House, M.D.

Trivia: Hugh Laurie auditioned for the role as Dr. Gregory House in his hotel room bathroom in Namibia. He was rehearsing his role for the film The Flight of the Phoenix and claimed that the bathroom was the only place with enough light. He also apologized for his appearance on tape before the audition as he'd just come back from filming. The fact that House has a somewhat scruffy and unkempt look, particularly his constant five o'clock shadow, has been attributed by creator David Shore to Laurie's appearance in this audition tape.

Trivia: Bryan Singer was looking for an American actor to play House and when he saw Hugh Laurie's audition tape said that he had found his American actor. Hugh Laurie is in fact British.

Trivia: Jesse Spencer, who plays Dr. Chase, grew up in a family of Doctors. His father and two brothers are doctors while his sister is going through med school. When they see one of the episodes they not only try to figure out the cause before him but note all his medical mispronunciations.

Trivia: During a guest appearance on The Tonight Show on 16 November 2005, Laurie revealed that he took the highly-addictive painkiller Vicodin in order to get into character for his role as Dr. House.

Trivia: The character of House is based on Sherlock Holmes. Both suffered drug addictions (House - pain killers, Holmes - cocaine). Both focus on the patient/criminal's motives and actions rather than physical evidence. Neither can cope with normal society and have sociable sidekicks (Wilson and Watson - Dr. Wilson actually gets called Dr. Watson once by a patient in the first season). Both are extremely lazy when not on a case (Holmes read the agony aunt columns in the paper, House watches Soaps). Both never call anybody by their first names and finally both live at No 221B.

Trivia: The diagnosis of Lupus appears to be a running joke throughout the series - it is commonly suggested as a possible illness, but is always dismissed. In one episode, House hides his Vicodin in a book on Lupus, stating that 'it is never Lupus'. In another episode House has a janitor stand in for his three assistants (who left at the end of season 3). The janitor suggests Lupus as a possible diagnosis - inevitably he is wrong.

Jeff Walker

Maternity - S1-E4

Factual error: House's team listed the potential offending organisms of the infection as "MRSA, H. Flu, VRE, and pseudomonas." House then suggests Vancomycin and Aztreonam. Vancomycin only covers gram (+) organisms and Aztreonam only covers gram (-) organisms. VRE is a gram (+) organism, thus it would not be covered by Aztreonam. VRE stands for vancomycin resistant enterococcus, thus it would not be covered by Vancomycin either. House's team therefore failed to cover for an offending organism that could have caused the infection during their initial differential. (00:09:10)

More mistakes in House, M.D.

Dr. Wilson: Is there a light somewhere that goes on when I have food?
House: Green for food, orange for beverages, red for impure thoughts. That bulb burns out every two weeks.

More quotes from House, M.D.

Occam's Razor - S1-E3

Question: I apologize I guessed at the episode, it was the one which featured Brandon, the boy who had the pills mix up and had sex with his fiancée at the beginning. I'm a little confused as to the ending, what was the significance of the letters on the pills? Why did the two doctors make a big deal about it when Brandon told them about it? Why was House so pleased to find those two pills in the inventory? It seemed like a sudden end to me.

Answer: You have the right episode. The big deal at the end about the letters on the pills was to show that Brandon had the wrong pills all along. House was smiling because he was right.

MoonFaery

More questions & answers from House, M.D.

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