Good afternoon, and welcome. Today... Grown-up child prodigies.
What were their lives like as children?
Joining us is soon Lee keun,
concert violinist and composer,
who wrote 17 symphonies before the age of 8.
Billy tishler, at age 15,
the youngest person ever to become world chess champion.
Chris Reed, mathematical genius,
joining us by special arrangement
with the Oakland federal penitentiary.
Now serving 3-5 years for computer fraud.
And Dr. Douglas howser,
a 19-year-old surgical resident at eastman medical center.
Welcome to the show, everybody.
Dr. howser, let's begin with you.
Why medicine?
When I was 6, I had just recovered from childhood leukemia,
and I decided I wanted to be a doctor,
and I never looked back.
I went to Princeton, graduated when I was 10,
then graduated from med school at 14.
Chris, what was your childhood like?
I was locked in a closet till I was 11.
Hey, it was a joke. Lighten up, people.
Interesting. Soon Lee?
I practiced. Every day I practiced.
Thank you.
Billy, you were a grand master at age 10.
You focused your genius on only one thing... chess.
Any regrets?
King's knight to queen's bishop 4, yumpolski, '72.
I should've won that match,
but the chair was very uncomfortable.
I asked for another one, but they refused.
It was all part of the plot.
Now no matter what, I bring my own chair.
Equally interesting.
Soon Lee, what do you do for fun?
I practice. Thank you.
Dr. howser, some people believe
that children who are mental giants
become emotionally crippled adults.
Would you care to respond?
I don't have any emotional problems.
Yeah, right.
My situation may be a little different.
I'll admit getting a medical degree at such an early age
may have downscaled my social life,
but now that I've achieved certain goals,
I plan on easing up a little bit.
I had the same delusions of normalcy, too.
The older you get, the more obsessed you get.
Bingo. That's ridiculous.
Oh, come on, doctor, you love being the best.
Two things won't allow you to let up...
The world and your ego.
What do you mean, the world?
All of you. You're never satisfied.
If we don't sacrifice everything to stay on top,
you act as if we let you down.
He's right!
All day I hear, "soon Lee must practice.
Soon Lee must not have boyfriend."
Soon Lee fed up to here!
Shut up. You're giving me a headache.
I thought geniuses were people you were supposed to admire,
but you all seem a little crazy to me.
I'm a very normal person.
Shut up, doctor boy!
You're no different than us.
I'm very different.
Come on, we're all lunatics.
You're the lunatic.
I'm a doctor.
Like there's no such thing as crazy doctors.
I resent that remark.
So beat me up.
What's going on down there?
Child prodigies... Gifted or cursed?
More when we come back.
Night. Day.
No. Morning.
Mid... midmorning.
Uh, dusk.
Dawn.
Predawn.
Predusk.
Day.
That's good.
O.K., let's see. What's on a farm?
There's, uh... There's a farmer.
This is good.
A farmer. Is he young?
No, he's old.
Yeah, he's old. McDonald.
Yeah, old McDonald had a farm.
Ee-i-ee-i-o.
I need air.
Vinnie?
In here, doog!
Did you get much writing done?
Are you kidding?
With an oven this filthy?
I'm still distracted. I'm still blocked.
Getting out of that noisy dorm room didn't help.
You didn't have any problem with your last script.
Doog, it's obvious.
On the day you're born,
god bequeaths you a certain number of scripts.
Sadly, my number was one.
Hello?
You're looking more bored with my problems than usual.
Sorry. I guess I'm a little distracted, too.
It's that Jenny Jones show again.
There's so much about life I don't understand.
Maybe I do retreat into medicine where I can feel superior.
You are just a regular guy...
You drive a car, go out on dates.
You're using an autopsy report as a place mat.
O.K., you know what?
Maybe both of us
need to get away from our work for a while,
seek inspiration elsewhere.
Eureka! Give me this.
Huh? Our guide to broader horizons.
The learning annex?
We flip this baby open,
the first class we land on, we saddle up.
What do you say?
Yee-hah.
Pow!
"How to become a balloon artist.
Taught by knuckles the clown."
No.
"Attain buns of steel with Sebastian."
I'd rather not.
All right.
"Acting... monologues and scene study."
No. I don't know anything about acting.
That's the point, isn't it?
No. You're not making me look like a fool.
Now is the winter of our discontent,
made glorious summer by this son of York.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled...
Doogie, I'm going to stop you here.
The hump?
Forget the hump.
What's going on with Richard here?
Shakespeare chose to give Richard a hump and a limp.
Some scholars think the hump resulted from kyphoscoliosis.
I posited that that condition was owed to a cartilage defect
which could affect his speaking and breath patterns.
I was thinking more on an emotional level.
