Quirky Doctor

Dr. Hartman: Mr. Griffin, I'm afraid you're going to die...

Peter and Lois: (gasp)

Dr. Hartman: When you watch these Dean Martin celebrity roasts!

— Family Guy

The Quirky Doctor is a doctor who's known for...well, being quirky.

Their mannerisms, appearance, or speech may be weird. They might wear everyday clothes to work, or show up in a costume. They often talk to their patients in misleading and confusing ways, making them believe they are sick, even though they aren't, or sicker than they really are. They might give such questionable advice or perform surgery in such a way that you really question how their license hasn't been revoked yet, or why they haven't been fired from their hospital.

They might be a Cloudcuckoolander who's barely there when their patients need them.

They might give Post Treatment Lollipops to even adult patients.

Despite all their strangeness, these doctors usually do care about their patients. But whether they are competent in healing or not is another matter.

Even though they're plenty quirky in all their incarnations, THE Doctor doesn't count as they're Not That Kind of Doctor.

The Back-Alley Doctor might be this. Might overlap with Bunny-Ears Lawyer, Dr. Feelgood, Ditzy Genius, and Cloudcuckoolander. Also compare Dr. Jerk, whose "quirk" is being a jerkass. If this character's quirkiness is taken to the extreme with maliciousness, see Mad Doctor. If the character's superiors put up with their oddities because they're just that good at their jobs, see Ultimate Job Security. A "doctor" who seems to be this but turns out not to be a doctor at all is the unqualified Dr. Psych Patient.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• One Piece:
  • Tony Tony Chopper is a blue-nosed reindeer who ate the Human-Human Fruit, giving him human-level intelligence. But while he's an extremely proficient physician thanks to his tutelage under Dr. Kureha, Chopper often acts like a child years younger than his actual age of 15. He's Easily Impressed and somewhat impressionable, performs a silly dance out of embarrassment whenever he's praised, and is mistaken for the Straw Hat's cotton candy-eating mascot rather than their doctor.
  • Dr. Kureha, Chopper's mentor and Parental Substitute, is a 141 years young doctor with the figure of a supermodel but the face of a wrinkly, old woman. She violently threatens her patients if they don't listen to her and is a habitual drinker. She loves Chopper like the son she never had and uses Reverse Psychology to get him to leave home and see the world while chucking battleaxes at him.
• Ranma ½: Dr. Tofu Ono, the local medical practitioner, is good at his job; the "quirky" part comes out whenever his crush, Kasumi is around. Tofu goes so crazy over her, that he does crazy things like dance around with his model skeleton "Betty." In this state, he can even hurt his patient, like when he broke Ranma's neck or shredded a notebook needed to cure Akane's amnesia. It’s not outright stated that this makes him a Lethal Klutz, but the one time we see normal patients arrive to his clinic, they know better than try to get him to meet them when he’s like this.

Films — Animated

• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: The village doctor who breaks the bad news to Puss (that he only has one life left) is also the village barber, veterinarian, dentist and shaman.
  Puss: (to the Doctor) Are you the village comedian as well?

Films — Live-Action

• In The Cannonball Run, J.J. and Victor enter the race with an ambulance and hire a doctor to give them some legitimacy, but they're forced to find a new one at the last minute when the last one gets sick. ^note  We never see the old one. Victor's replacement is Dr. Nicholas Van Helsing who has a spooky air about him (he's played by Jack Elam) complete with a Scare Chord whenever he appears. He also has a tendency to drink whatever is in his hypodermic needle and once takes Pamela's pulse by listening to her watch. However, he is a knowledgeable doctor and is able to talk a pair of cops out of giving them a ticket.

Literature

• The Dresden Files: Waldo Butters is a skilled and capable medical examiner (as well as a decent Back-Alley Doctor in a pinch). He's introduced mid-autopsy, blasting Polka music and wearing bunny slippers, and even has a one-man-band Polka suit.

