The Time I Took a College Class Taught by a Real Life Cartoon Character
When I was in college, I’ll admit I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to my studies; my dad liked to say that I majored in beer and darts. I did go to business school at a reputable university (and managed to get a degree thankyouverymuch), so going to class periodically was a necessary evil. Being a writer, I’m not what anyone would consider gifted at math, so I did attend most of the lectures for the classes that involved numbers of any sort-there was no way I’d pass otherwise.
If I may backtrack for just a moment. Graduating from high school in 2002, I knew journalism was a dying field and an English degree doesn’t open up a lot of career options, so I figured it was best to get some sort of business major. Businesses offering the jobs and all. My options at the time for a bachelor’s in business were finance, accounting, management or marketing. Marketing was the natural choice of course, seeing as that I was (and still am) bad at math, fairly creative and had no desire to tell anyone what to do. I tell myself what to do everyday and I’ve got to say, I don’t listen to me at all. At my college of choice, even a major in marketing required a truly unfortunate number of classes that involved numbers-one of which was business statistics. And that’s where this story and the subsequent insanity begins.
My good friend Kelli was also enrolled in the same section of this particular statistics class, so I was incredibly thankful I had a friend among the other 300 or so students enrolled. We sat together on that first day as freshmen (or sophomores, I can’t remember) while the light in our eyes still shone. Our professor introduced himself and gave us his introductory spiel, which, if I remember correctly (which I probably don’t) included a personal tidbit on the fact that he was going through a divorce. Now, I’ve personally never been a professor of business statistics at a top university, so I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure this is information that is neither necessary nor appropriate to share with a class of 300 freshmen (or sophomores). I shoot a look at Kelli like, “is this guy serious?” and she shrugs. This is right around the time he introduces us to his TA.
I expected, like any rational individual, that an actual human person was going to walk out onto the stage (the class was taught in a large auditorium). From beneath the lectern; however, our professor pulls out an owl puppet and introduces us to “Mr. Spot” this class’s esteemed TA. Intermittent laughter can be heard throughout the room as 300 college freshmen (or sophomores) assume this is a joke. Friends, it was not.
Our professor does not acknowledge the laughter or crack a smile, but proceeds to tell us that all questions asked during the lectures or via email should be directed to Mr. Spot because, as a tenured professor, he was far too busy to get to them all personally. He then gives Mr. Spot the floor, who introduces himself and tells us about his immediate family-Mrs. Spot, Spot Jr. and Spotlet.
At this point, dear readers, I must assume, as any rational human being would, that you think magic mushrooms or LSD were a part of my college experience. I can assure you, they were not. This actually happened. And for those of you who aren’t Xennials, Millenials, or anyone else familiar with the show Southpark, I’d like to drop some knowledge on ya. During this (admittedly strange) period in history, the poorly animated adult cartoon show Southpark was popular. It centered around a group of elementary school children who got into various hijnx and were taught by their eccentric teacher, Mr. Garrison and his puppet TA, Mr. Hat.
Southpark’s Mr. Garrison and his TA, Mr. Hat
At this point in the class, I assumed that our professor was just trying to be cool and relevant by trolling us using a pop culture reference that we would all appreciate. I could not have been more wrong. During the course of the semester, when students would email him, he would reply by saying that our emails were forwarded to Mr. Spot and to please direct all future correspondence directly to the TA. And Mr. Spot would answer our emails.
At one point in the semester, one of our tests had a bonus question that was simply, “Draw Mr. Spot and his family.” Ya’ll, I didn’t do well in this class, but I nailed this question. I even gave Mr. Spot a very cool pair of aviator sunglasses. I’d like to think I got extra bonus points for how well I executed that drawing, but I doubt I did. Despite the insanity, I did manage to regurgitate enough actual statitics to earn a C and filed the whole experience in my brain under the category of “Ludicrous Things I Managed to Get Through.”
A few years back, I was reminded of this experience and suspected it may have all been a hungover fever dream. I remembered the professor’s name and decided to do a Google search, because surely, if 1000+ other people experienced this, there would be a record of it somewhere on the internet. And there was. 2003 was not a time where every single thing that happened was committed to history online (and thank god, because I did some terrible things during the early aughts), but I did manage to find a few forums that corroborated my memories of this insanity.
I wish I could wrap this up by telling you my professor eventually got over what I assumed to be a mild psychotic break and went on to make the annals of statistics history. The only thing I can tell for sure is that I just checked the online forums and my professor and Mr. Spot were still teaching their classes together at least FIVE YEARS after the events of this story. Tenure is a powerful thing, I guess.
