Mad Scientists Hall of Fame

The (funny) history of the Mad Scientist Club of Silicon Valley

By Dr. Renfrew Millikan

It was late 1987. The strains of the Potter and Brumfield morning radio show were screeching through the speaker of the Halicrafter radio. I was hooking up light bulbs in preparation for the Single-Pole, Single-Throw, Error-Causing-Parallax Conference coming up at the San Jose Red Lion Inn the following week, when a scientist, taller than myself, with wild bleached spastic hair, a crazed look in his eyes, his hands wringing around a crimped certificate of some sort, and adorned in the ubiquitous white lab coat with a plastic pocket protector, ran into my laboratory. A red transparent plastic concave satellite dish was strapped to his head with duct tape. He paused and scrutinized me from the massive rolling iron door (with rivets on it)entrance as his tongue lapped at the outer left side of his face, where it appeared that he had been stuck to a Xerox photocopy machine.

I was startled! Not by anything to do with his appearance. I was used to these sorts of characters bursting into my lab, usually wanting to borrow the typical cup of hydro-cyanide, but this! This could only be the truly amazing Dr. Karl Zrint! Or…was his first name Pablo…yes, yes, it was Pablo! 

I was so astounded, I dropped my 40 thousand Kilovolt test probe ( whereupon, my dutiful lab assistant , Gronyitz, scrambled from beneath the hyper-solidification, cloud chamber, back-sump, where he was making repairs), and , heroically leaping , caught the probe before it shorted out on the wrought iron plated floor (with rivets on it).

“My dear, esteemed, Dr. Zrint! Welcome to the Mad Scientist Lab of Silicon Valley in the year 1987! “ I stuttered, still somewhat reeling from the 8 Gin and Fluorine Tonics I’d had the night before.

“Why, are you Dr, Millikan? “ the man inquired, seeming to not be able to control the orbit of his right eye, and lapping, one again, the side of his face.

“ Indeed, Indeed!” I cried. “Welcome forth!” I made forward towards him, out stretching my right hand, only to be yanked to a stop by the 2 inch wide, steel woven ground strap I had tethered myself to the iron plated floor (with rivets on it) with.

Gronyitz ran forward with a huge set of bolt cutters and cut clean through the cable, allowing me freedom to continue my effort to handily greet my new arrival.

After shaking each other’s hands to the point of nearly upsetting both our bladders, Dr. Zrint eagerly  pressed into my face the document he had been crimping in his hand when he arrived. Taking it reverently, I needed only read the partial contents, for it was the highly flouted, and revered Certificate of Completion from the Zoo-optic Institute! It proclaimed that Zrint had graduated with honors, tinsel, and explosions, from the institute, with no other that 6 PHDs in subjects ranging from Hot Glue Fabrication ( a field I was intensely interested in),  to Polar Exponent Matrix Nullification Calculations, and numerous others that I will expound upon later. For now, I was nearly beside myself with excitement, and bade Dr. Zrint to accompany me further into the dank laboratory. I shoved a 14 inch thick stack of lab procedures onto the floor (Gronyitz will gather them up later…I hoped), to make a place for Zrint to sit on the lab stool that they had been heaped upon. 

Into the night, and early morning, and mid morning…late morning, early afternoon, indeed for 3 days consecutively, we harangued, postured, endeared, and spittled each other with our experiences. Gronyitz had politely, yet seemingly put-off, made trips to the nearby Taco Bell unit to aid us in not starving to death during all this.