Mop vs. Scrubs

NEIL FLYNN was excited -- at least, as excited as the poker-faced actor gets. He was auditioning for "Scrubs," a medical comedy written by his friend Bill Lawrence , and had just performed a funny reading as sarcastic Dr. Cox, the show's juiciest role.

But Lawrence already had John C. McGinley in mind for the part, and he scrambled to think of something else Flynn could do.

"Neil," he said, "you were great as Dr. Cox... but you're gonna be the janitor."

"Do I at least get to wear one of those white coats?" Flynn asked.

"Jumpsuit."

"Do I get to carry a briefcase?"

"Mop."

But life as the still-unnamed janitor hasn't been all Windex and disinfectant for Flynn, who has the strangest, funniest and, in some ways, easiest job as the secret comic weapon on the underrated "Scrubs" (8:30 p.m., Ch. 4).

"He never has to do medical jargon and he never has to deliver exposition," explains Lawrence. "He's never on unless it's to do a joke."

"I liken it to being a pinch hitter," says Flynn. "You pinch-hit once a game and you only get one pitch, so make it good."

Flynn also makes Lawrence's job simpler.

"It is the greatest safety net for the writing staff, because Neil Flynn has a huge background in improv," he says. "So when we get to the janitor scenes, more often than not, we just write, 'Something like this will happen,' and he just makes it up. So about one-fifth of our script is written every week, and that's how we get our work done."

A recent episode had the janitor posing as a doctor to lecture an elementary school class. Shortly before the cameras rolled, Flynn decided to write a name on the blackboard: Jan Itor (pronounced "Yahn Ee-tor").

The janitor mostly exists to torment "Scrubs" hero J.D. ( Zach Braff ), but Flynn doesn't see the two as enemies.

"I think it's possible that he doesn't hate J.D.," he says. "Maybe J.D. is as close to a friend as he has. For all we know, he just has poor social skills. I think that the janitor constantly misreads J.D.'s motives and assumes he's a rich young punk."

Lawrence based the janitor on his own experiences in the workplace.

"Every job I've ever had in my life until this one, there's been one guy that's hated me for no reason, and I'd never seen that on TV. The first day I started working at this kennel in high school, I've never met any of these people before, and I walked into the back room where this guy worked with the cats, and he actually looked at me and said, 'You!' And we never got along after that."

Originally, the janitor only interacted with J.D., because Lawrence couldn't decide whether the character was real or just a figment of J.D.'s overactive imagination. Every now and then, a scene would feature a third character, but the writers rationalized those by deciding that those people could also be figments.

"If the show only lasted one year, we would have revealed that J.D. dreamed the guy up," says Lawrence. "That was how the show would have ended. Would've been funny."

"Scrubs" is a week away from wrapping up its second season, and despite so-so retention of the "Friends" audience before it, the show is a safe bet to be around next year -- which has given the writers license to expand the janitor's world a little. This year, we've seen him talking with other "Scrubs" regulars, sometimes even without J.D.

"He's officially real now," says Lawrence.