Live-Action TV

• 30 Rock: Reoccuring character "Dr." Leo Spaceman (Scare Quotes legally required) is both bizarre and completely incompetent, as well as Ambiguously Evil and extremely bigoted.
• Arrested Development: Features Dr. Wordsmith, who accidentally but constantly misleads the Bluths regarding various medical situations:
  • "I'm sorry, we lost him; he just got away from us. I'm sorry." — Regarding George Sr. after his heart attack. Turns out the heart attack was a lie, and the doctor was literally referring to the fact that George Sr. had escaped through a window.
  • "He's going to be all right." — Referring to Buster, whose hand was bitten off by a seal; they were unable to re-attach the left hand, so Buster is now "all right".
  • "It looks like he's dead." — Referring to Tobias. By this time Michael has caught on enough to tell the family to wait until the doctor clarifies — Tobias looks like he's dead because he's covered in blue paint, but he's going to be fine.
  • "It's too late for me to do anything for your son." — Referring to Michael's appendectomy. Again, Michael is savvy enough to wait for Dr. Wordsmith to finish, and he clarifies that he can't do anything because another doctor has been assigned to care for Michael.
• Doctor Martin Ellingham in Doc Martin is abrasive and arrogant, and generally unsociable. He had also developed a blood phobia, which caused him to have to give up his prestigious surgical practice and become the best damned GP (general practitioner) the village of Portwenn ever had.
• ER: Doctor Romano mostly just gets away with being an asshole to everybody but occasionally pulls more bizarre stunts, such as bringing in and operating on his own dog. No one dares suggest that it's inappropriate to operate on a dog and the incident is never mentioned again.
• The doctor who delivers Phoebe's babies on Friends is obsessed with Fonzie, brings him up constantly, and insists on watching Happy Days every day, even if he's delivering a baby while doing so. He's also the head of the department and delivers triplets without a hitch.
• The series Green Wing is loosely based on the premise that hospitals are full of people like this. (Though as they're mostly the doctors who don't do anything, being any good at their job largely falls into an Informed Attribute.)
• House: Dr. Gregory House uses comatose patients as cup holders, watches sports with clinic patients, avoids seeing his own patients as long as possible, has a bedside manner akin to Lex Luthor when he finally does see them, refuses to wear a tie, plays with his Game Boy/cane/ball while his patients code, and has a running commentary on Cuddy's boobs. He is a jerkass every chance he gets, apparently for his own entertainment. This apparently improves his thinking processes.
• Dr. Kylie Johnson on MADtv is a 19-year-old doctor who rarely takes her job seriously, doing things like wearing belly shirts or playing practical jokes. However, she is among the best in the medical field.
• M*A*S*H: Captains Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre are almost never in uniform, chase the nurses, drink to excess, gamble, and use medical equipment to prank others. The early seasons have many episodes where generals and colonels appear at the 4077th and are appalled at their behavior yet refuse to charge them because they are the best doctors around. Occasionally they dress up in crazy outfits to make patients laugh in post-op.
  • Blake's replacement Colonel Potter and Trapper's replacement B.J. Hunnicut have some quirks, but after their arrival and the show becoming more of a dramedy the overall quirkiness of the medical staff were no longer as pronounced.
• Odd Squad:
  • Dr. O from Seasons 1 and 2 is the comically serious Head Doctor of the Medical department at Precinct 13579, whose humor comes from being deadpan and serious enough in personality to contrast everyone else's eccentricity in an organization where eccentricity is the norm. She constantly reminds everyone that she's a doctor regardless of whether they're aware of it or not, drinks unicorn tears as a favorite food (when she's not using it in cures), and according to "Extreme Cakeover", she doesn't even have a birthday, citing that it is a medical condition she has.
  • Olly, Dr. O's replacement who debuts midway through Season 2, is crazy enough to scare the resident Cute and Psycho Scientist Oona out of her wits with her actions — handing Oona random food and changing her undershirt without touching her once, having a strange vendetta against Precinct 13579's cafeteria workers, and having an original birth name of "New Dr. O" before getting it changed. Unlike her predecessor, she is far from competent in her job, often Comically Missing the Point when it comes to properly measuring ingredients and relying on her (one-sided) best friend Oona for every medical-related thing under the sun when she doesn't work in the Medical department and thus has little knowledge of the cures for odd illnesses. By the end of Olly's debut episode, she is transferred to the Food and Beverage department, where she fares much better.
• Scrubs: Most of the doctors in the cast would qualify as this to an extent, but in particular:
  • Dr. John Dorian, aka JD, is Endearingly Dorky and often stares off into the distance when he has an elaborate fantasy, which will end with him saying something that would make no sense to anyone who didn't just witness his fantasy.
  • Dr. Elliot Reid is a neurotic with a number of quirks, including a tendency to get worked up over small things and using strange euphemisms for sex terms (i.e. substituting "bajingos" for "vaginas").
  • Dr. Todd Quinlan, aka "The Todd", is a Lovable Sex Maniac who can turn anything into a Double Entendre.
  • Dr. Molly Clock is a skilled psychiatrist, but is also the biggest Cloud Cuckoo Lander in the entire show. She sings to her food and tends to be spacey and aloof.
  • Deconstructed with Dr. Kevin Casey. While his OCD initially presents itself in quirky ways, such as his need to touch everything in his first patient's room while saying, "Bink", JD later accidentally witnesses Dr. Casey have a meltdown when he can't stop washing his hands, two hours after his final surgery of the day.
• Sesame Street: One episode features a fairy doctor who teleports in puffs of smoke and initially reads the wrong document and thinks Abby has bunions.
• Silicon Valley: Dr. Crawford is actually pretty good at his job, he just has zero bedside manner and seems to enjoy bullying his patients.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: Leonard "Bones" McCoy serves as Chief Medical Officer during most of Captain Kirk's tenure as Captain of the USS Enterprise. He can be a bit of a Dr. Jerk but is totally dedicated to his patients. He and Spock are Vitriolic Best Buds. McCoy constantly finds ways to insult Spock but Spock is quite able to hold his own and had some pretty good comebacks. McCoy has something of an aversion to some, but not all modern technology.
    Leonard McCoy: You got some reason you want my atoms scattered all over space, boy?!
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Being an expy for McCoy, second season CMO Doctor Katherine Pulaski also had her own quirks. Much like McCoy she was something of a Dr. Jerk. Being a McCoy expy the writers attempted to recreate the McCoy/Spock dynamic but it failed due to the fact that Data had no emotions and her barbs at Data made her appear that she was very prejudiced against artificial life.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: After being activated The Doctor displayed many of the personality issues that his creator Doctor Lewis Zimmerman had. These were not helped by a crew that treated him like a non-sentient tool. When Kes saw how rudely a crewmember treated The Doctor, she commented on it to him, who confirmed that just about everyone — including Captain Janeway — treated him as nothing more as a tool. Kes then went to confront Janeway over how The Doctor's needs were not being met and Janeway realized that the Doctor was the only medical officer on board. Janeway and the senior staff worked to make sure that the Doctor was treated as a person instead of a tool, and he quickly became a valued member of the crew and friend to the command staff. ^note Although there were times when crew members like Lt. Paris had enough of The Doctor for the day.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise: Phlox, the main doctor, is a cheerful Amusing Alien, who has a very wide smile, eats bugs, keeps a menagerie of pets, and talks in a singsong voice.

