Yeah, my experience was like a very localized version of that.
I have been to several company dinners or other events where people dressed very nicely, all in a room together. In some instances the food was on a couple of tables to serve buffet-style. Fair enough.
I have never seen a table at any such gathering filled almost-to-overflowing with pies and cakes.
I have never seen an argument break out where one patron picks up a pie to hurl into the face of the other.
I have never seen this sort of altercation escalate to where everyone in the room is now throwing pies at one another…usually with uncanny accuracy where every cream pie impacts a man or woman in the face, splattering messily and burying their features in cream and fruit and flaky brown crust.
I have never seen an entire room of dinner-party guests flinging such pastries at one another, looking like an army of snowmen.
Never. I must not go to the right parties.
Well, The Battle of the Century was almost a hundred years ago. It’s time for a new one.
Depending on the institution, this can happen. In the US, for example, there are quite a few prominent researchers with positions at liberal-arts undergraduate colleges with no graduate teaching assistants, who will routinely teach regular undergraduate courses, including some entry-level ones.
The most striking example of this phenomenon I know of personally is a currently-emeritus Fields Medalist mathematician (the Fields Medal is basically the mathematics equivalent of a Nobel Prize for research in other disciplines) who occasionally taught introductory-level courses for non-majors at an Ivy League university.
Ordinarily, however, at the large research universities where most distinguished researchers are found, it’s rare to see one of them in an undergraduate class, let alone an entry-level one. But when you do find one there, it’s because they want (or are being forced by their department) to do their share of the routine teaching load along with their colleagues. Not because they’re on the lookout for “bright young minds” to mentor.
Superstar researchers know perfectly well that if they just keep plugging along in their research offices and graduate seminar rooms, many of the brightest of the “bright young minds” will work their way up into upper-level courses and come to find them. The typical mentees of a superstar don’t need to be “discovered” in an entry-level course; they already placed out of the entry-level courses with a bunch of AP credits and went on to ace the upper-level courses as well.
I only knew this from Murch, the driver in the Dortmunder caper novels.
1965 isn’t exactly new, but try this one on for size anyhow:
Truly epic.
Yes, The Great Race pie fight is a masterpiece of the art form. (My only complaint: only one woman. OTOH it’s Natalie Wood in her prime, in a bustier). The point of my post - and one indeed, this thread - this never happens IRL… Or at least, not with such epic results. For one thing, real pies would not splatter and stick like that to someone’s face.
I’ve read in several places that in fact real pies were used.
Look like Meringue , those woudl stick.
This is another difference between film + TV versus the real world: hard work is completely devalued.
The “chosen one” student will usually just be innately skilled at some topic, right from the get go without apparently needing to do much.
Alternatively, they may be the geek stereotype where we see them going through a stack of books or whatever. But usually this is their character trait; it’s rarely something they must do to achieve some level of qualification or understanding, and they are almost never surrounded by others helping to push them along.
I understand why these differences exist of course; reality isn’t always that interesting or suitable for fun stories. But it does plant the seed in many people’s mind that succeeding in academia is merely a matter of being born “book smart”.
On that note, whenever there’s a “studying” scene, someone goes to the library and takes out a huge pile of books, and apparently has time to study them all in one night.
My grandfather was a chemist for Alcoa. He said when the company big wigs came down all the way from St. Louis for a tour he had to set up the lab exactly like that using food coloring and water. So maybe it does happen from time to time in real life but it’s still b.s.
Thank you for this. I could not agree more.
Although not EXTREMELY common, there’s an ongoing thing about chemistry labs with colored fluids running around elaborate constructions of glassware: The brownish end product drips into a beaker. The chemist picks up the beaker, drinks from it, and sighs “Good coffee!”. Bonus points if a visitor is offered a cup first.
Hey, I read Westlake too, Jackie!!!
I did this all the time in college. The thing is, you don’t need to read ALL the material to pass a quiz/eaxm or write a term paper. All you have to do is review the main points and/or select the information that will support or refute your thesis.
Often, in films and TV, there is justice.
Unless, of course, it’s really Fat Bastard’s stool sample. 
Some overtime is inevitable. I have also been told very directly from a boss that overtime is a failure of management.
Even though overtime is inevitable what doesn’t happen is that no one cares about it. Those that are working are very aware of making extra money. Bosses are trying to get them off work as soon as possible. Their boss is asking why it was necessary to pay overtime. Whatever level of civilian government is above them is constantly bitching about how much money is being paid out. Some people like overtime and seek it out. Some complain every minute they are forced to work extra. What is unrealistic is how no one at any level in the chain seems to care about overtime.
Complete with a small chunk of dry ice for the bubbles, I’d wager.