Coworker looks like Encyclopedia Britannica guy

There's this guy where I work who looks like that kid off the old Encyclopedia Brittanica commercial. Well, he looks like how I imagine that kid would look today anyway. You know the kid I mean? He was on two commercials back in the 80s. In the first one he played a guy who needed encyclopedias because he had a report due on space. And when the second commercial came around a year or so later, it started with him in a stark white room in front of a set of encyclopedias. Then he would get up from his roly chair and say, "Remember me? I'm the kid that had a report due on space." Like any of us really would have forgotten such an annoying child actor as he.

You know the kid I mean? The one that had the report due? On space? His hair was kinda mullety and he wore smart kid glasses. He looked like the kid in class who ruined the bell curve for the rest of us stoops. Kinda cocky. Probably a member of the Beta club or the debate team. Maybe president of both. Just from looking at him you knew he was the kinda guy who, while the rest of us were picturing Justine Bateman naked (or Justin Bateman depending I guess on your orientation) that kid was working on the fourth draft of his report and making sure he had accurately quoted all his sources. Hell, he was the kinda guy who had sources.

As a high school stoop who went on to teach high school sophomore English for a year, I gotta say this kid wasn't as bright as he tried to let on. Rule one of researching and writing a report is narrowing your topic. Did this kid's teacher really let him think he was going to successfully write a report on something as broad as space? Hello? McFly? You're not going to be able to write succinctly on your topic unless you come up with something more specific than just space. Dude, you’re talking the final frontier. At least whittle it down to space travel or space aliens. Something that only occupies a few pages of one of those encyclopedias is best. Otherwise if you’re like me (which we’ve already established he probably wasn’t, but I’m just saying) you’re going to end up the night before this report is due scrambling to find some easily copyable information that sounds vaguely like your own words, all while the end theme song to the Letterman show plays in the background. Yeh, if at all possible, try and reword one of your old reports possibly from another class and make it sound like a new report on whatever aspect of space you decide on. Admittedly this would be difficult to do with a paper on Macbeth or something like that but desperate times call for desperate measures. Be creative.

For my first year of teaching there weren’t enough French classes to fill up my schedule so I got assigned two periods of Academic Sophomore English. The class name’s a misnomer if there ever was one. You see kids either took the advanced class or they took my class, and intelligence and ability in high school students are like income distribution in Third World countries. There’s no middle ground. The elites take the advanced class and those who likely aren’t going to make it through their sophomore year because of crime, drugs or unplanned pregnancies take the “academic” Sophomore English class. I secretly referred to it as English for the Living Dead. If you’re one of my former students who’s stumbled onto my blog because you googled teacher burnout or asked Jeeves Whatever happened to that asshole Mr. Black? I have two things to say: 1) I’m probably not telling you something you don’t already know, and 2) I’d appreciate it if you not spit on my fries.

Anyway, back to the guy that had a report due on space, or rather the guy at my work who looks like the guy that had a report due on space. Part of me wants to go up and tell him he looks like the guy in the old Encyclopedia Britannica commercials who had a report due on space, but two things keep me from doing this. Working in a totally different department from mine, he occupies a cube way on the other side of the building, so I really don’t even know his name, much less know him well enough to tell him he looks like some 80s cocky child actor with a bad haircut. Secondly I used to be told that I looked like the judge from Night Court or Shaggy from Scooby Doo so I know the annoyance of being told you look like somebody who’s not as easy on the eyes as, say, Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt.. I guess I’ll just stick with pointing out to my next-cube-neighbors that the guy who works in that other department looks like the kid that had a report due on space.

Speaking of that kid, you can actually see a video of his commercial online by visiting http://www.x-entertainment.com/downloads/. The site hosts that and several other 80s commercials from back in the day. Additionally there was a hilarious write-up in The Onion about him that you can read by clicking here. Once you read it, you’ll notice I thought the article was so funny that I borrowed a line or two from it here or there. Oh well, at least I quote my sources. No way you’re getting me to write a fourth draft though.

No way.

This just in: As I was searching for the link to the aforementioned video I came across a slew of information on the actor in the commercial. He has an extensive web presence, a Wikipedia article and two -- count them -- TWO blogs. Click here to see the tamer of the two. From there you can see a link to the other and find some nude photos that far surpass Justine Bateman in terms of masturbatory quality. I'm talking everything from artsy black and whites to good ol' trash.