portrayed in the commercial as Dr. Welby himself.

The federal government, worried that most people would be deluded into thinking that Dr. Welby had somehow crossed the fourth wall and become real, cracked down on this sort of advertising. Good thing, otherwise we might have been subjected to the Real Captain Kirk selling libido enhancers. Hence the later gig with Peter Bergman saying, “I’m not a real doctor, but I play one on TV.” It turns out he wasn’t trying to insult our intelligence; he was just trying to satisfy federal regulations (but then we’re back to insulting our intelligence again).

This is too cool. Up until now, Peter Bergman gave me the whole “fake expert” authority to this web site. Now I get to use the “fake father knows best” stamp of authenticity from Robert Young. I’m getting more artificial legitimacy with every passing week!