‘Doc McStuffins’ Tackled Big Issues Like Adoption, Cancer and Same-Sex Parents
“Doc McStuffins” featured many famous voices over the years. Creator Chris Nee was especially delighted when then-first lady Michelle Obama agreed to lend her voice to the episode “Doc McStuffins Goes to Washington.” The episode appeared in 2015. In the episode, Obama invites Doc and other children who have made a difference in their communities to the White House to honor them in a special ceremony.
The show explored adoption in a five-part series in 2016 that included the episodes “Baby McStuffins,” “Runaway Love,” “Hootie’s Duty,” “Bringing Home Baby” and “Baby Names/Night Night, LaLa.” Each episode explored the emotions a family goes through
as they bring a child into their family and focused on normalizing adoption.
In “The Emergency Plan,” Wanda Sykes and Portia de Rossi voice interracial same-sex parents. Doc helps this doll family because they were separated during an earthquake as they did not have an emergency plan in place. The episode first aired in 2017 and faced backlash for its inclusion of same-sex parents from the conservative group, One Million Moms.
Doc also explored long-term illnesses such as cancer in “Hannah the Brave.”
Real-life cancer survivor Robin Roberts appeared in the episode that discussed the impact of chemotherapy on Audrey and her doll, Hannah. It first aired on National Cancer Survivors Day in 2017.
When the pandemic made hygiene an even more important part of daily routines, the song “Wash Your Hands,” which first appeared in the Season 1 episode “Caught Blue-Handed,” became famous again, used as part of a partnership between Disney and the World Health Organization in 2020 to encourage children to wash their hands in the fight against COVID-19.
W. Kamau Bell watched the series with his oldest daughter and continues to watch with his younger daughter.
The episode “Take Your Doc to Work Day,” which features the song “Love My Hairdo,” is one Bell remembers. In it, Doc meets a doll named Curly Q who struggles to embrace her curly hair. Doc helps her embrace and come to love her curls.
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