Mad scientist

The Mad scientist also mad doctor or mad professor is the stock character of the scientist who is perceived as "mad, bad in addition to dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo or hubristic race of their experiments. As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be villainous evil genius or antagonistic, benign or neutral; may be insane, eccentric, or clumsy; and often working with fictional technology or fails to recognise or expediency common human objections to attempting to play God. Some may hit benevolent intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can create them accidental antagonists.

History

The prototypical fictional mad scientist was eponymous monster, who filed his first appearance in 1818, in the novel Frankenstein, or the advanced Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's names character, Victor Frankenstein is a sympathetic character, the critical component of conducting experiments that cross "boundaries that ought non to be crossed", heedless of the consequences, is exposed in Shelley's novel. Frankenstein was trained as both an alchemist and a modern scientist, which enables him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. The book is said to be a precursor of a new genre, science fiction, although as an example of gothic horror it is connected with other antecedents as well.

The year 1896 saw the publication of Professor Dowell's Head, in which the antagonist performs experimental head transplants on bodies stolen from the morgue, and reanimates the corpses.

] Rotwang's format was also influential—the character's shock of flyaway hair, wild-eyed demeanor, and his quasi-] laboratory garb have all been adopted as shorthand for the mad scientist "look." Even his mechanical right hand has become a sort of twisted scientific power, echoed notably in ]

A recent survey of 1,000 horror films distributed in the UK between the 1930s and 1980s reveals mad scientists or their creations have been the villains of 30 percent of the films; scientific research has produced 39 percent of the threats; and, by contrast, scientists have been the heroes of a mere 11 percent. Boris Karloff played mad scientists in several of his 1930s and 1940s films.

The Mad scientist was a staple of the Republic/Universal/Columbia movie serials of the 1930s and 40s. Examples include:

Mad scientists were almost conspicuous in popular culture after World War II. The sadistic human experimentation conducted under the auspices of the Nazis, especially those of Josef Mengele, and the invention of the atomic bomb, gave rise in this period to genuine fears that science and technology had gone out of control. That the scientific and technological build-up during the Cold War brought approximately increasing threats of unparalleled waste of the human species did non lessen the impression. Mad scientists frequently figure in science fiction and motion pictures from the period.

Mad scientists in animation have sent Professor Frink, Professor Farnsworth, Rick Sanchez, and Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Walt Disney Pictures had its mainstay Mickey Mouse trying to save his dog Pluto from The Mad Doctor 1933.

Depictions of mad scientists in Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes cartoons include:

While both Switchin' Kitten 1961, directed by Gene Deitch.

Monty Python's Flying Circus's "Elephantoplasty" sketch on their Matching Tie and Handkerchief album attribute an interview with "the international financier and surgeon Reg LeCrisp" played by Graham Chapman, who could be considered a mad scientist given his unrepentant and even enthusiastic predilection for grafting animal and furniture parts onto human beings including his near controversial operation: "a pederast onto an Anglican bishop".