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It took more than three decades and a little doctoring of the script by a hometown hero — but London’s time is prime again.
In this week’s episode of the hit Fox TV medical drama House, the lead character made a rapid-fire reference to London, Ont.
Dr. Gregory House, played by Emmy-winner Hugh Laurie, was bound for Cambodia and not happy with his airline booking agent. “I don’t want to layover in Frankfurt, Taipei, Singapore or London, Ontario,” the curmudgeonly House snapped. “That’s why I asked for a direct flight to Phnom Penh.”
Turns out it was Emmy-winning David Shore, show creator and executive producer, who doctored the dialogue to make the reference zing our London, his hometown.
“That was my doing,” Shore revealed yesterday from Los Angeles.
“I literally just dropped the word ‘Ontario’ into the script.”
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Shore did so to make the jab “more House-like.”
The original script for the episode, titled Fetal Position, had House listing London — meaning London, England — as a place he did not want to suffer a layover.
“I do a polish on all the scripts” as head writer, Shore said.
Not since the glory days of TV’s Archie Bunker and All in the Family has London’s named been uttered on a prime-time TV hit in such a fashion.
Shore joked about that when The Free Press asked if he had been inspired by memories of a 1971 episode of All in the Family. The Bunker character didn’t get his Christmas bonus because he shipped a package to London, England instead of London, Ontario. “How the hell should I know there’s a London, Ontario?” Bunker grouched.
“I felt 30 years was long enough” between such mentions for London on prime-time U.S. TV, Shore joked.
The London blip hit the pop cult radar across Canada after the episode aired on Tuesday night.
Shore also joked that he had been taking calls from Frankfurt, famous as a globe-trotting hub, about it being on the House hit list.
He said he has not been able to visit London — or the London International Airport — recently.
There was even more Canada in Fetal Position. Later in the same episode, chief of staff Dr. Lisa Cuddy offered House a first-class ticket to Vancouver Island for his holiday. Though House admitted “everybody likes Canadians,” he ripped the ticket in half upon returning home.
House is on the Fox network in the U.S. and carried on Global in Canada.