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Who really said it

Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a..

Not quite — the actual line is “I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!” Gene L. Coon 1924–1973 · Star Trek screenwriter, story editor & showrunner
Disputed In copyright

Dr. McCoy’s catchphrase was born in “The Devil in the Dark” (Star Trek, 9 March 1967), written by Gene L. Coon: Kirk orders McCoy to treat a silicon-based creature and McCoy snaps, “I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!” He never says “Damn it” — the word was taboo on 1960s network television — and he doesn't say “Jim” in the line either. Both halves of the popular wording are later accretions.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a..” Gene L. Coon, "The Devil in the Dark," Star Trek, NBC, 9 March 1967. The actual line is "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!" — McCoy never said "Damn it, Jim" in the original series.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Paramount Global — successor to Norway Productions and Desilu Productions, which produced the series in this period; CBS Media Ventures holds the Star Trek television rights). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Gene L. Coon — Star Trek screenwriter, story editor & showrunner. Theme: "Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a..". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a..". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The line as broadcast

Work
Star Trek, season 1, episode 25 — “The Devil in the Dark”
First aired
9 March 1967, NBC
Written by
Gene L. Coon (directed by Joseph Pevney)
Spoken by
Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley) — a fictional character

McCoy: You can't be serious. That thing is virtually made out of stone!
Kirk: Help it. Treat it.
McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!
Kirk: You're a healer. There's a patient. That's an order. Season 1, episode 25

Kirk has just ordered McCoy to treat the Horta, a wounded silicon-based lifeform. Note what isn't there: no oath, and no “Jim.” Wikipedia records this as the first appearance of the catchphrase; every later variant — escalator, mechanic, engineer, coal miner — is built on this one.

Wikiquote: Star Trek: The Original Series (transcribed dialogue and Misattributed section)

How we verified this

  • 1966 — the seed. Gene L. Coon drafts his story outline for “The Devil in the Dark” on 29 November 1966. Per StarTrek.com ↗ the phrase appears there as plain description — “He is a doctor, not a bricklayer” — and is then “reformatted and used by the good doctor himself in the script as dialogue.” The line is authored, not borrowed and not improvised.
  • 1967 — broadcast. The episode airs 9 March 1967. Wikipedia ↗: “This episode marks the first appearance of Doctor McCoy's catchphrase, ‘I'm a doctor, not a ...’” It recurs throughout the run; Memory Alpha ↗ catalogues the variants — psychiatrist, escalator, mechanic, engineer, coal miner. None carries an oath.
  • The drift. Wikiquote ↗ lists the popular wording under Misattributed, alongside “Beam me up, Scotty” and “She can't take much more of this, Captain” — a whole shelf of Star Trek lines the public quotes and the series never contained. The common thread: each is a tidier, punchier sentence than the one actually broadcast.
  • 2016 — the misquote comes true. Memory Alpha ↗ records that “this version of the line was eventually used” by the alternate-reality McCoy: Karl Urban, in Star Trek Beyond (written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung), reaches “Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a fu –” and is beamed out before finishing.
In copyright

“The Devil in the Dark” was first broadcast in 1967, well after the 1930 US public-domain cutoff, so it remains in copyright. Television writing is work-for-hire: the rights belong to the studio, not to Gene L. Coon's estate. Per Wikipedia ↗, “Norway Productions and Desilu Productions produced the series from September 1966 to December 1967” — the window this episode falls in — with the franchise television rights now held by CBS Media Ventures under Paramount Global. The short quoted exchange above is reproduced for identification and commentary.

Fact-check

What's actually wrong here

Nobody is falsely credited on this one. The show is right, the character is right, the actor is right — the words are wrong, in three separate places, and the writer gets forgotten.

“Damn it” Never said in TOS

Wikiquote files “Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor not a...” under Misattributed ↗, noting McCoy “never uttered ‘Damn it’ during the series; the closest he or anyone ever came was the euphemisms ‘Blast it!’ or ‘Blast!’” Wikipedia's article on Leonard McCoy ↗ agrees: “damn” was considered taboo on 1960s television.

“Jim” Not in the real line

In the transcribed exchange ↗ McCoy is indeed snapping at Kirk, but the line itself names nobody: “I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!” The “Jim” is supplied by memory.

