Doctor Patella
(French: Docteur Rotule)
A ginger bearded osteopathic doctor who appears briefly in Destination Moon (whose model skeleton is arrested by Thomson and Thompson) and Explorers on the Moon, where he attends to an unconscious Captain Haddock after his arrival back on Earth. He also sent a congratulatory telegram to Haddock when (incorrect) news of his engagement to Bianca Castafiore was announced in The Castafiore Emerald.
The name Patella (Rotule) has a medical origin. It means "kneecap".
In 2000, on one episode of the French-language version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, 73 percent of the voting audience correctly identified Doctor Patella (Doctor Rotule) as the doctor who treated Captain Haddock in Explorers on the Moon. This led to allegations that the show was rigged: one Tintin fan questioned how such a large portion of the audience could pick from four options the correct answer, especially given Doctor Patella's very minor role in the series. A psychoanalyst postulated that children remember proper names much better than adults, hence its retention by members of the audience who read Tintin in their youth.
Read more about this topic: Characters Of The Adventures Of Tintin, Supporting Characters
Famous quotes containing the word doctor:
“The doctor of Geneva stamped the sand
That lay impounding the Pacific swell,
Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)