Absent-Minded Professor: Difference between revisions

 

 

This is a very old character type, referred to by this name since at least 1864.

 

 

 

* Prof. Banner from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' qualifies, even though his profession is alchemy.

* [[Mad Scientist|Doctor Professor Franken Stein]] from ''[[Soul Eater]]''.

* ''[[Read or Die]]'': Yomiko Readman qualifies. She's not a professor (although she is a substitute teacher), but she gets so caught up in her reading that her friend Nenene has to leave post-it notes scattered around her apartment reminding her to do things like close the door and ''[[Forgets to Eat|eat]]''.

* Field Marshal Tenpou isn't technically a professor, but otherwise fits this trope to a T. He's like if you took an absent minded professor and made him a military officer. Though he does notably teach Goku to read, (which saves his later incarnation, Hakkai, who is a teacher but the opposite of absentminded, from doing so) Oh! this takes place in [[Saiyuki]] by the way!

 

** Peter Parker once channeled Reed, ignoring Gwen Stacy while he worked on a science project.

* Professor Schimauski, by German artist [[Walter Moers]].

 

== Films -- Animation ==

* ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' has Belle's father Maurice. He invents strange contraptions, gets lost in the woods on his way back from a fair, ignores his horse Philippe's instincts to turn back, and ultimately ends up as the Beast's temporary prisoner.

 

== Films -- Live Action ==

* "Doc" Emmett Brown from ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]]''.

* ''[[Bullshot]]'' (1983). Professor Rupert Fenton, of the Royal Society of Scientific Discoverers.

* Dr. Steve Mills from ''[[My Stepmother Is An Alien]]''.

* Wayne Szalinski from ''[[Honey, I Shrunk the Kids]]''. He is an absent-minded professor, mixed with [[Man Child]] to the point of lampshading it in ''Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves'', and he's even more so in the TV series starring Peter Scolari.

** Subverted by Henry Jones, Sr. in the same movie: he is taken by many (including Indy) be an absent-minded professor, but in the end betrays himself as a man who is more attuned to his environment than originally thought.

* Harold Medford in the classic giant-mutant-ant movie ''[[Them]]''

* Dr. Pennyworth in the spoof ''[[Monster in the Closet]]''.

 

== What do I need to say next? ... Jokes? ==

* Three professors from the university of Prague are walking through a shopping arcade.

Prof 3: Then we have to aboard! }}

(And they leave for the street.)

* A biology professor announces a pop quiz, students will be forced to identify species of birds from their droppings. "Our first specimen--" He reaches into a brown paper bag and pulls out a ham sandwich. He frowns and dumps out the bag, revealing an apple and bag of chips. "My word," he blurts out, "What did I eat for lunch?"

 

== Literature ==

* Professor Branestawm from the children's books by Norman Hunter perfectly embodies this trope.

* Dr. Jacob Buckman from ''[[The Mote in God's Eye]]'' and ''The Gripping Hand'' by [[Larry Niven]] and Jerry Pournelle, who gets so caught up in the opportunity to observe the formation of a new star that he completely forgets to mention to anyone that the resulting gravitational shifts will release a race of hostile aliens into the galaxy.

* In Steve Perry's ''[[Matador Series|Black Steel]]'', Sleel's parents were revealed to be the two most famous botanists alive, and both embody this trope. The robot that delivers their meals had to be set with an annoying alarm that required a manual shut off, thus ensuring that they would [[Forgets to Eat|stop work for meals]].

* Pretty much all the wizards at the [[Discworld|Unseen University]]. The Bursar's mind in particular is on an extended leave of absence.

* Professor Pinkerton-Barnes from ''[[Barnaby Grimes]]''. He completely fails to notice when Barnaby is in a hurry to get away and track down the villain, instead prattling on about his latest theory, which involves small birds being turned savage by fruit.

* Played with in one of the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' novels when WEB Du Havel responds to Anton's demand that he keep an eye on the Princess and Anton's daughter with the derisive comment that he's an absent minded professor and that they'll outwit him left and right.

* Several characters created by [[Robert Heinlein]] fit this trope.

** Daniel Boone Davis of [[The Door Into Summer]] was absent-minded enough that he allowed his small engineering company to be taken from him by his business partner and his fiance because he was too busy designing the next big thing. Subverted in that {{spoiler|he then proceeds to [[Take a Level In Badass]] by using his engineering genius--and knowledge of the future--to exercise an elaborate [[Batman Gambit]] as revenge.}}

* Annabeth's father in ''[[Percy Jackson & the Olympians|Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]''. He often loses his track of mind,if even the smallest thing reminds him about history.

* Also by Rick Riordan; Thoth from [[The Kane Chronicles]] who spends quite a while yammering on about his barbecue despite the fact that there are far more pressing things like the fact that Set is free again.

* Mr. Welch, a professor of history in the novel ''Lucky Jim'', is usually too scatterbrained to finish a sentence properly.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Chilean children's show ''Cachureos'' had an Image song named "El profesor distra?", roughly translated as "Absent-Minded Schoolteacher".