DeForest Kelley Actor, not author

Kelley spoke the line; he did not write it. StarTrek.com's account of the episode's development ↗ shows the phrase originating in Gene L. Coon's own story outline, typed as description — “He is a doctor, not a bricklayer” — before being “reformatted and used by the good doctor himself in the script as dialogue.”

“Kelley ad-libbed it” Unsupported

A popular retelling holds that the catchphrase began as an improvisation. The version we could find cites only “accounts from the show's production” ↗ with no named witness or document. A dated story outline in the writer's hand outranks an unsourced anecdote.

SNL · Jay Leno Unproven

CBR canvasses the likely culprits — a Saturday Night Live Star Trek sketch, and Jay Leno's 1984 routine — but offers them as speculation rather than a finding ↗. We have not seen the misquote's first appearance pinned to a specific broadcast, and we don't assert one.

Gene L. Coon wrote it, DeForest Kelley said it, and what he said was “I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer! ↗” — no oath, no Jim. Curiously, the popular wording did eventually reach the screen: Karl Urban's McCoy gets as far as “Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a fu –” ↗ in Star Trek Beyond (2016) before being beamed out mid-word.

Context

Why the words drifted

McCoy’s complaint was never a fixed sentence — it was a template. Across three seasons DeForest Kelley filled the blank with bricklayer, escalator, mechanic, engineer, coal miner, psychiatrist, magician. Wikiquote's own page files it under repeated lines as “I'm a doctor, not a ______________!” A phrase with a hole in the middle is remembered as a shape rather than as words, and shapes are easy to reupholster.

What got added was the swearing. “Damn” was effectively unsayable on 1960s American network television, so the writers reached for “Blast it!” instead. But parodists were under no such constraint, and the profanity that Kelley was forbidden migrated back onto him through decades of impressions — until the quotation people confidently recite is one the censors had specifically prohibited.

The censors banned the word. The impressionists put it back. The public kept the impressionists’ version.

The joke came full circle in 2016

The Kelvin-timeline films let Karl Urban’s McCoy do what Kelley could not. Memory Alpha records “Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!” in Star Trek (2009) and “Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a torpedo technician!” in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) — both addressed to “man,” not to Jim.

The full popular wording finally reached the screen in Star Trek Beyond (2016), written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. Memory Alpha transcribes it as “Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a fu –” — McCoy is beamed out mid-word. After half a century of being quoted saying it, the character got to say it exactly once, and was not allowed to finish.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Star Trek: The Original Series — Misattributeden.wikiquote.org

The anchor source. Lists “Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor not a...” under Misattributed, and transcribes the real bricklayer exchange from “The Devil in the Dark.”
I'm a doctor, not a...memory-alpha.fandom.com

Every documented use of the catchphrase, episode by episode, plus the note that the line “has been misquoted in media” as “Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor...”
The Evolution of ‘The Devil in the Dark’www.startrek.com

The official site's account of Coon's 29 November 1966 story outline, where the line first appears as narration: “He is a doctor, not a bricklayer.”
The Devil in the Darken.wikipedia.org

Episode record: written by Gene L. Coon, directed by Joseph Pevney, aired 9 March 1967 — and the first appearance of the catchphrase.
Leonard McCoyen.wikipedia.org

States plainly that “damn” was never said on the original show, and counts the catchphrase at 11 Kelley deliveries and three by Karl Urban.
Did Dr. McCoy Never Actually Give a ‘Damn’ On Star Trek?www.cbr.com

Traces why the misquote spread, floating Saturday Night Live and Jay Leno's 1984 routine as candidate vectors — explicitly as theories, not findings.

The writer of the real line

The man who wrote Bones

Gene L. Coon

1924–1973 · Star Trek screenwriter, story editor & showrunner

Gene L. Coon (7 January 1924 – 8 July 1973) was the screenwriter, story editor and showrunner who ran Star Trek from the middle of its first season to the middle of its second — the stretch in which much of the show's enduring furniture was invented. He is credited with creating the Klingons, Khan Noonien Singh and Zefram Cochrane, with advancing the Prime Directive, and with formally naming the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet Command. He also wrote “The Devil in the Dark,” the episode that gave Leonard McCoy the complaint he would be quoted on — usually incorrectly — for the next sixty years.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Gene L. Coon, “The Devil in the Dark,” Star Trek, season 1, episode 25, directed by Joseph Pevney, aired 9 March 1967, on NBC.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a..’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/damn-it-jim-im-a-doctor-not-a

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