In "Children's Hospital," Rob Corddry has the Rx

Rob Corddry has not exactly fallen off the map since leaving "The Daily Show" two years ago. He starred in a very funny and widely ignored sitcom for Fox, "The Winner." He popped up on "Curb" and "Arrested" and played presidential pit bull Ari Fleischer in the movie "W."

But someone with Corddry's explosive comedic gifts -- someone who lifted me off my couch and onto the floor when he "reported" to Jon Stewart that even if the vice president had known his friend was within range of his buckshot on that fateful hunting trip, "Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face" -- that's a talent that deserves a starring role, or at least in an ensemble of Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and other top-tier comics of his generation.

For that reason, then, I'm glad to see "Children's Hospital," the new wink-wink parody of medical TV dramas that Corddry wrote, produced and starred in. The fact that it was developed as a series of short pieces for the web (it launches Monday at TheWB.com) doesn't diminish it. Frankly, sending up "Grey's Anatomy" and "ER" probably isn't a concept you can wrap 100 episodes around. Much like Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" last summer, "Children's Hospital" is simply a little side project from people who ought to be busy frying much larger fish.

Doctors making out in the hospital? Check? Doctors making out in front of their underage patients? Check. Crippled female doctor forced to walk around a crutch? Check. How about two crutches? Check check. An actor playing an actor who thinks he's a doctor in a hospital, a la "St. Elsewhere"? Check that too, my friend.

With help from Megan Mullaly, Erinn Hayes, Kansas City's Jason Sudeikis and others, "Children's Hospital" will debut all 10 webisodes on Monday. (Colbert did the narration on the show's trailer, which you can see right now at TheWB.com, but beyond that he wasn't involved with "Children's Hospital.") You can then post favorite clips to your own blog. Corddry sincerely hopes you will do that -- all of you -- and persuade WB to order more webisodes.

"I want to do a second season of 'Children's Hospital' because legally, that may be all I can do," said Corddry in an interview last week.

Like everyone else in L.A., Corddry is watching nervously as the staring contest between the Screen Actors Guild and the big studios drags on, praying that it doesn't turn into the second industry-crippling work stoppage in as many years.

"I'm getting scared, so I just told my agent to find me something that's trash," Corddry said. And then something just came out of him that I had to quote, after sanitizing it "Daily Show"-style: "Bleep artistic integrity! I guarantee the next thing I shoot will be complete bleep and I will be bleepin' sleepwalking through it!!"

Well, that can't be said of "Children's Hospital." It's closer to comedy bronze than comedy gold, but no one's sleepwalking through it, especially not Hayes, a very funny actress who America now knows as the endlessly patient wife-to-be on CBS's breakout comedy "Worst Week." Here she plays a doctor who's hot for another doctor who happens to be a hot woman. Yes, it's hot -- at least until the sneezing begins.

Corddry, who oddly enough was sitting in a waiting room at a children's hospital when he got the idea for "Children's Hospital," also landed a number of other people for cameos, including what he calls "a huge surprise in episode 10 -- a big A-list star." He added, "I can't give out her name, but that narrows it down about 50 percent."