Dr Kenneth Ring (fake name) – a Proctologist – is serious about Men’s Health, and he knows from his 37 years experience that most men don’t want to talk much about health matters, especially those involving a man’s arsehole and beyond.
But Dr Ring also knows that humour helps in any awkward situation, and being a massive music fan – in particular Creedence Clearwater Revival – he had a go at renaming his medical office in outer suburban Brisbane a few months ago.
So he changed the name of his clinic from Brisbane North Gastroenterology to a pun on his favourite Creedence song – Lookin’ Up Your Back Door.
He didn’t stop with the name of the clinic either, Dr Ring tried to raise the awareness and importance of his work using more CCR based puns.
His “Up Around the Bend” was mildly amusing with a picture of the doctor himself pulling on a glove. Which occasionally got a smile from a first time visitor to the clinic.
Other ones were less well received like “Don’t be the Unfortunate Son – Get A Check up Today” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine – That you haven’t had a recent check up.” Not only because they weren’t really that funny, but they aimed at people who haven’t had a check up, and the people inside clearly were in the process.
Even worse was using Rude Awakening, which is an obscure instrumental only track from Creedence’s second last album. One for the fans the good doctor thought.
Regular visitors had a brief chuckle when the posters and clinic rename happened, noting Dr Ring’s eccentricity from time to time. The overall view was it wasn’t that funny, but Dr Ring deserved some credit for trying.
It seemed to work at first.
The local Quest paper, as ever looking for filler between the butcher ads and car yard bargains, ran a page 11 special on the new name.
This then led to the Lookin’ Up Your Back Door clinic gaining more notoriety for a week or so, as A Current Affair ran an unflattering segment on the name change, calling it disgrace that such a serious thing could be made so trivial by a name. Of course being ACA, not many people noticed, and even fewer believed the garbage, and the show quickly segued into feuding neighbours, which bra you can use to lure dodgy business men to a pyramid scheme and a new supermarket trend you’ll forget within a week.
But the damage was done, Dr Ring’s clinic name became if figure of fun, and subsequent new clients really dropped off, and existing clients kept away just in case ACA were around.
Of course the ACA airing then led to the business that holds the rights to the music getting in touch with a cease and desist notice for the name and posters both.
Deciding to cut his losses, as it wasn’t worth the current trouble it was causing, Dr Ring decided to drop the CCR theme and try with a more obscure artist that may not make get him in trouble.
So he went with Warren Zevon, famous for the Werewolves of London song, using an obscure Album track off a later album called “My ShIt’s F—ed Up”.
Which is an actual Warren Zevon song for the record.
With many existing and potential customers presuming the doctor had lost the plot a little, and were no longer keen to be prodded by Dr Ring, the clinic now is serving just four customers a week.
Everyday News is a brand new general news/parody section of The Gurgler, and definitely not a lame rip-off of ‘The Betoota Advocate’. We swear.
