If, for some inexplicable reason, I was held at gunpoint and ordered to name the one person from late 1980s network television that I admired most, I would say Doogie Howser. My first thought would probably be, "Why is the guy with the gun asking me this?" but my second thought would definitely be about everyone's favorite teenage doctor.
And what did this hyped-up television version of Encyclopedia Brown do to warrant my admiration? Well, this doctor in tennis sneakers was obviously brilliant. But I'm probably more jealous than admiring of that quality. He also got all the hot nurses on the show, which, even more so than his super-intelligence, is a something for which I hold the good doctor in mild contempt.
But the most amazing, awe-striking thing Doogie Howser did was unfortunately glossed over in the television series. If, during the open credits, you read the newspaper articles tacked on his bedroom wall amidst his various baseball cards and medical school degrees, you will notice that he graduated college at a young age. I don't know exactly how old he was but the point was that he was obscenely young. We'll say, for the sake of argument, that he was four years old when he started college.
I admire most 22-year olds that survive college relatively unscathed. But can you imagine what it would be like to go through Dartmouth as a four-year-old? I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't be alive for my sixth birthday if I had to do that.
First of all, the half-inflated moose mascot would have made me cry endlessly. I would have learned all at once about death, mortality and the truth about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. To mend my torn and tattered youthful innocence, I would have headed over to the Food Court to cry in some chocolate milk. Unfortunately, Food Court would offer little solace. With that disgustingly inappropriate Campbell's Soup monster with the giant head passing out Goldfish crackers, I probably would have ran screaming away, fearing that Dartmouth College was nothing but a strange collection of big-headed grotesque creatures with one purpose; to scare the hell out of four year old supergeniuses.
Back safely at my dorm, I would open my copy of The Dartmouth, only to find that the barrage of big-headed monsters was not over. If I happened to read one of the editorials written by Cap'n Capitalism, Rob Sutton, I would probably walk away confused for the first time in my short life. I would sit at my computer, as Doogie was wont to do, and type my ruminations of the day. And they would look something like this:
Thursday, October 15, 1998: They say things aren't always as they seem (or some other hokey quote that Doogie always threw in to show that he was well-read, as if we didn't believe that a 14-year-old surgeon was well-read).
I have mixed feelings about being here at Dartmouth. I'm a little scared of the mascot and the enormous soup-lady. But I read this editorial in The D and maybe this school has some really great people in it. One kid kept writing over and over again about how great he was and how lucky everyone was that he chose to "unveil his column" in the D. And it looks to me like he's single-handedly going to save capitalism! And I thought I was the only supersmart person with the maturity of a four-year-old on campus!
Yeah, it would be tough to survive here as a four-year-old. And I'm sure a night on frat row would do a number on a prepubescent little tyke.
Maybe that's why the television show always just glossed over Doogie's college year (or college weeks, I guess). They probably weren't pretty. And I bet he got beat up all the time. And while I do admire Doogie for meeting the daunting task of college life as a four-year-old, I don't feel sorry for him. After all, I have no idea what those nurses saw in a 14-year-old nerd who talks to himself.
