Art Imitating Reality

It’s exam time, and I need something to distract me: Most of my friends have no idea what it’s like to be a professor, so they project their favorite television shows onto the profession. For some, I’m like one of the faculty members on Saved by the Bell: The College Years. Or like the professor on Gilligan’s Island. For others, I’m like Gary on thirtysomething. Personally, I don’t see the similarities between me and any of them (Dick Solomon on 3rd Rock From the Sun, maybe?). Then again, television and movies shape our perceptions of all sorts of professions.

Have you been influenced by a fictional professor, even one from a novel? Which one most closely matches the reality of your own life or career?