Egghead
In the slang of the United States, egghead was an anti-intellectual epithet, directed at people for being too public with their intelligence or for having intellectual interests. The term reached its peak currency during the 1950s, when vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon used it against the quite bald Democrat Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. Since then, it has been replaced in U.S. politics by other anti-intellectual epithets such as liberal elite, and socially by terms such as nerd and geek.
This name has graced several characters in TV and animation.
- Tex Avery had a character at Warner Bros. named Egghead, whom he used in several pictures such as "Dafffy Duck and Egghead," "Cinderella Meets Fella," "Hamateur Night," and "A Day at the Zoo," all in the late thirties. Egghead evolved 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.
- In the fifties 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.
- Vincent Price played a large-headed, bald, egomaniacal villain with a henfruit fetish in 1966's Batman series.
