It’s always embarrassing to me when I have to acknowledge that, yes, this is the way I think of a man an Emmy and a Tony, a man with a long and distinguished career in movies, TV, and stage—he was in Hair. He was in Miller’s Crossing. He was in The Fisher King and The Green Mile. And I’m sorry for all that, but he’s Mr. Noodle’s Brother Mr. Noodle. More, he was Mr. Noodle’s Brother Mr. Noodle even though I am too old to have been aware of him as such until I was an adult—but he was before I had kids of my own. I saw The Fisher King some five years before he became Mr. Noodle’s Brother Mr. Noodle.

Actually, I just explained to my own son Simon, who turns five in two weeks, why the two men are called the same thing. This is because most of the adults in his life are known by their first names, and the idea that a pair of brothers would have the same name is a bit perplexing to him. To most kids, though, the whole point of the Noodle family is to be smarter than they are. The assorted Noodles are grown-ups, but the kids know more than those grown-ups. I think that’s part of why there’s the physical clowning and so forth as well. Even if you have nothing else, you’re more together than the Noodles.

But, yes, more to the late Michael Jeter than Mr. Noodle’s Brother Mr. Noodle. (Which I always call him in full.) His only movie acting nomination that I can find is a SAG award Best Ensemble for The Green Mile, which lost to American Beauty. (I have to tell you, that’s an award that doesn’t seem to have a notably different, much less better, record than the Oscars.) Certainly his performance there is gentle and moving. He did “gentle and moving” extremely well, to be sure. I suspect this was not the case in Waterworld, but there we are.

Most of the stuff he’s been in, I haven’t seen in a while. Which is I suppose another reason for the Noodle thing; you have to really stand out to be memorable from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a decade after a person has viewed it, and the Noodles are memorable without having to stand out much. Is it an adult in an Elmo’s World segment? That’s a Noodle. He’s fourteenth-billed in Miller’s Crossing.

I like Bill Irwin. Obviously, I like Kristin Chenoweth. (Man, if I could do those boots, I would cosplay the hell out of Ms. Noodle, who has the best fashion sense of the clan.) Actually, Michael Jeter himself apparently called the role his favourite in twenty years. Five of six people who’ve portrayed Noodles have Tonys, and there’s a lot of talk about how they’re this dynasty of mimes, how they bring an artform to children who might otherwise not see it. But I have to admit, I’m always happiest to see Mr. Noodle’s Brother Mr. Noodle. I think he would’ve liked that.

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