Series Description

The Dr. Phil Show is a 30 minute reality series on CBS since its premiere on September 16, 2002. Dr. Phil McGraw utilizes his experience as a clinical psychologist to guide people in making changes that will result in improving some difficulty they are having in their lives. Some of those difficulties include obesity, poor management of money, rebellious teens, raising austistic children, marriage troubles, parents who believe that their errant kids can do no wrong and just about any other issue you can think of. Dr. Phil often has to get tough with his guests in order to get them to see that they do actually have a problem but in the end, most see the error of their ways and agree to take some action to correct the situation. Dr. Phil often offers ongoing help to his guests including ongoing therapy and he also sometimes checks back to see what progress a previous guest has made.

Dr. Phil Cast

Phil McGraw .... Host

Dr. Phil Trivia

To a slight degree, the Dr. Phil Show is a family affair. His wife Robin sits in the audience for most of the episodes and walks off the set with her husband at the end of the show. In addition, Dr. Phil's son Jordan wrote the theme song that's been used on the show since 2009 and he also performs it!

The previous theme song on Dr. Phil was titled, "Shine" by "Meredith Brooks".

Dr. Phil was first seen on guest segments of "The Oprah Winfrey Show". His episodes were so popular that Oprah decided to produce the Dr. Phil Show via her company, "Harpo Productions". Reruns of the Dr. Phil Show can currently (2012) be seen on Oprah's "OWN" (Oprah Winfrey Network).

In a rare move, CBS has aired several prime time specials of this daytime television program.

The Dr. Phil show has received a Daytime Emmy nomination every year since 2004! Dr. Phil himself has been nominated four times as of 2012 for "Outstanding Talk Show Host".

Starting in 2006, Dr. Phil occasionally left his studio audience to consult with troubled people in his "Dr. Phil House". Many microphones and cameras are located throughout the house in order to see how the houseguests relate to each other when Dr. Phil isn't around. A staff is on hand to prevent the unavoidable conflicts from becoming physical and Dr. Phil periodically appears to give advice about how a situation could have been handled better.

Dr. Phil often brings families back to the show for further counseling on segments titled, "Dr. Phil Family".

Dr. Phil has sometimes received criticism for his opposition to pornography because his son Jay was married to a Playboy Playmate but that criticism is hardly fair. First, there's a big difference between posing nude and performing sexual acts on camera. Secondly, fathers rarely have much to say about who their sons fall in love with. Thirdly, Jay's wife posed in Playboy at 21 year of age and by 27 had pulled her website with nude photos from the web and started a cooking website. She didn't marry Jay until two years after that. Since then she's worked in traditional television, mostly alongside her husband. So critics should think about whether they want every single thing they did when young held against them for life!

By the way ... Jay McGraw is a pretty interesting guy! He is executive producer of another popular CBS daytime show, "The Doctors". In his spare time he has earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, a private pilot's license and become a certified scuba diver!

One phrase that Dr. Phil has kind of made into a catchphrase is, "And how is that working out for you?" He uses the phrase whenever a guest says that they do something that is bad for their relationship. For example, if a man having marriage problems says that he thinks his wife should be ok with him going to stripper bars with his single friends, Dr. Phil responds, "And how is that working out for you?"