Are you suggesting Third Rock from the Sun was not a hit?

Not to mention The Education of Max Bickford. Whether it was a "hit" or not, I have no idea.

Until Delong's videocasts look like this:

http://chrisalbon.com/2006/04/18/the-professor-miami/

I don't think we will see much success.

Ross on Friends was an academic. It was noted at the time that he didn't do any activities that a normal academic would do - grant proposals, research, read journals, etc.

...or really anything at all.

Well, the actual day-to-day life of most lawyers also seems pretty darn boring, but there are shows about fictionalized ones all the time...

But the fictional possibilities for professors are, yes, still pretty limited.

Though doesn't a professor play a big part in "Numb3rs" (I hate. HATE. That 3.)?

How about "A Beautiful Mind" ?

The paper Chase.

Has everyone forgotten professor Kingsfield?

Old old TV sitcoms had their share of profs. I believe that in Gidget , the TV series (staring Sally "you really like me" Fields) Gidget's dad was a UCLA prof. And there was Nanny and the Professor .

As far as movies, my favority is "The Eiger Sanction" where Clint Eastwood plays and ex-CIA guy now a prof (Archaelogy I think) . Classic dialog involving a co-ed trying to...cut corners, let's say. Great movie to rent.

Oh yeah, there is currently 'Numbers' featuring a math professor who comes up with a mathematical model of social behavior each week to help his FBI agent brother solve crimes. Kind of like a John Kemeny or Gary King seconded to the feds.

Christ Albion

LOL -- really quick photo-shopping. Watch out for the cease-and-desist letter from DeLong's lawyer.

Indiana Jones was a professor.

Let's see. How about a courageous poly-sci professor (Matt Damon) discovers that a certain nation now has first-strike capacity. He notices a certain group of scary looking Pentagon types in the audience (Clint Eastwood, padded up to look like the Donald, Christopher Walken, etc) seem awfully interested in waht he believes the ramifications are in the paper. Suddenly, hit teams are visiting his apartment (a tense scene where a formely cute, comic relief beagle, bites the smithereens out of hit thug 1's ankle) and our hero is on the run. (With beagle, who, in a running gag, is always eating the fast food lunch our hero has had to abandon for some run in with the baddies.) Desparate, professor heads to hollywood, hoping to find Oliver Stone ("He's the only guy who's gonna believe this!") But, by fortuitous accident, he finds himself in the apartment of Salma Hayak, who turns out to be a good-hearted libertarian, dog lover, and AK-40 owner. She cries as our hero says "It's things like this. Things like this that caused me to vote for Kerry. It was heartbreaking!"

How does it end? I don't know. Suggestions solicited. I do know any resembelence between this and the thoughts and postings of a certain blogger are meant in the nicest possibe way.

"Professor" on Gilligan's Island always got the chicks

jv:

When your competition is an old rich man who is with his wife, an overweight tour boat captain and his thin, whimpy mate, it is no wonder that the Professor--who looked rather healthy and vibrant compared to most professors I know--was the one pulling the chicks.

How about Gilligan's Island? Surely you haven't forgotten the original "professor!"

Indiana Jones was a professor.

For about 3 minutes at the beginning of one of the films. The Paper Chase is the series which came immediately to my mind. I loved Kingsfield.....

Welcome Back Kotter?

I remember a '60s sitcom set at a university where one of the main characters (played by a bald guy with an english accent) was a prickly Nobel prize winner (Economics, even) who took the prize money and bought himself a white Rolls-Royce.

"Suggestions solicited."

Libertarian voting for Kerry?

Movie ended there.

Since I'm older than dirt, I recall a popular radio program back in the '50s, which later had a couple of years on TV, called "The Halls of Ivy," about the president of a liberal arts college, his actress wife, and the various people in the campus community. It wouldn't work today, too calm, too thoughtful.

"The Halls of Ivy," about the president of a liberal arts college, his actress wife, and the various people in the campus community. It wouldn't work today, too calm, too thoughtful.

Too true, Deejay. It simply wouldn't be credible these days to portray an academic as calm and thoughtful. Unless he or she was a popular historian, in which case plagiarism would need to be one of herhis character traits.

As far as movies, my favority is "The Eiger Sanction" where Clint Eastwood plays and ex-CIA guy now a prof (Archaelogy I think) . Classic dialog involving a co-ed trying to...cut corners, let's say. Great movie to rent.

Not only was Indiana Jones a professor, but so is Jack Ryan. PATRIOT GAMES even shows him teaching a bit of IR theory.

How about Giles (Buffy the V. S)--the librarian's tv idol?