There are some absolutely horrifying doctors on sitcoms, and it only gets worse if you look at animated series. It's hard to imagine the terrifying experience of going to Dr. Nick Riviera for help. Then again, he did go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College!
But two of the worst sitcom doctors are Dr. Tobias Fünke on Arrested Development and Dr. Leo Spaceman on 30 Rock. While one is a therapist and the other a "general practitioner," neither of them seemed to be particularly good at their jobs and were uniquely terrible in their own special ways.
Dr. Tobias Fünke: Dr. Fünke's 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band Solution
For a period in the 90s, Tobias, alongside his wife Lindsay and his daughter Maeby, had a folk band named Dr. Fünke's 100% Natural Good-Time Family Band Solution. The band was underwritten by the Natural Life Food Company, a big pharma manufacturer that used the band to promote their products in an engaging and non-threatening fashion.
The Fünkes went to various pharmaceutical conventions, extolling the virtues of different Natural Life drugs. It's hard to trust a therapist who's paid to sings about the drugs he wants you to take.
Dr. Leo Spaceman: Offered Drugs Like Candy
Leo, on the other hand, had a much different view on drugs. He barely seemed to know which ones did what and gave out prescriptions with little or no prompting. In fact, Leo frequently asked his patients what they needed and what dosage they would like.
Jack Donaghy actually once took some quite random pills from Spaceman so he wouldn't be seen as rude when Leo offered. It would honestly be less scary if Leo started singing about the drugs he was giving people since that would require him to know something about them.
Dr. Tobias Fünke: Never Nude
People go to therapists to deal with their mental health issues, but that doesn't mean that therapists are immune to mental health issues themselves. They have their own problems and need someone to talk to about them, as well.
Since this is the case, it's a wonder that Tobias never seemed to take being a Never Nude more seriously. Incapable of being naked, Tobias wore cutoff jeans under pretty much all of his clothes. The condition came and went, but Tobias never appeared to deal with it a meaningful, serious way.
Dr. Leo Spaceman: Horrible Advice
It's hard to find a medical doctor who gave worse advice than Leo Spaceman. His guidance to Liz Lemon or Tracy Jordan was often incomprehensible, and what little of it made any sense was far too dangerous to listen to.
He genuinely believed that people didn't actually need to eat food but that eating meat was necessary to keep the spine straight. Both things were wrong and somewhat contradictory, but that's the kind of guidance you got from Dr. Spaceman.
Dr. Tobias Fünke: Wannabe Actor
Part of the reason the Fünkes moved back to the West Coast was that Tobias lost his medical license due to a botched CPR attempt. But when he got to California, he didn't try to get his license back, not even when instructed to by the then Bluth family publicist.
Instead, Tobias focused on becoming an actor, something he was even worse at than being a therapist. He paid an exorbitant amount of money to Carl Weathers and even tried to be an unofficial understudy to the Blue Man Group. He would have been better off going back to being a doctor.
Dr. Leo Spaceman: Knew Nothing About The Human Body
As a general rule, Leo seemed to be largely uninformed about the human body, if not outright disgusted by it. These would not be good qualities of a doctor. He openly admitted that he had no idea where to find the heart. The man actually believed that everyone's body is different and that their heart was never in the same place.
The best-case scenario was that he knew this wasn't the case but just couldn't figure out how to find the heart. This was something that should have been addressed in medical school - if Spaceman even went to one.
Dr. Tobias Fünke: Unintentional Double Entendres
Another one of Tobias' many issues was the seemingly never-ending string of unintentional double entendres that flowed from his mouth throughout the series. At one point, Michael Bluth asked Tobias to record everything he said during a day and listen to it. Tobias obliged but still couldn't figure out what the problem was.
His ongoing inability to notice his endless barrage of double entendres would make it incredibly difficult to take him seriously as a therapist.
Dr. Leo Spaceman: Ho Chi Minh School Of Medicine
Leo claimed to be a legitimate doctor who graduated from the Ho Chi Minh School of Medicine. The only problem was that this school does not exist. But did Leo know that? The name could have been made up by the 30 Rock writers as a funny fake name for the school Leo Spaceman went to. But this is not the most unsettling option.
What is really concerning is the idea that Leo could have made up the school and all of his credentials. He may have actually been fully aware that the Ho Chi Minh School of Medicine didn't exist and was faking everything. It would explain a lot.
Dr. Tobias Fünke: Not A Doctor Any More
As previously mentioned, Tobias lost his medical license, meaning that he was a doctor in the sense that he had the degree but wasn't allowed to practice medicine anymore, in any capacity. Calling him a doctor was a formality at best, one that he clung to less and less throughout the series.
His past would occasionally rear its ugly head, but never in a meaningful fashion. As Arrested Development went on, it became more questionable how dedicated Tobias ever was to being a therapist, which made the audience concerned for the people he treated.
Dr. Leo Spaceman: Possibly Never A Doctor
The simple conclusion after seven seasons of watching Leo Spacemando his thing, if that even was his real name, was that the man was never really a doctor in the first place.
He had no knowledge of the human body and certainly did not understand the medications he was prescribing. Spaceman's advice was dangerous misinformation that was likely responsible for the deaths of many people. Even more unsettling was the fact that he closed out the series as the Surgeon General of the United States. Yikes.