“We had no idea,” said Rebecca H. Dezube ’04, who organized the study-break with her roommate. “We recognized the name, but none of us actually had the professor.”
Scores of public figures have appeared on “The Simpsons” as guest characters, including former president George Bush, celebrities such as Lisa Kudrow and Drew Barrymore and scientist Stephen Hawking.
Herschbach also joins an illustrious tradition of Harvard faculty members who have provided creative inspiration for the show’s writers, many of whom are Harvard graduates. Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein ’61 and Bass Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel are purported to be the inspiration for major character Montgomery Burns.
But Herschbach was unaware that he had joined such an elite club.
“I wasn’t a ‘Simpsons’ fan,” he said.
Will the professor start watching the show now that he has been immortalized as one of its yellow characters? Said Herschbach, “I doubt it.”
—Benjamin J. Soskin contributed to the reporting of this story.