A new half-hour comedy series is making its way to Netflix this Friday titled Medical Police. The show follows two American physicians “stationed at a pediatric hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, who unwittingly discover a civilization-threatening virus. They’re soon recruited as secret government agents and find themselves in a race against time to find a cure, all the while uncovering a dark conspiracy at the center of the outbreak. Medical Police features a bunch of Childrens Hospital alums both behind and in front of the camera, with David Wain, Rob Corddry, Krister Johnson, and Jonathan Stern credited as writers and Erinn Hayes and Rob Huebel both in starring roles. In case you aren’t familiar with Childrens Hospital, it was a parody of medical shows like E.R. and Scrubs and ran for seven seasons. It originally started as a web series on The WB before Adult Swim picked up the rights in 2009.
Another alum working on the show is composer Matt Novack. Aside from Childrens Hospital, some of Novack’s other credits include titles such as Filthy Preppy Teen$, Charlotte, Dog Days and the recent Youtube Original documentary State of Pride. He is also contributing additional music to the much buzzed about animated DC series Harley Quinn. Below Novack talks exclusively with That Moment In about his work on Medical Police.
Before you started scoring Medical Police, what are a few things you did that helped you prepare for the job?
MATT: I started by immersing myself in other scores of the action/intrigue/spy genre. Even though the show itself isn’t a parody of anything specific, we wanted the score to feel like it could play right at home in a more serious film or show of the same style, for the most part. So I took some time to digest what made those scores tick, and then figured out how I can make it my own. I also spent time deciding what my palette and ensemble was going to be, including searching for and playing around with different synth sounds and effects. To help refine down the sound even more, the show-runners and I spent some time developing the main title theme, the full version of which plays at the end of the first episode. I think there were about 4 or 5 different iterations with a lot of experimentation. Some ideas didn’t work, and some worked surprisingly well, so by the time I had started scoring the show proper, I already knew what the score was going to sound like after all those experimentations and prep work.
Medical Police is somewhat of a spin-off of Adult Swim’s Childrens Hospital. Are you using any of the same palate of sounds for Medical Police that you did with Childrens Hospital?
MATT: Only very briefly. The first episode starts off set in Childrens Hospital, almost like another episode of it, so there are a couple variations of themes from Childrens there. Then as Lola and Owen start their journey, the score changes with them through the end of the episode. We wanted to tell a different story than Childrens, one which affects and changes the main characters, so it needed to be a different tone.
Medical Police is labeled both a comedy and thriller. Is that a hard combination to score because you have to hit comedic cues while also building suspense?
MATT: It can be. I typically approach this style of absurdist comedy by scoring it like a thriller or drama. The humor often comes from the cast playing these ridiculous scenarios as serious as possible, so in a lot of ways I’ll start a cue the same way I would the non-comedic version of it, but there’s the extra step of being aware of where the comedic beats lie so that I can leave space for jokes, and accent punchlines (or not). In terms of building suspense specifically, it usually comes down to feel. We like to push the score over-the-top but sometimes we can go too far, so that’s where it helps to have such great collaborators as the show-runners. We’ll work to finesse cues until the comedy and the score strike the right balance.
![]()
Is there going to be a score release for Medical Police?
MATT: Not at the moment.
Medical Police has the same team as Childrens Hospital. Because you have such a long history with these people, do you think you get to experiment more, musically, because they trust you?
MATT: Absolutely, and as a matter of fact, they encouraged it! There was a lot of experimentation on the main title, especially as we all wanted to make sure it had a unique sound to it. There were also a handful of times in other cues where I tried something different than what we had discussed during spotting or our initial conversations on music that I wasn’t 100% sure they would go for when I pitched it. Most of the time it worked, or became a new jumping off but, but even if they didn’t go for it, they appreciated different ideas. They like to explore different options on everything, not only music.
You are also contributing additional music to the new DC animated series Harley Quinn. What has that experience been like creating music for such iconic, well-known characters?
MATT: SO much fun. Like many, I grew up obsessed with comics so it’s been a real thrill. Every episode I think to myself “oh cool, I get to write for (blank)” whether it’s Harley, or Two-Face, the Justice League… all these characters that have such a long, rich history to them. I’m so glad Jefferson, the lead composer, brought me on. We’re currently in the middle of scoring season 2, and show just gets more and more nuts.
You scored Childrens Hospital for 8 years. Towards the end of that run how did you keep the score fresh without being too repetitive from things you had already done?
MATT: It helped that by the final two seasons, most of the episodes were parodies of something other than the main show’s storyline. I frequently thought of Childrens as having two scores: the main “hospital” score, and the parody-of-the-week score, so by that time in some ways it became refreshing to go back to the recurring themes and palettes we had established. I also tried not to re-use a cue or theme without some sort of change as often as I could. Even subtle variations to orchestrations and themes helped keep it from getting stale.
What would you consider to be your signature sound?
MATT: That is a tough question. I’m someone who likes to keep trying new things; continually learning and growing as a composer, so I feel like whatever my signature sound is, it’s ever evolving. I think I’ll always have my roots in orchestral writing, but I love playing with blending non-orchestral sounds with orchestra, whether it’s synths, world instruments, or other things to try and come up with interesting combinations, so ultimately, I think I have an eclectic signature.