Inever thought of myself as prone to an identity crisis. But that was before last week, when I was mistaken for a Muppet.
I was on my way to the weekly meeting of the poetry club — where all five of the cool people on campus hang out every Thursday — and I stopped at Wendy’s for dinner. There was a long line, so I had plenty of time to get to know the family in front of me. Especially since Mary Ann (age 4) was a very sociable youngster. She told me all about herself: where she went to school, what she liked to eat, and what happens at home when she gets caught sticking out her tongue.
Meanwhile, her sister Carolyn (age 5) was eyeing me suspiciously. Finally, curiosity got the best of her. I record the dialogue exactly as it happened:
Carolyn: I seen one of you before.
Me: Where did you see one of me?
Carolyn: I seen you on “Elmo.”
Me: What was I doing on “Elmo”?
Carolyn: You were doin’ something funny.
Me: Do you think I am Mr. Noodle?
Carolyn: Yes.
When she first spoke up, I had initially been intrigued by the possibility of a doppelganger. That sort of thing doesn’t happen every day. My last time was 2003, when a guy talked to me for 10 minutes before I told him that I wasn’t Jeff Walling. But this Elmo double identity was not exactly what I had in mind.
Carolyn’s mother tried to smooth things over.
“You must get that all the time,” she said.
“No, ma’am,” I answered, unsmoothed. “This is the first.”
Just in case you don’t have a 5-year-old in your family, let me fill you in on Mr. Noodle. He’s a tall, gawky man with curly hair and a prominent mustache. He wears checkered vests and floppy bow-ties and is a first-class goof. He looks slightly professorial, in a first-class-goof sort of way. Most importantly, he’s a friend of Elmo, the reigning king of children’s television.
Elmo is bigger than SpongeBob. Bigger than Dora the Explorer. Bigger than Barney. Way bigger than Barney. So much bigger than Barney that I can’t even tell you how much bigger he is than Barney. If I were to try to describe how much bigger he is than Barney, I would need, like, a lot more column space. So much bigger than Barney, in fact, that Elmo will soon have his own show in Pakistan. I am not kidding.
Anyway, Elmo goes to Mr. Noodle when he has practical questions about life: How do you walk the dog, Mr. Noodle? How do you put on a coat, Mr. Noodle? How do you defeat the Colovian warlord Titus Mede on “Elder Scrolls IV,” Mr. Noodle? And so forth. But whenever Mr. Noodle tries to act out a simple task, he ends up falling all over himself. Or getting tied in knots. Originally played by Bill Irwin, the character was later joined by the late Michael Jeter, who was gently introduced to young viewers as “Mr. Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle.”
By the way, I did not look all that up on Wikipedia. I just knew it. And so does my nephew, Samuel. And knowledge is power.
But you can see why an Associate Professor of English at a distinguished university might not be thrilled to be mistaken for Mr. Noodle. Mr. Rogers, yes. Mr. Magoo, maybe. Even Mr. Clean would be OK. But Mr. Noodle? Once this gets out, I will lose whatever control I had in the classroom.
Student 1: How do you write on the board, Mr. Noodle?
Student 2: How do you work the Power-Point, Mr. Noodle?
Student 3: How do you explain Milton’s use of enjambment in his blank verse epic, Mr. Noodle?
There goes another ounce of dignity. Thanks, little Carolyn, wherever you are.
