Mr. Noodles

From Candypedia
Mr. Noodles
GenderMale
SpeciesDog
BreedPoodle
OccupationRoseville High School History teacher
DebutEnter High School, page 4
September 10, 2006 (2006-09-10)

Mr. Noodles is the poodle in a suit who teaches history at Roseville High School, and he has had the gang in one of his classrooms three years running, ever since they walked in as freshmen. He is dry, strict, and very hard to rattle, which has never once discouraged David from adoring him. The name is not really his: it is what survived of a nickname David tried out on him on the first day of school, and his actual name is unknown.

Personality

Mr. Noodles welcomes a room of freshmen with a rundown of the standardized tests ahead of them, and things do not get much cosier from there. He is unhurried and deadpan, and very little moves him. A besotted student hovering behind him gets a single syllable, and a screaming one gets a sideways look rather than a telling-off. Alone with a miserable kid he softens quite a bit, but he keeps a firm line about fuss in his classroom, and crossing it tends to cost you.

Complaining about the pairing only earns Mike a worse one in December.

He runs his room by the book, and he says so up front. His freshman welcome speech is a lecture on diligence and responsibility, with the promise that there will be consequences from here on.[1] In sophomore year he greets the approach of the holidays by assigning a World War II essay due on the very last day before break, and he heads off the groaning with a partner system and a flat “No swapping this time.”[2] He is not above needling a student about possibly forgotten homework, either.[3]

Mr. Noodles sends the year out by reminding his students that their prospects are bright.

He is a good deal warmer when nobody is performing for him. Left alone in a free period with a water-phobic Lucy, he is friendly and informal and tells her she is no trouble at all. Later, he notices on his own that something is wrong with her; Veronica’s commentary on the page calls him accommodating.[4] He also sends his freshmen off for the summer telling them their prospects look bright.[5]

He punishes attitude as readily as any actual offence. When Mike throws a tantrum over the essay pairings, Mr. Noodles hands him the very partner he was complaining about, and Veronica’s gloss on the moment is that he “does not like crybabies”.[6] He gets it wrong in Double Down, where he reads a student’s silent panic as plain inattention and grills him for it, the opposite of the attention he paid Lucy.[3] He does still hand out praise once the right answer arrives.[7]

Appearance

Even a late arrival cannot diminish Noodles’s formal winter presentation.

Mr. Noodles is a male poodle with curly fur, drawn in a suit, tie and glasses from his very first panel.[1] He is just as formally dressed when he returns for sophomore year,[8] and he adjusts his glasses while announcing the winter essay.[2] In winter he arrives in a jacket dusted with snow, which David treats as a personal emergency.[9] The suit and glasses remain his classroom uniform in Double Down.[3]

Significant events

Mr. Noodles first appears in Enter High School as the homeroom teacher in Room 103 on the freshmen’s first day.[10] He warns the class about the years of exams ahead, mentions that he also teaches history so they should expect to see him later in the day, and picks up his nickname from David before the bell rings.[1] Later that year, in Troubled Waters, he supervises the Room 104 study period where Lucy is sent for the marking period after being excused from swimming.[11][4] He closes out freshman year in Moving On by congratulating the class on another year finished, telling them report cards will arrive in the first weeks of summer, and wishing them a safe break.[5]

He is back for sophomore year in A Distance Apart, welcoming the gang to US History II after Mike is relieved to learn they all share a history teacher.[8] In Unrequited he silently glowers from the corner of his eye as Paulo screams at Mike in the middle of class.[12] In December he assigns the partnered World War II essay, and when Mike complains about the pairings he re-pairs him with Lucy as punishment, putting the two of them to work together, first at the library and then at Mike’s house.[6][13][14]

By junior year he is still teaching the gang history. In Double Down he catches an exhausted Mike zoning out in class and questions him hard until Daisy quietly bails him out.[3][15][16]

Major relationships

Mike

Mr. Noodles mistakes Mike’s distress for inattention in Double Down.

