Ausiello says he likes Lawrence because he doesn’t mince words. I’d have to agree, based on his harsh trashing of NBC he did during the discussion.

Here are some of the highlights of the talk they had:

What led to the break-up with NBC?
Lawrence: When the strike ended, we told NBC that, even though we had another seven episodes mapped out, we could do it in three, and they just didn’t have any interest. Total harsh buzz of not giving a s–t about a show that had been on the network for seven years and made them millions of dollars. And I’d be more bitter, except that it worked out good for us.

We finally know why the heck that Princess Bride episode aired out of order. Not by their choosing:

They didn’t want to do any kind of wrap-up?
Lawrence: Not only did they not want to do any kind of wrap-up, but they took an episode that was supposed to air in the middle of the season — the fairytale episode — and marketed it as a series finale. Which was bulls–t. It was never supposed to be a series finale, much less a season finale, and I think it ended up getting judged kind of harshly because of it. If it was just a regular episode that people had tuned into I think they would’ve thought it was cool and funny.

I was under the impression NBC was willing to give you one episode to finish things off. No?
Lawrence: Well, here’s the thing. When the strike ended, NBC said, “You can shoot an hour-long finale, but we’ll only pay for half of it.” They wanted [ABC Studios] to suck up all the expenses, and ABC said that was unacceptable. And it felt especially harsh because Scrubs was pulling in better Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. than 30 Rock and My Name is Earl — even though I love those two shows — and they were encouraged to do as many f–king episodes as they can after the strike. And after seven years, I ask for three episodes to wrap up the series and they say, “Tough s–t.”

Here is how it ended up on ABC:

How do you go from three episodes on NBC to 18 on ABC?
Lawrence: It was weird, man. I was thinking we’d put these last six episodes on DVD, just so we can wrap the show up and be proud of it, but the head of ABC Studios, Mark Pedowitz, said, “Bill, if you can make the show a little cheaper, I can probably get us a full season on ABC.” I didn’t answer right away. The first thing I did was call the cast and the writers together and I said, “Look, if we’re going to do this, we have to get back to something we creatively can all be excited about.” Because, personally, I felt like this past season we were less than inspired comedically. So I said to them, “This means you guys working harder. It means having emotional stakes and losing all the goofy, broad stuff that I think is easy to write… ” And everyone said they were on board for one more season.

Read the entire article over on TV Guide, as it has a bit more about the way the show was sort of flat this year and how they’ll be saving money by having each actor take TWO episodes off next season.

The janitor will get a name.

According to an article on ScrippsNews.com, the janitor was never suppsoed to have a name. In fact, he was never intended to be a real person. The idea was that he’d only be a figment of Dr. Dorian’s imagination.

From the article, quoting Bill Lawrence, Scrubs creator/producer:

“Originally The Janitor was going to end up being a figment of J.D.’s imagination (I never expected the show to last more than a few episodes so that would have been possible — and why he only interacted with J.D. at first),” Lawrence wrote in a recent e-mail. “We just always thought of him as more menacing as a nameless sketchy antagonist and decided not to reveal his name until the end.”

“There’s a case to be made for never learning the name of the character: TV history tells us a finely tuned character known by just a surname needs no other form of I.D.

He has a good point. The first one I thought of was Wilson from Home Improvement. Not only did it take forever to find out his name, you also never saw his face.

The article listed some I forgot about, like MacGyver, Columbo, Agent 99 from Get Smart to name a few. It also took a long time for us to find out that Kramer’s first name was Cosmo.

“Cosmo?????” I loved that episode.

Any guesses as to what his name could be? He looks like a Bill to me, or maybe a Steve.

I just hope we get to find out. Since this is the final season of Scrubs, the strike could kill any real finale the fans were hoping for. For those dedicated viewers of the hilarious comedy, it could be a sucky way to end it all.

I kind of reported back a few months ago that there was a rumor he’d get a name, but it’s definite now. If you want to read more about what we were supposed to get in the finale, check out this older blog post.