The award-winning Disney Junior show Doc McStuffins ran its last new episode on Saturday after eight years on the air. It won much praise for offering the positive role model of a young Black girl who was a doctor—and for a 2017 episode that was the channel’s first to show a two-mom family. Its creator and executive producer, Chris Nee, is also a lesbian mom herself.
In the long-running show, the titular Doc is a young girl who can magically inhabit a world of toys and helps to fix them when they are injured. The show won a Peabody Award in 2014, an NAACP Image Award in 2015, and a Kidscreen Award in 2016, among other honors, and won fans among Black viewers and their families seeking positive representation—though it also had a universal appeal. Michelle Obama even had a guest appearance. In 2014, Disney partnered with the Artemis Society, an organization for women physicians of color, for the We Are Doc McStuffins project, in which Disney aired short clips showing Doc with Black women doctors talking about their jobs and lives. Disney also co-sponsored a 2013 50-city We Are Doc McStuffins tour, a chance for community members and Artemis members to meet.
Dr. Myiesha Taylor, president and co-founder of the Artemis Society, told the Women’s Media Center in 2014 that sometimes in her career, “When I went into the room and said, ‘I’m Dr. Taylor,’ even African-American patients sometimes said, ‘Oh, you’re the doctor?’ They really couldn’t comprehend it. I believe Doc McStuffins sends a message that helps us to bypass some of the shock and surprise and lets doctor and patient get down to business.”
In the 2017 episode, “The Emergency Plan,” Doc helped two doll moms reunite with each other and their two kids after a toy dragon caused an “earthquake” by jumping up and down. Doc then explained the importance of having a family emergency plan. It was the first Disney Junior Show to depict clearly LGBTQ characters (though the Disney Channel, for older children, had done so in 2014).
The moms were named Thea and Edie, after Thea Spyer and Edie Windsor
The right-wing organization One Million Moms, a division of the designated hate group the American Family Association, called for a boycott of the show after that, to little effect. The show instead won praise among the LGBTQ community and was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. Unlike many children’s television shows, too, which had dared to show LGBTQ characters only right before they were scheduled to end, Doc aired for three more years.
Nee said on Twitter Saturday, “I know there’s disappointment when a show ends, but we had a great long run. There should be enough episodes to sustain any kid through their Doc watching years. It was a natural end. Disney did us right.” The show will continue to stream old episodes on Disney Plus.
As for the last episode, Nee reminded us of the importance not only of Doc, but of our real-life medical professionals right now:
I’m so proud of this episode. Perfect last one. To imagine what life would have been like without Doc. And know how important that she was here, just like all our frontline doctors. Thank you for going on this journey with us for all these years.
“The Doc is Out” Chris