Mike treats his history teacher as background noise until his own outburst earns him a lesson in manners. In December, Mike snaps at him to hurry up while the pairings are read out, then grumbles that he is stuck with Lucy as usual.[2][6] Mr. Noodles lets him know he had been paired with Susan, and then changes his mind on the spot: “But if you’re going to make a fuss about it, then yes, you’re with Lucy.”[6] Sue gets Cletus as a consolation prize, which Veronica’s commentary rates as the short end of the stick, and Mike and Lucy head to the library to start an unwanted afternoon together.[6][13]

He has a much harder time telling fuss from distress. In Double Down, Mike is coming apart despite Sandy’s apology and barely hears his own name.[17] Mr. Noodles takes the blank look for laziness. “Don’t ‘huh’ me, Michael,” he says, before asking whether Mike is the second student that day to forget his homework.[3] He keeps at it until Daisy whispers the answer, and when Mike stumbles through it he is visibly taken aback, then offers a slightly grudging “Good work.”[15][7] Veronica’s commentary sums the scene up as school getting in the way of a mental breakdown.[3] He is not a villain in it, just a teacher with no idea what is happening to the student in front of him.

David

David proposes a more distinguished name in Enter High School, but Mr. Noodles declines.

David adores Mr. Noodles without needing any encouragement. It starts the second David lays eyes on him in Enter High School and realizes the new homeroom teacher is a poodle. His request to call him “Sir Poodles of Noodles” gets a flat “No.” Funnily enough, the rejected suggestion is where the man’s name comes from.[1] By the end of freshman year David is gazing at him with stars in his eyes,[5] and on the first day of sophomore year he materializes behind the teacher’s shoulder with hearts for eyes and is told to “Sit.”[8]

Mr. Noodles tolerates all this the way he tolerates weather. When he arrives late in December with snow on his jacket, David rushes to brush his shoulders off while declaring “Noodles, your coat is precious!”, and the teacher’s only remark is that “APPARENTLY” he needed his coat cleaned.[9]

Minor relationships

Lucy

In Troubled Waters, Mr. Noodles permits the quiet kindness of being left alone.

Lucy gets to see Noodles’s gentler side. When she is exiled from swimming to his empty Room 104 in Troubled Waters, he greets her as “young miss” and jokes that she will be seeing twice as much of him. He also admits he is relieved she is not one of the “detention regulars” he usually gets handed.[4] When she slumps at her desk later in the period, he asks what is wrong and lets her put her head down without pressing.[4] She is less lucky in December, where a silent glance passes between them just before he re-pairs her with Mike, and she hunches in her seat while the class watches.[6]

Quotes

No. Mr. Noodles, declining to be called Sir Poodles of Noodles in Enter High School

And it’s best you do, because from now on there WILL be consequences! This is the beginning of your last years before graduation! Mr. Noodles, welcoming the freshmen in Enter High School

Oh, it’s no problem for me. I’m just relieved you weren’t one of the detention regulars they usually stick me with. Mr. Noodles, to Lucy in Troubled Waters

Sit. Mr. Noodles, to a heart-eyed David lurking behind him in A Distance Apart

APPARENTLY I needed my coat cleaned. Mr. Noodles, after David dusts the snow off his shoulders in December

.. And what better way to round out the year than with a World War II essay, due on that final day? Mr. Noodles, spreading holiday cheer in December

Trivia

  • Veronica’s commentary on his debut page includes “I love the damn poodle too.”[1]
  • The chalkboard behind him in December lists the plague, “SUM WARS” and a potato famine under “THINGS THAT ARE PRETTY BAD IN HISTORY”.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Chapter 21: Enter High School, page 4
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 68: December, page 3
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Chapter 114: Double Down, page 9
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Chapter 30: Troubled Waters, page 2
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 40: Moving On, page 2
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Chapter 68: December, page 4
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 114: Double Down, page 11
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 50: A Distance Apart, page 6
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 68: December, page 2
  10. ↑ Chapter 21: Enter High School, page 3
  11. ↑ Chapter 30: Troubled Waters, page 1
  12. ↑ Chapter 51: Unrequited, page 4
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 68: December, page 5
  14. ↑ Chapter 68: December, page 14
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 114: Double Down, page 10
  16. ↑ Chapter 114: Double Down, page 24
  17. ↑ Chapter 114: Double Down, page 27
Retrieved from “https://wiki.bittersweetcandybowl.com/index.php?title=Mr._Noodles&oldid=8053”