# What does Cecil look like?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 11, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051 "2000-12-11T18:39:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tiburon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tiburon)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/1 "2000-12-11T18:39:01Z")
I’m afraid I have no idea if this is a commonly asked question - something tells me it must be but I have not seen it. Does anyone know what Cecil looks like? Is there a picture of him on the web anywhere?
If you don’t know what he looks like already - what do you imagine he looks like?
I think of him as 50ish with graying hair, a little unkept. Sort of a (um…no offense here)…sloppy dresser with his pants needing to be tugged up. Definitely not someone who comes to work in Armani with his Coach briefcase. More like a guy who comes to work in his jeans or khakis. Glasses probably - maybe contacts. Not always very clean shaven. How far off am I?
Tiburon
---
### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/2 "2000-12-11T18:57:43Z")
To my knowledge Cecil has never been photographed and there is a really good reason for this (he’s really a lot of people).
However…
This site ( [http://www.ipass.net/~whitetho/edcecil.htm](http://www.ipass.net/~whitetho/edcecil.htm) ) suggests Cecil looks remarkably like Ed Zotti. Of course, any fool can see the difference. Cecil only comes in black & white while Ed exists in color.
---
### Author:  [@Fonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fonz)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/3 "2000-12-11T19:34:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by TVeblen \*
> \*\*Oh, here we go again…
>
> You people _want_ to draw Unca Cece’s eye? The same curmudgeonly, horny Brain who’s so tired of fighting ignorance that his most kindly utterance is, “Quiet, rodent”?
>
> Sure he’s crabby and funky. Read the books, people! Flattery turns his stomach, but his sense of humor is sufficiently sideways to permit sneaky nods where mischief will do most good.
>
> So tedious dweebs like **whitetho** agitate for attention. “If you don’t answer _me, me, me_ you don’t exist, so there, pffft!” They’re deliberate irritants who are as rude as they are boring. The gimlet gaze can be lured, but not demanded–and beware what you ask for.
>
> Nah, I picture Cecil more along the lines of Jack Nicholson in “Witches of Eastwick”, only with infinitely greater intelligence and subtlety. Cecil Adams, scion of an inbred but respected New England family, forced by nameless excess to flee to the The City Of Big Shoulders, finds relucatant aides, an audience and even an attendant artist. (The Slug Marble Sculpture: pigeons roost on unlikely appendages, onlookers flee in horror/helpless laughter.)
>
> No, somewhere on Rush Street there resides a brilliant misanthrope, clad in madras shorts (with suspiciously animated zipper), sandals and socially relevant Tshirt. He strews grungy scraps of paper with arcane jottings, dispenses kindness to street people if no one if looking and mentally undresses stray female tourists and yuppies, much to their enjoyment and his.
>
> If this isn’t true, I don’t wanna know differently.
>
> Veb \*\*
---
### Author:  [@magdalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magdalene)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/4 "2000-12-11T19:51:09Z")
I picture him as looking pretty much like _Shaft_, with a speaking voice like James Earl Jones’.
He’s a complicated man, and no one understands him but his woman.
---
### Author:  [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/5 "2000-12-11T20:07:33Z")
He’s a tall, thin, gangly turkey who wears a mortarboard. I thought that was fairly common knowledge.
---
### Author:  [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/6 "2000-12-11T20:08:30Z")
Well, as his **favorite poster** (check the sig!), I am uniquely qualified to describe the Sage of Our Age.
**UG-_leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee._**
Now you know.
Magdalene - so I’m not the only one who called African-American. It feels soooo good.
---
### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/7 "2000-12-11T20:10:57Z")
He looks like a turkey wearing a mortarboard. [Here he is in the stocks](http://www.straightdope.com/art/1999/990507.gif)
---
### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/8 "2000-12-11T20:21:33Z")
Oh c’mon. Does it really matter? My imagination was mightily fired up by the series of “Tom Swift, Jr.” books that I got ahold of as a wee lad. They were penned by one “Victor Appleton, II”. Prolific fellah-except that there is no Victor Appleton, II. They were written by a bunch of authors, following a common thread \.
I don’t care if Cecil exists or not. The cerebral pyrotechnics engendered by his writings are proof enough that if he’s not a single entity, then the idea of a Cecil is just what we all wish for, and need.
( If THAT level of asskissing doesn’t get me the post of assistant special purveyor of Data to TubaDiva, NOTHING WILL !!! ).
With humility by the bushel, and a sig line that is finally perfectly matched to the posting, I remain…
Cartooniverse
---
### Author:  [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/9 "2000-12-11T20:43:00Z")
So **newbie** here waltzes right in, asks point blank what Cecil looks like, and gets seven (7) replies in a couple of hours while my post in MPSIMS on a strangely similar subject
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=50169](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=50169)
still awaits the first reply/comment a few _days_ later. **DISCRIMINATION** , I say. Pure and blatant. I intend to lodge a formal protest shortly. Seniority _has_ its privileges. Or so I thought!!
**:::slightly miffed:::**
---
### Author:  [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/10 "2000-12-11T21:38:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally kvetched by Omni-not \*
> \*\*DISCRIMINATION, I say. Pure and blatant. I intend to lodge a formal protest shortly. Seniority _has_ its privileges. Or so I thought!!
>
> :::slightly miffed:::\*\*
ON: Happy?
Relax, ye’ve a lot better chance of bein’ a cool kid than I’ll ever have.
---
### Author:  [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/11 "2000-12-11T21:51:26Z")
You really didn’t have to. But thanks for the moral encouragement. I’ll re-think the official protest thing… Still a bit miffed, though:).
P.S.: Thanks for the welcome to the SDMB. Better late than never:D.
---
### Author:  [@Montfort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montfort)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/12 "2000-12-11T22:04:03Z")
A cloud.
That one over there. Yes, that one, it looks just like Cecil.
---
### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2000, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/13 "2000-12-11T23:07:48Z")
Just to clarify a little, Cecil doesn’t _really_ look like a turkey in a mortarboard. The nose and the neck do _suggest_ a turkey, but the haircut that inspired Slug to draw the mortarboard has been gone for at least a decade. (Mostly because the hair used for that haircut has been gone for almost that long.)
Sorry to disappoint, but Cecil looks like that guy whom you don’t want to sit next to on the bus.
---
### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2000, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/14 "2000-12-12T01:46:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Montfort \*
> \*\*A cloud.
>
> That one over there. Yes, that one, it looks just like Cecil. \*\*
No no, a cloud by day, but a Pillar of Fire by night.
---
### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2000, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/15 "2000-12-12T01:47:03Z")
The childern know. I wish I had been back in school the day he quacked like a duck, to see if duck quacks echoed. These childern actually saw Cecil and didn’t know they were looking upon the King in beggers robes. Ok, he probaly wore normal clothes. Can we track down these childern and get a description.
It seems the days where he did the weird experiments himself are gone. Like the silver spoon in the bottle to keep the fizz in champain.
I still chuckle when I imagine Cecil quacking in the school yard like a duck.
---
### Author:  [@DRY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRY)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2000, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/16 "2000-12-12T05:14:46Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Montfort \*
> \*\*A cloud.
>
> That one over there. Yes, that one, it looks just like Cecil. \*\*
\<\\>
–Hamlet, Act 3, Scene ii
---
### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2000, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-cecil-look-like/45051/17 "2000-12-12T16:17:23Z")
Cecil recently posted In About this Message Board. So, maybe if you ask there he might answer?