Patients

Here are all the patients that visited Dr. Philip Sherman's office in Finding Nemo:

Biography

"There is never a dull moment for the Sydney citizens who rely on Dr. Sherman to care for their teeth. Pelicans run riot in his examination room, screams from Darla echo around the waiting room, and his fish stage dramatic escapes from his deluxe aquarium. Even the Australian Prime Minister goes there for the entertainment—well, it can't be for the quality of dental care!"^[1]

Mr. Tucker

"Well, Mr. Tucker. While that sets up, I'm gonna see a man about a wallaby."

—Philip Sherman

Mr. Tucker is the first of the patients seen in Finding Nemo. He is seen after Nemo is put into Dr. Sherman's fish tank as he is getting an anterior crown. He flinches and screams in pain whenever Dr. Sherman does operations on his teeth. After getting his teeth checked he is advised by Sherman to rinse, which he does.

The Prime Minister

"Well, good thing I pulled the right one, eh, Prime Minister?"

—Philip Sherman

The second of the patients seen in Finding Nemo, the Prime Minister is seen getting his check-up during the Tank Gang's second attempt at clogging the filter. When Nigel the pelican crashes into the window overlooking the harbor before being let in to tell Nemo about Marlin and Dory's journey to Sydney to find him, the noise startles Dr. Sherman so much that he accidentally forcefully yanks out the prime minister's bad tooth, causing him to scream in pain. His real name is unknown. During that time, the real Prime Minister of Australia was John Howard.

Davey Reynolds

"Little Davey Reynolds. How are you doing?"

"Alright."

—Philip Sherman and Davey Reynolds

Davey Reynolds appears in the scene where the tank is very dirty. Davey gets his teeth checked when Sherman arrives at his Dental office late. He is about 12 or 13 years old. Davey Reynolds' name is most likely a reference to Pixar employee David Reynolds, who wrote Finding Nemo.

Unnamed Boy and Mother

This boy and mother can be seen in the waiting room three times near the end of the film during Darla's checkup: The first time when the Tank Gang mistake them for Darla resulting in a "false alarm" after mocking the AquaScum 2003 for ruining their escape plan, but before Dr. Sherman scoops Nemo out of the tank; and the second and third times where they are sitting on a couch facing the fish tank where they notice the commotion between Dr. Sherman, Darla, Marlin, Dory, Nigel, and Gill while attempting to get Nemo away from Darla (the second time they appear, the boy is surprised, and the third the mother gets surprised as well), since the fish tank is located inside a rectangular hole in the wall separating the waiting room from the dental office. The boy sees Sherman and Darla but not Nigel, leading him to think she is screaming in pain rather than panicking about the commotion in the room, making him shocked.

They have the most screentime of all of Dr. Sherman's patients seen in the film, and are the ones seen in the most detail.

The boy is presumably 8-10 years of age, has short brown hair, and wears a dark blue T-shirt, tan shorts, and brown sandals (implied, since his lower legs were cut off by the bottom of the screen in his and his mother's first appearance and by the coffee table in their last two).

The mother appears to be in her 30s, also has brown hair styled into a flip, and she wears a light purple jacket over a light green shirt, a calf-length light purple skirt (the hem, which features a faint stitching represented by two thin lines, extends down to where an electrical socket near the door would be) concealing her long, thin legs, and gray tennis shoes.

Darla

See here.

Unnamed Brunette-haired Girl

This second brunette haired woman can be seen being surprised by the above commotion in the dental office with the boy and mother. She is a teenager, and is partially shown wearing a purple t-shirt.

Unnamed Balding Man

This balding, middle-aged man can be seen also being surprised by the above commotion in the dental office with the boy and mother. He is shown wearing a white dress shirt with a tie.

Gallery

Trivia

• During the boy and mother's last two appearances, the boy can be seen reading a Mr. Incredible comic, foreshadowing the release of The Incredibles, which was released the following year. The mother is also reading a newspaper showing the current weather in Sydney, Australia.
• Because of the reframing process Pixar uses for its fullscreen home releases, in the fullscreen version of Finding Nemo (exclusive the 2003 US original home release, the 2012 Blu-ray release and the international versions of both releases only contains the widescreen release), when the boy and his mother enter the waiting room, the mother's skirt billows upward for a split second, revealing the visible portion of her legs underneath. However, we still see the mother's legs in the widescreen version, but she and her son were sitting. It happens at 1:14.57 in the film.

  

• The mother's skirt is one of Pixar's first attempts at animating realistically-animated flowing clothing.
• Mr Tucker and the prime minister have the same screaming sounds in English, but in every international foreign dubs, they have a new and different screaming sound.

References