Why Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, and Martin Short Turned Colonoscopy Prep Into a Party

Every couple of years, three of Hollywood's most recognizable comedians get together for a night that has nothing to do with a movie premiere or an awards show. It has a lot to do with a colonoscopy.

Tom Hanks described the ritual to Jimmy Kimmel this summer. He, Steve Martin, and Martin Short schedule their screenings around the same date, then spend the night before at Martin's house drinking their prescribed prep solution and competing to see who can hold out the longest before needing the bathroom. Hanks called it "mano a mano." The stakes are real, at least by the rules of the game: whoever goes first gets stuck with the worst appointment time the next morning. Whoever holds out longest gets first pick.

It is, by any normal standard, a strange way to spend an evening. It is also, once you understand why they started doing it, one of the more honest things a group of friends has ever admitted to on live television.

A Tradition With a Real History

This was not the first time the story had come out. Martin and Short told a version of it on Kimmel's show back in 2018, describing a catered gathering they called "Colonoscopy Eve." The catering, they joked, was not exactly lavish. Clear gelatin, broth, and not much else, because there is not much else you are allowed to eat.

The tradition actually traces back further, to Martin Short's 2014 memoir, where he wrote about a standing arrangement with Martin, Hanks, and producer Walter Parkes. Every other year or so, the group gathers, plays cards, works through their prep, and takes turns in the bathroom until, as Short put it, the evening starts to resemble the tail end of a long cruise.

Whatever you think of the details, the tradition has held up for over a decade. That kind of staying power says something. Prep is uncomfortable enough that a group of friends built a recurring ritual just to get through it together.

The Joke Made It Into the Writers' Room

The bit has traveled beyond late-night television. In 2024, HBO's Hacks built an episode around a version of the same gathering, a group of veteran comedians spending an evening together before their colonoscopies. The scene was directly inspired by Short's memoir.

That same year, Only Murders in the Building gave Steve Martin and Martin Short's real-life friendship a quiet nod. In one episode, Short's character tells Martin's character they will be friends to the end, then adds that they can get colonoscopies together. It is a five-word line, but it only works because audiences already knew the story behind it.

When a private, slightly embarrassing health ritual becomes something writers reference on two different shows in the same year, it stops being a quirky celebrity anecdote. It becomes a sign that a lot of people recognize themselves in it.

Why the Joke Lands

Here is the part that is not funny. Bowel prep is consistently the main reason people put off a colonoscopy in the first place. Nationally, only around two-thirds of eligible adults are up to date on colorectal cancer screening, and that number drops further, to roughly a third, among adults newly eligible at 45. The procedure itself is rarely what people dread. It is the night before it.

Patients describe the same things Hanks and Short joke about, just without the punchline. Large volumes of laxative solution. Restricted eating for a day or more. Uncertainty about whether any of it worked well enough for the exam to count. For a meaningful share of patients, that combination is enough to delay screening altogether, sometimes for years.

Hanks, Martin, and Short handled that dread by turning it into a shared, competitive, oddly bonding experience. That is a completely reasonable response to a bad night. Most people do not have two famous best friends and a house to gather at, so they get through it alone.

What Prep Actually Involves

If you have never gone through it, the basics are worth knowing. The day before a colonoscopy, patients typically move to a clear liquid diet: water, black coffee or tea, clear broths, sports drinks, and gelatin without red, blue, or purple dye, since those colors can be mistaken for something else during the exam. On top of the diet, patients drink a prescribed prep solution that clears the colon so the doctor can see clearly during the procedure.

None of that has changed much in decades, even as almost everything else about colonoscopy, sedation, imaging, the procedure itself, has improved.

A Clever Workaround, Not a Fix

Turning prep into a party is a genuinely good coping strategy. Company helps. Humor helps. A little friendly competition apparently helps. But a party is still a workaround built around a process that has not fundamentally changed since it became a standard of care. It asks patients to manage something demanding almost entirely on their own, at home, and just hope it goes well enough.

That is the problem Zera Medical exists to work on.

Zera Medical is developing ZeraFlow, a clinic-based bowel preparation system designed to move that process out of the home and into a short, supervised visit before the colonoscopy itself. ZeraFlow is currently under review for FDA clearance.

The idea behind it is straightforward. The night before your colonoscopy should not have to be an event you plan around, whether that means clearing your calendar for a competition with friends or just getting through it by yourself. Once cleared, ZeraFlow is designed to let that night look like any other one on your calendar, so the evening before your screening does not have to be one you remember at all.

The Bottom Line

Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, and Martin Short turned a dreaded night into a tradition worth telling Jimmy Kimmel about. That is a good story. It is also a reminder of just how much friction still sits between people and a screening that saves lives. If you are 45 or older, or have a family history that puts you at earlier risk, talk to your doctor about scheduling a colonoscopy. However you get through the night before, getting the exam done is what matters most.

This post is part of an ongoing educational series from Zera Medical on the colorectal cancer screening gap and the preparation experience that shapes it. Zera Medical is developing ZeraFlow™, an investigational clinic-based bowel preparation system currently under FDA regulatory review. ZeraFlow has not been cleared or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is not available for commercial distribution or sale.