Perhaps this was the inspiration for “My Fishbowl,” the episode where Carla attempts to make jokes but nobody around her ever laughs. When she makes a joke about her coffee tasting like crack, Dr. Cox tells her, “You would hear crickets chirping, but they were too uncomfortable about just how unfunny that actually was.”
Cox then goes on a long rant about why each and every character on the show is funny, telling Carla she too can be funny as long as she sticks to what she’s good at. “I think you are very funny when you’re being sarcastic or you’re up on your high horse. You know, as long as you stay right in your wheelhouse,” he says. He ends the rant by asking her to “please, don’t tell any more jokes.”
But Carla refuses to confine herself to her limited range of humor, and she spends the rest of the episode doing one lame bit after another. At one point Turk asks her if they can “renew our relations” that night for the first time since Izzy was born, and she says, “Well, I guess the only thing you’re gonna renew tonight is your driver’s license!” Even JD is stunned and embarrassed for her.
The episode ends well for Carla, though: She defiantly tells Cox, “I don’t care what you say, I’m as funny as anyone else in this place.” She then slams the table, which accidentally sends a cup of hot coffee flying in Ted’s face. “That actually was pretty funny,” Dr. Cox says, and he and Carla share a laugh. It may seem like a mean-spirited note to end the storyline on, but that’s only because it is in fact a mean-spirited note to end the storyline on.