Video Games

• Guilty Gear:
  • Faust is the goofball doctor to rule them all. He fights with Confusion Fu tactics like throwing random objects at his foes, has wacky Reality Warper abilities, is a silly Large Ham, and one of his Overdrives is shoving either his scalpel or his fingers up his opponent's ass. Make no mistake, though, as despite his eccentric personality he has a heart of gold and has sworn to help the sick and injured whenever he can.
  • Averted in -STRIVE-, where his sacrifice to help calm down Delilah's Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum restored his old identity of Dr. Baldhead, who is a lot creepier and much more serious despite retaining some of Faust's old silly moves.
• Persona 5: Tae Takemi runs a back alley clinic in Tokyo, dresses like a goth, and has a very morbid sense of humor. In spite of these idiosyncrasies, she is actually one of the most brilliant doctors in the country, and as you forge a bond with her, she'll provide you access to her own homemade medicine, all of which are very beneficial during your ventures into the Metaverse.
• Pikmin 4 introduces Yonny of the Rescue Corps. Downplayed in that most of the characters are quirky, but Yonny expresses excitement at the prospect of the dangerous nighttime outings (even serving as their host in the outpost). He's even implied to have done some unethical experiments.
• The Medic of Team Fortress 2 is this bordering on Mad Scientist. While his ubercharge can heal teammates and even make them invincible for a short period of time, the man lost his medical licence after he took the entire skeleton from a still living patient. He's regularly used the other mercenaries as his lab rats, replacing their organs with those of animals and other methods that are both ethically horrendous and medically impossible. The comics suggest he sold his soul to the Devil to be able to accomplish these feats and surgically added eight more souls to his own so he could avoid being sent to Hell as per their contract agreement.

