Neil Flynn on ‘The Middle,’ ‘Scrubs’ and Why He Never Wants His Own Show

“Hey this is Neil,” Neil Flynn’s answering machine said. “Leave me a message and I’ll call you back in two days.”

Fortunately for a writer on deadline, this was a lie, and Flynn called back in less than five minutes. It’s also a joke, a pretty simple and silly one on paper. But thanks to Flynn’s delicious, deadpan delivery, it made me laugh out loud.

Flynn tells a lot of jokes, makes a living of it, as Mike Heck on ‘The Middle,’ ABC’s popular ‘Malcolm in the Middle’-esque comedy about a sweet-natured, blue collar family living in small town Indiana that was picked up for a second season. Flynn’s character’s the quiet patriarch, a blue collar dad who works as a manager of a quarry, and often the straight man to wife Frankie (Patricia Heaton) and three misfit kids. It’s a step up to a bigger role for the 49-year-old actor who first found a national audience playing the sarcastic, nameless janitor on ‘Scrubs’ for eight seasons.