** In one of the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novels, [[The Multiverse]] is in danger and the Doctor is in his lab sorting it out. He leaves for a couple minutes and accidentally smacks one of his companions in the face with a door, giving him a nosebleed, and doesn't seem to notice. Four days later, he gives him a soiled handkerchief and apologizes, apparently unaware that four days have passed. As the same companion said in a much-earlier book, "Ladies and gentlemen, the mind of a Time Lord."

** This is 11. No doubt about it. His behavior in ''The Big Bang'' exemplifies this.

* Daniel Faraday, ''[[Lost]]''. The youngest graduate of Oxford in its history, professor in his ''20s'', pioneer in {{spoiler|[[Time Travel]]}}... and he can barely remember anything. {{spoiler|Until the Island heals him, that is...}}

* Both Charlie Epps and Larry Fleinhardt of ''[[Numb3rs]]'' are prone to this. Charlie gets better as the series progresses, but Larry is often prone to being so deep in contemplation of either physics, math or philosophy that he forgets what's going on around him.

* One episode of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' includes a professor so absent-minded and such an [[Insufferable Genius]] that his wife uses a telepathic double to romance Captain Sisko to deal with his neglect. The professor was amusingly played by Richard Kiley, best known for portraying ''[[Don Quixote]]''.

* Ambrose/Glitch from ''[[Tin Man (TV series)|Tin Man]]''. Somewhat justified as the [[Big Bad]] really did take half his brain and keep it in a jar.

* The scientist in [[The Outer Limits]] episode ''Double Helix''. His son calls him out on being so focused on his research that he was never there for his family. The scientist is incredibly shocked when he finds out that his teenage son is dating a 30 year old woman.

 

== Puppet Shows ==

* ''[[The Muppet Show]]'': Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.

 

== Radio ==

* [[The Goon Show]]'s Henry Crun, although an occasionally brilliant inventor, is both incredibly absent-minded and ridiculously old, meaning conversations about his latest creation tend to go like this:

...And that's if you're lucky and he doesn't just fall asleep halfway through a sentence. }}

 

== Hmm... I know there's something to do with games and tabletops... Oh yes! Tabletop Games! ==

* Dr. McQuark in the ''[[Champions]]'' supplement "The Blood and Dr. McQuark".

* The Izzet League from the Ravnica plane in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. Turns out that stressing creativity and having [[Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny]] produces interesting magic, large explosions, bizarre gizmos, and no-one having any idea what they're actually doing except that it's a lot of fun and makes a loud noise.

 

== Video Games ==

* Dr Kleiner, from ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'', whilst technically not a professor, nevertheless exhibits many similar characteristics to the generic absent-minded professor. He's even called as such in ''[[Concerned]]'':

* In ''Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom'' Sim, the Wizard class is this, with lines such as "Where did I put my spellbook?" Even the Easter Egg line is a mix-and-match of two old sayings. And on the game's official site, a story shows a wizard humming through the forest when a troll appears. The wizard quickly kills the troll and continues looking for mushrooms as if nothing happened.

* Aldanon from ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]''.

* ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]'''s Professor Oak is so absent-minded he doesn't remember his own grandson's name, leaving it up to the player to remind him.

* Professor Pickle from ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]''.

* The Professor in some of the ''[[Spyro the Dragon]]'' games.

* Various lines from Maria and the Professor himself in the flashback levels of ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' imply Shadow's creator, Professor Gerald, to be this as well as a [[Mad Scientist]].

* In ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' DLC ''Old World Blues'', {{spoiler|[[Anti-Villain|Dr. Mobius]]}} turns out to be this. [[Justified Trope|In his case]], it's a combination of {{spoiler|[[The Woobie|crippling senility, brain degradation due to being a]] [[Brain In a Jar]] [[The Woobie|and being heavily addicted to multiple drugs]].}}

* In [[The Sims 3]] you can apply a trait called [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Absent Minded]].

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''[[Wapsi Square]]'', Monica's boss, Dr. Gregory Fields, has traces of this. He was most likely written to be reminiscent of [[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade|Marcus Brody]], and while he never got lost in his own museum, he did [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/11082002/ forget the security code.]

* ''[[The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage]]'': Charles Babbage. On more than one occasion, he gets distracted from important stuff by minor details. While chasing a rogue steam-powered economic model that was wreaking havoc on everything in its path, he became obsessed with devising a means to protect it from damage while doing so rather than stopping it from moving.

 

== Web Original ==

== Western Animation ==

* Female example: Gadget from ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' is a [[Wrench Wench]], a [[Gadgeteer Genius]], and this. Sparky's a more traditional male version of this trope.

** Extra credit goes to the episode "A Big Ball of Garbage", where he goes to an inventor's competition, realizes the invention he brought (the death clock) is the same one he showed last year, attempts to invent the same thing again after it's pointed out to him ("I need a new invention! Perhaps some kind of death clock..."), quickly creates a new invention (the smell-o-scope) to replace it, then only hours later... "Finished!" "You built the smell-o-scope?" "No, I remembered that I'd already built it last year!"

