Whither Zoidberg?

July 26th, 2005

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Dr. ZoidbergThere have been some questions about whether Dr. Zoidberg will make the list of Top Ten Comic Book Doctors Who Actually Practice Medicine.

Sorry, but no.

I will grant that Dr. Zoidberg is a comic book doctor (at least as much as Dr. Kildare or Ben Casey). I will also agree that he practices medicine. But that’s precisely the problem – he just practices – he’s not very good at it. Everyone who made the list is not only a comic book doctor who practices medicine – but they’re good at it (well, most of the time anyway).

I will, however, bestow upon Dr. Zoidberg the coveted “Leonard Samson Honorary Mention Award” — for the doctor most likely to cause a plot complication rather than cure the patient.

10 Responses to “ Whither Zoidberg? ”

  1. Randy
    July 26th, 2005 at 5:38 pm

    Thank you for addressing this topic. I have read the comments about Zoidberg being “worthy” of being on your Top 10 list and frankly they make me scratch my head and say, Huh??” I have never seen Zoidberg do anything remotely involving the practice of medicine in any Futurama episode I’ve seen. But, granted, I’ve never read the comics.

  2. Tim O'Neil
    July 26th, 2005 at 7:20 pm

    Well, I suppose this will keep me from having to storm your castle with a pitchfork and torch.

    Just barely.

  3. Carl Fink
    July 26th, 2005 at 8:42 pm

    Randy? While Zoidberg is an incompetent doctor, he has done some real medicine from time to time. Hell, his emergency surgery saved Fry after he was decapitated in a car accident.

  4. mike abbott
    July 26th, 2005 at 8:42 pm

    How about Dr. Bong !
    He helped Deadpool go from crazy to crazy.

  5. mike abbott
    July 26th, 2005 at 9:36 pm

    P.S. I enjoy polite dissent very much, every day. Thank you.

  6. Chris Arndt
    July 26th, 2005 at 11:28 pm

    The reason Zoidberg doesn’t get any… is Scott.

  7. Randy
    July 27th, 2005 at 7:24 am

    OK, I admit that I have not seen that episode. But, now my question is, Was that a plot device where they just say later on “It’s a good thing Dr. Zoidberg was able to attach Fry’s head back on!” or did we actually see him in the operating room re-attaching Fry’s head?

  8. Carl Fink
    July 28th, 2005 at 5:45 am

    Randy, Zoidberg was in the car with Fry and Amy. When it crashed (Zoidberg was driving, of course), Zoidberg transpanted Fry’s head onto Amy’s body. We don’t see it because the ep is from Fry’s point of view, and he wasn’t exactly fully conscious while his head was detached.

    Note that keeping disembodied heads alive is apparently a really easy thing in the future of Futurama.

  9. Doug
    July 28th, 2005 at 4:36 pm

    In Zoidberg’s defense, he might be a perfectly competent doctor of…whatever species he is. He’s just unfamiliar with human medicine.

  10. Blake
    November 20th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    Keeping disembodied heads alive in JARS is easy. Grafting them to another person’s body, though, seems something else.
    Specifically in that episode, Zoidberg goes with Amy and Fry on a picnic in Amy’s new car. Zoidberg then causes said car to crash. When Fry wakes up, he finds that Zoidberg was able to perform emergency surgery on the moon they crashed on and attach his head to Amy’s shoulder. Zoidberg then was able to fix Fry’s body and reattach the head later in the episode.

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