Egghead
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In the slang of the United States, egghead was an anti-intellectual epithet, directed at people considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and too lacking in realism, common sense, virility, etc. on account of their intellectual interests. The term egghead reached its peak currency during the 1950s, when vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon used it against Democrat Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. It is now rarely used, having been replaced in U.S. politics by other anti-intellectual epithets such as liberal elite, and socially by terms such as nerd and geek.
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning historical essay on American anti-intellectualism, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote: "During the campaign of 1952, the country seemed to be in need of some term to express that disdain for intellectuals which had by then become a self-conscious motif in American politics. The word egghead was originally used without invidious associations, but quickly assumed them, and acquired a much sharper tone than the traditional highbrow. Shortly after the campaign was over, Louis Bromfield, a popular novelist of right-wing political persuasion, suggested that the word might some day [sic] find its way into dictionaries as follows:
- "Egghead: A person of spurious intellectual pretensions, often a professor or the protégé of a professor. Fundamentally superficial. Over-emotional and feminine in reactions to any problem. Supercilious and surfeited with conceit and contempt for the experience of more sound and able men. Essentially confused in thought and immersed in mixture of sentimentality and violent evangelism. A doctrinaire supporter of Middle-European socialism as opposed to Greco-French-American ideas of democracy and liberalism. Subject to the old-fashioned philosophical morality of Nietzsche which frequently leads him into jail or disgrace. A self-conscious prig, so given to examining all sides of a question that he becomes thoroughly addled while remaining always in the same spot. An anemic bleeding heart.
"'The recent election,' Bromfield remarked, 'demonstrated a number of things, not the least of them being the extreme remoteness of the 'egghead' from the thought and feeling of the whole of the people'" (Anti-Intellectualism in American Life [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963], pp. 9-10).
In their Dictionary of American Slang (1960; 2nd supplemented ed. 1975), Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner cite two earlier meanings of egghead, one referring to baldness, the other to stupidity. Wentworth and Flexner note that the meaning under discussion here was "[p]op. during presidential campaign of 1952 when the supporters of Adlai Stevenson, Democratic candidate, were called eggheads. Thus orig. the term carried the connotation of 'politically minded' and 'liberal'; today its application is more general. May have originated in ref. to the high forehead of Mr. Stevenson or of the pop. image of an academician" (p. 171).
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TV and animated characters named "Egghead"
Looney Tunes' Egghead
Tex Avery had a character at Warner Bros. named Egghead, whom he used in several pictures such as "Daffy Duck and Egghead," "Cinderella Meets Fella," "Hamateur Night," and "A Day at the Zoo," all in the late 1930s. Egghead alternated from having a Moe Howard haircut to being bald and wearing a brown derby, a baggy suit, and a high-collared shirt. His voice, laugh, and mannerisms were very Joe Penner. Egghead is thought to be the prototype of Elmer Fudd. Egghead himself returned decades later in the compilation film Daffy Duck's Quackbusters. More recently, he also makes a cameo appearance at the end of Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
Looney Tunes' Egghead Jr.
In the 1950s Robert McKimson had a character, a large-headed and very intelligent baby chick, by the name Egghead Jr. in several shorts with bumptuous Foghorn Leghorn. The only son of Prissy, a spinster hen who inexplicably became a widow in later shorts, Egghead Jr. was bookish and never talked. Foghorn would try to teach him to be a man and play real games like baseball and cowboys and Indians...invariably resulting in bodily injury.
Batman's Egghead
Vincent Price played Egghead, a large-headed, bald, egomaniacal villain with a henfruit fetish in 1966's Batman series.
Marvel Comic's Egghead
Egghead is also an evil genius scientist who confronted Henry Pym several times in Marvel comics.
Codename: Kids Next Door's Egghead
This character plays relitivly minor roles on the show such as spectator and 4th grade president. He is shaped like an egg.
The Egghead Show
This character is featured in Macromedia Flash movie's made by Randy Sobel, and illustrated by Matt Helbig. Egghead is available online The Egghead Show
See also
- Eggheads TV quiz showde:Eierkopf