* Prof. Frink from ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''.

* Professor Sumdac of ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. Occasionally forgets important things like eating {{spoiler|and remembering to make a legal record of his daughter's existence}}, and doesn't have much common sense in general.

* Professor Ludwig Von Drake, who started out as an absent-minded lecturer in the ''Wonderful World of Color'' (the continuation of the ''Disneyland'' program), eventually becoming an inventor by the time of ''[[House of Mouse]]'' and ''[[Mickey Mouse Clubhouse]]''.

* The Vector in ''[[Skyland]]''.

* Steven Boxleitner from [[Word Girl]] seems to be this; at least before his experiment went horribly wrong...

* Wallace from ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]'', though he's more "eccentric" than "scattered".

* Wizard version: The Moochick from the original ''[[My Little Pony]]''. Very knowledgeable... to the point where he can have difficulty remembering a particular detail at first, like where he stashed the Rainbow of Light.

* In the ''[[Venture Bros]]'' episode ''Pomp and Circuitry'' Rusty jokes that his son Dean will one day grow up to be this. Rusty himself sometimes qualifies, as he is sometimes a professor (guest lecturer in Mexico) and sometimes whole plotlines revolve around him being absent-minded (Escape to the House of Mummies Part 2). Also he has been known to forget the names of his own sons.

 

== Real Life ==

* There was a legend about Thales, the sixth-century B.C. philosopher and mathematician, falling into a well because he was gazing at the stars instead of watching where he was going. This tale became so iconic that it was eventually immortalized as one of [[Aesop's Fables]], making this one [[Older Than Feudalism]].

** There is also the tale of his death: a Roman soldier tried to ask him where Archimedes could be found, not knowing it was him, as his boss [[I Want Them Alive|wanted him alive]]. Unable to get the old man's attention (he was solving a geometrical problem on a sand table), the soldier got angry and eventually killed him. Archimedes' last words? "Do not disturb my circles!"

* Isaac Newton is said to have invited a friend to dinner but to have subsequently forgotten about it. When the friend dropped by he found Newton in deep contemplation and, not wanting to disrupt his train of thought, sat and waited. Eventually a servant brought up dinner for one and the friend, still too polite to disturb his host, ate by himself. When Newton finally snapped out of it, he looked at the empty dishes and said, "If it weren't for the proof before my eyes, I could have sworn that I have not yet dined."

* John Nash, an MIT mathematician. Good at what he does, but very strange (there's a book and an [[Oscar Bait]] [[A Beautiful Mind|movie]]). One of his students asked him to demonstrate a proof. Which he did, mostly in his head. This was often his habit, writing only a handful of crucial steps out, leaving the "obvious" leaps in between to others. This time, the student creatively asked, "I'm not sure I understand, Professor. Could you do it in another way?" Nash thought about it for a moment, said, "Yes, certainly," then once again dashed out a couple of crucial steps on the board, for a different proof.

** A variant of the same story is told about Norbert Wiener, the MIT prof who coined the term (and subject) cybernetics.

* A story about Wiener (admittedly second hand). He was on sabbatical when his office was needed for a visiting professor. One look at the piles of papers and the admins hunted up his daughter, who was a student at MIT at the time. Some time later she was heard laughing and asked what about. She replied that near the bottom of one of the piles she had found a note congratulating Norbert on the birth of his daughter, her!

* Pavlov, known for his work on classical conditioning, was strict and disciplined in the lab, asking the same of his assistants. (He once chastised an assistant for arriving late to work during the Russian revolution. The man had been late because he had to avoid stray bullets and an angry mob.) Outside of work, Pavlov was dirt poor, as he often forgot to pick up his own paychecks and had a tendency to lose them. On a trip to New York, he carried all his money in a big visible wad, only to be mugged in the subway. His hosts had to gather contributions to make up for his lost funds. He also once gave his wife a pair of shoes as a gift as she was about to go for a trip. Once at her destination, she found she had only one of the two shoes, with a note from her husband saying he had kept the other one to remind himself of her until her return (he failed to realize she'd need both). It's said his wife stayed with him despite his obvious absent-mindedness because she recognized his genius when in a lab.

* Russian composer/chemist Alexander Borodin, while in the army, went out one day to review his troops. Having [[Not Wearing Pants|forgotten to put on his trousers]].

* This is commonly a characteristic of the [[wikipedia:INTP|INTP]].

** "On rising this morning," he wrote to a friend, "I carefully washed my boots in hot water and blackened [polished] my face, poured coffee on my sardines, and put my hat on the fire to boil. These activities will give you some idea of my state of mind..."

** Famously, he once sent a telegraph to his wife: "Am in Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" She telegraphed back, "Home."

* French physicist André-Marie Ampère was notoriously absent-minded too, inspiring the fictional Savant Cosinus.

* [http://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid2009-14.html This guy]

* Dyspraxia also leads to poor focus, difficulty in organising thoughts and poor short term memory, but doesn't have any effect on actual intelligence.

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Memory Tropes]]

[[Category:Intelligence Tropes]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]