Bill Lawrence (Show Creator) and Neil Flynn ("The Janitor")

IGN: After 5 years of the show, have you given Janitor a name that has not yet been shared with the viewing public?

Neil Flynn: In each scene that I do I have secretly given the Janitor a different name just to motivate myself as an actor. No, I don't bother with a name. The Janitor is enough for me because he's either a superhero or supervillain - 'this week, Batman meets The Janitor! We don't know the Janitor's name and he may never have one, except as Bill, the inventor of the show has said before, if we ever hear the Janitor's name that means the show is over.

Bill Lawrence: It means the show's over. It's a huge hint. If his name is actually uttered on television, it means that it's the last episode of the show. So anybody that wonders if the show is over now, watch for the finale, and if we say his name..."

IGN: What about Dr. Cox? He's got to come back after last week, right?


Lawrence: This little arc takes us through the end of the year, but he is not leaving.


Flynn: No one's leaving yet.


IGN: Can you give us any information about the final episode?

Lawrence: Yes, I can. I'll give you one hint and one real thing. The real thing is that in real life, my wife's pregnant, and she plays Dr. Cox's wife [Christa Miller], so maybe something will happen on the show ... I dunno.


Flynn (To Lawrence): You're coming on the show?


Lawrence: No, no, no. You're not following. My wife is Christa Miller from The Drew Carey Show and she plays Dr. Cox's wife, and in real life my wife got pregnant. But there is a giant bomb on the show, dropped in the last 5 seconds that will affect next year, especially if it's the last year of the show. The last 5 seconds of the show, after you think it's over, bam! The tease is good. It's really good.

IGN: About next season, will there be one? Is it frustrating for you?

Lawrence: It's frustrating only in the sense that I'm not allowed to say there's one officially, because it's Hollywood, but the show's going to be on next year. The only question mark is whether it's going to be on NBC or ABC. Because ABC owns the show, but it's on NBC, and they're negotiating, and that's what's interesting for us - we don't know what channel we'll be on.

Flynn: Unfortunately, I have a bad history with ABC, and they won't allow me on their airwaves.

Lawrence: You've drawn a line in the sand about that, which has made a big issue. (Addressing the crowd) Neil will not be on ABC!

Flynn: I mean, my parts will be on NBC.

Lawrence: It's very awkward, but he took a stand.

Flynn: I actually regret it now.

Lawrence: But, yeah, the show will be back.

Interviewer: Why do you think the Janitor hasn't found a new intern to harass?

Flynn: Because Zach won't leave! (Laughs) We would need another lead actor. That might happen, there are other interns around, but I think he's attached to Zach's character.

Lawrence: This is minutia, but the writers all feel that you feel justified that he wronged you first.

Flynn: He did!

Lawrence: He put the penny in the door in the pilot episode.

IGN: Do you have a favorite moment in TV history?

Lawrence: This might be it! (Laughs) That last chunk of dialogue.

Flynn: Wow, that's a good question.

Lawrence: Can I answer that while he's thinking? My favorite is Taxi, "What does a yellow light mean?" Classic scene. Jim Ignatowski, trying to get his cabbie license, whispers, "What does a yellow light mean?" Alex Reiger goes, "slow down". And Jim goes, "Whaaaat ... does a yeellllloow ... liiiight mean?" and it goes on for the better part of 20 minutes. It's stunning.

Flynn: I'd go with something from The Dick Van Dyke Show or Monty Python. That's as specific as I can get.

IGN: Season 3 has the episode "My Screw Up," which a lot of people consider to be the best of the series.

Lawrence: Yeah, it's my favorite episode of the show. My wife and Brendan Fraser's wife have been best friends since they were kids, and Brendan wanted to come on the show, and he came on earlier. And then I was talking to him one night when we were renting a movie and hanging out, and he said, "Why don't you bring me on and kill me?" Which is the way this stuff usually starts, because the cool thing about Scrubs is that all the guest stars on the show -- we call them "friends of the family" -- they're all friends of the cast and writers and crew. And so we decided to try and fool people. We thought enough time had passed since The Sixth Sense that we tried to sucker them in, that he'd been dead all along. We thought it was going to be a disaster, but because Brendan was so good, it actually worked. It's my favorite episode of the show.

IGN: It's brilliant. Very well done.

Lawrence: Thank you, man. Thank you. We got so obsessive that we went back into it and re-shot stuff, because when we first shot it there were a couple of background people who looked at him -- you know what I mean, because it's Brendan Fraser! -- and I'm like, "No! He's not supposed to be there! They can't look at him."

IGN: Why do you think the show has such longevity? We're going on 5 years now.

Lawrence: Ya know what, this is not a giant hit, so I'm not blowing smoke. But the people who enjoy the show follow it so religiously and so cultishly, and we're so grateful to them, that they have kept the show alive. We call them "Our Nerds". No matter where we go, we have the same group of people on the Internet talking about the show, and that's the way you survive today in the modern landscape of television. There's so many channels that if you're not a huge hit, you have to appeal to a core audience that really, really cares about it so much that they're not going to miss it. And we're grateful to them so much that we name characters after them, and we did a live show for them, and all that stuff.

IGN: NBC keep shuffling it around in their schedule.

Lawrence: Well, they don't own the show. They don't stand to make any money off of it.