Middlebury College - Middlebury in Popular Culture

Middlebury in Popular Culture

• Moe'N'a Lisa – episode of The Simpsons based on Middlebury's Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
• Snake Jailbird – Fictional character and criminal on the animated television series The Simpsons who repaid his Middlebury College student loans after robbing Springfield landmark Moe's Tavern. Voiced by Hank Azaria.
• Brenda Cushman, Elise Elliot, and Annie Paradis – The three main characters in Olivia Goldsmith's first novel The First Wives Club (1992). The women, who in the novel met while students at Middlebury College (class of 1969), were portrayed by Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton in the 1996 film adaptation.
• Mr. Wolfe – A teacher in George Lucas' 1973 film American Graffiti. The character, played by Terry McGovern, is a confidant of Curt Henderson's, played by Richard Dreyfuss. In their one conversations together, Mr. Wolfe tells Curt that he "got drunk as hell the night before" going to college, and that he "barfed on the train all next day." When Curt asks him where he went to school, Mr. Wolfe replies, "Middlebury, Vermont... On a scholarship... one semester. After all that, I came back here... I guess I just wasn't the competitive type."
• In the sitcom 30 Rock, Alan Alda's character teaches at Bennington College, which Alec Baldwin's character quips, is for kids who "couldn't get into Middlebury."
• Willie Gillis – fictional character created by Norman Rockwell for a series of World War II paintings featured on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post. In the final painting, Willie Gillis in College, Willie sits studying in a window framing Middlebury's Old Chapel.
• Jeopardy! – The April 12, 2010, episode of the quiz show Jeopardy! featured the College in the Final Jeopardy clue: "In 2008, Middlebury College in Vermont won its 2nd straight championship in this sport introduced in a 1997 novel." The correct response was Quidditch.
• Ruth Cole, the main character of John Irving's best-selling novel A Widow for One Year, attended Middlebury College.