Webcomics

• The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: The entire premise of the title character is this: he's a doctor, who's also a ninja.
• Hakase from NEXT!!! Sound of the Future is an unlicensed android surgeon who has no qualms about breaking the law. She’s covered in stitches even though surgery on androids usually doesn’t leave noticeable scars, has No Brows, and her skin tone is mismatched on various parts of her body. Personality-wise she’s weirdly enthusiastic about getting to mod her robotic clients, completely disconnected from social media and human society in general, and has little tact when discussing her clients’ medical problems. Her clients are often confused by her off-putting behaviour.
• Oglaf: Navaan, on top of being a Cloud Cuckoolander generally, is a strong believer in Comically Inept Healing (for instance, planting an acorn into the stump of a severed limb to grow a new limb), when she doesn't just sleep with her patients. And all that's after she learns what a doctor is — she set up shop as one under the impression that a doctor's job is to solve mysteries.
• Zoophobia: Keiko and her nurse Chastopher of Zoo Phoenix Academy. First is a Dark Is Not Evil and Creepy Good Keiko who is a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant with her stereotypical moments who is a Sheep in Sheep's Clothing while Chastopher is an Ax-Crazy Cloudcuckoolander human nurse and former dentist who became insane and killed his wife after she cheated on him and is obsessed with his plushie unicorn named Willis. Despite all this, they're competent in their jobs.

Western Animation

• Courage the Cowardly Dog: Dr. Vindaloo is a Funny Foreigner doctor who regularly underestimates every problem he encounters, using prolonged soaking in water as a cure-all for everything. He also owns bizarre stuff like a pet elephant and is occasionally seen doing things in his office like taking bubble baths and ripping his body hair off with a giant bandage.
• Family Guy: Dr. Hartman is the least competent doctor in his hospital. He has a tendency to use misleading words and schtick to make the characters think they are sick, even when they aren't. He is also an alcoholic.
• Futurama: Zoidberg is the lobster-like alien doctor of Planet Express, who not only eats garbage but has no idea of basic human biology, such as believing that humans have more than one mouth. Interestingly, a late-season episode reveals that he's an absolute genius when it comes to literally every other species in the universe, and no less than Mom comments that Zoidberg could make millions if he stopped focusing on humans (his one weak spot) and working for Professor Farnsworth. Zoidberg refuses, though, because he views the professor as his only true friend given past kindnesses.
• Jellystone!: Yogi Bear is a doctor in this continuity, and he's known for his gluttony and very low attention span.
• The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: Dr. Barber is, as his name implies, a part-time doctor and a part-time barber. Once he stole a map from K'nuckles and Flapjack to get to Candied Island. He lives with his mother and stands around on the docks all day, soliciting potential customers for either of his occupations, and as such he is very unnerving to the citizens of Stormalong Harbor. He has a mysterious creature in his basement to whom he feeds hair to.
• The Simpsons: Dr. Julius Hibbert, despite being one of the most intelligent people in Springfield (even a card-carrying Mensa member) is known for his habit of chuckling at inappropriate moments... and pretty much all other moments. He gives odd treatments and prescriptions, such as scaring Bart with a massive injection gun (actually a button sewer) to make him sweat off objects glued to his face, and nearly beats Homer with a "surgical 2x4" to demonstrate his skull's density. Several episodes imply he may be practicing medicine without a license.
• Dr. Moonbloom from Trolls: The Beat Goes On! and its Sequel Series Trolls: TrollsTopia is a competent doctor, but she has a tendency to shock her patients by telling overdramatic jokes for mild or inexistent problems (such as telling Smidge that her medical test results are terrible before clarifying her that they're actually great). This is deconstructed in "Doc Doc, Who's There?" (the episode from where the aforementioned instance comes from), wherein she loses a good chunk of her patients because of her sense of humor, although she promises to joke in a way that would make her patients laugh after the episode's events.
• On Vampirina, Dr. Dolores Millweed from "Haunted House Call" follows this. When we first see her, she gives the Hauntley family lollipops even though they're not patients. When she first sees Demi trapped in the TV, she immediately says that this is his diagnosis. However, she's still a great doctor with how she's able to connect the dots on how he became sick, mainly with the family inadvertently ignoring him and how ghosts' health is tied to their emotions.

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