Cultural influence
Neil Patrick Harris has satirized his years playing a teenage medical doctor several times:
In an episode of Roseanne, Roseanne Conner (Roseanne Barr) has a dream after having undergone breast reduction surgery. She goes to the mirror and realizes that her breasts are comically larger than before. Doogie Howser (Harris) comes in and asks an upset Roseanne if they were supposed to be bigger.
Barney Stinson (also played by Harris) writes in his computerized diary at the end of the How I Met Your Mother episode "The Bracket," while the Doogie Howser theme music plays. In the later episode "The Stinsons," he also comments, "Call me crazy but child actors were way better in the '80s".
In the 2004 comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Harris – playing a fictionalized version of himself – claims to have "humped every piece of ass ever on that show" (except the hot nurse, over whom he expresses regret). Harris is referred to as "Doogie Howser" while stealing Harold (John Cho)'s car from the convenience store. In Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Harris remarks, after taking psychotropic mushrooms, "Dude, I was able to perform an appendectomy at 14, I think I can handle a few 'shrooms".
In 2008, Harris appeared in commercials for Old Spice deodorant, claiming to be an expert because he "used to be a doctor for pretends".
During the opening of the 2009 TV Land Awards, Harris, who hosted the show, travels through "The TV Land Zone" (a spoof of The Twilight Zone), where he finds himself the star of TV classics. At one point, Harris walks into a doctor's office, dressed as Doogie, while the Doogie Howser, M.D. theme plays. After realizing where he is, he storms out, saying, "No no no, not gonna happen! Check my contract!"
On the January 10, 2009 episode of Saturday Night Live, an "SNL Digital Short" featured Harris, the episode's guest host, leading a full orchestra version of the Doogie Howser theme. When the song concludes, he turns toward the camera and sheds a tear.
On the March 14, 2011 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a "real doctor" played by Harris endorses Jimmy Kimmel's Jim-Miracle Diet, as the Doogie Howser theme plays.
Harris in 2017 joined other actors from medical television shows in Cigna's "TV Doctors of America" advertising campaign for annual checkups.
Neil Patrick Harris played Doogie Howser in The Earth Day Special in 1990. In the special, Doogie, along with two other doctors (played by Dana Delany and James Brolin), are informed by the Back to the Future trilogy scientist Emmett L. Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) on how to save Mother Nature (played by Bette Midler).
In Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, any blond, good-looking waiter working in his restaurant is immediately nicknamed "Doogie Howser".
Smart mice obtained by genetic engineering have been named "Doogie mice" in honor of Harris's character.
In 2025, after it was announced that Harris was voicing Deadpool in Marvel's Deadpool VR, Ryan Reynolds posted an advertisement for the game where he pretended to portray Doogie Howser and write in his computer diary joking about Neil taking his role. Robyn Lively, Reynolds's sister-in-law, also makes an appearance.