Grab that chair and try it again sitting down.
Lose the hump.
Oh, o.K.
Ahem.
Just the words.
Now is the winter of our discontent.
Uh...
Made, uh... I'm sorry.
I'm really thrown without the hump.
I understand. It's a very advanced piece.
Next time try something a little more simple, like a poem, o.K.?
Who's next?
Hey, it's not your fault, it's the script.
Oh, I'm going to do Richard III, too.
Anything you want to share about the part?
Richard thinks he deserves to be getting all the things.
York's getting, but can't because of the way he looks.
Whenever you're ready.
Now is the winter of our discontent,
made glorious summer by this son of York.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
and now instead of mounting barbed steeds
to frighten the souls of fearful adversaries,
he capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
to the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I...
That am not shaped for sportive tricks,
nor made to court an amorous looking glass...
I, that am rudely stamped
and want love's majesty...
I that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
am determined to prove a villain.
That's about it.
Where's the John?
Yeah, acting is so different for you.
I mean, I'm glad you're trying to be well-rounded.
Trying to be well-rounded?
I'm not well-rounded?
No, no, no. You're very well-rounded,
I just meant that this will make you even...
Rounder.
Vinnie.
Smooth save, nurse Faber,
smooth save. Yeah.
I'll see you later.
So what time are you picking me up tonight?
I'm not, vin. I'm quitting the class.
Why?
What do you mean WHY? I completely humiliated myself.
I was terrible.
Remember why we did this?
It's not to be the best,
but to broaden our horizons.
You can learn from failure.
I learned I don't like it.
Be like Billy, the chess geek...
Stick with the one thing you do well,
and soon you'll be wearing the same underwear
four days in a row.
How do you do it?
Sense memory. While I was doing Richard,
I thought about a time in my life when I felt like he did.
You'll have to explain that one, vin.
O.K. For my 8th birthday,
my mother took me and six kids to Disneyland.
You were at Princeton.
We were at space mountain.
I chose as my copilot
the physically precocious suzi berlutti.
We moved slowly toward the boarding gate.
Anticipation charged the air.
Suddenly, I'm standing next to that sign that reads,
"passengers must be taller than this sign to ride."
I'm 2 inches short.
Suzi goes into orbit with Robbie tupperman.
I'm left to ride the teacups with my mother.
I then am rudely stamped and want love's majesty.
I'm impressed.
As well you should be.
Thou speakest aright.
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest with oberon and make him smile.
When I, a fat bean fed horse beguiled,
made in the likeness of a filly foe.
I can't do this.
Would you stop worrying? You're gonna be fine.
You picked a poem, right?
Yeah.
Good.
Out of all the poems you could have picked,
you picked that one.
So, obviously, it must mean something to you,
so just think about that.
And waxen in their mirth, and knees and swear,
never a merrier moment wasted there.
That's much better, Louis, thanks.
Who's next?
I guess I am.
What are you going to be doing?
Um, I'm going to be doing a poem
lamenting the loss of childhood.
What does childhood mean to you, doogie?
It means being a kid.
What does that mean to you?
It means not having to worry about anything.
So when you worry, your childhood's over?
Yeah, it just slips away.
Grab it back.
You can't.
Yes, you can.
Try harder, grab it back.
You can't grab it back.
You try and it keeps slipping away,
and keeps slipping away,
and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
Now, start the poem.
Um...
When I was a child,
all my days were filled with endless wonder.
When I was a child,
I would lie on the dew-covered grass
and search the vast evening sky for falling stars.
When I was a child,
my friends and I would venture
deep into the woods
and tell tales of the grim reaper...
Who with sickle in hand...
Icily searched for his next victim.
We weren't afraid.
He came only for the old,
not us.
When I was a child,
I would look to my mother's arms for warmth
and my father's eyes for approval.
When I was a child...
I wondered...
When will I be grown?
Now I'm an adult, and I wonder...
Can I ever be a child again?
Hello, look, ma, no hands.
Oh, hi. Boy, you're gorgeous.
I am happy tonight. Are you happy tonight?
Kind of.
Do you want to kiss?
O.K.
Good one.
Oh, my god.
Howser, one minute you're crying,
the next minute you're kissing strange women.
What gives?
Vincent, look upon me. What do you see?
A man set free.
Free from what?
I'm up there doing my poem,
and I'm thinking about what you said.
I started thinking about this trip I took with my parents
the day after I found out my leukemia had come back.
We hopped a plane to Florida,
and in four days, we hit Disney world,
the everglades, sea world, the wiki watchee mermaids,
Fred Rambo's monkey jungle,
and then we flew home and checked into the hospital.
The leukemia went away,
but what didn't go away was this feeling
that I had to hurry up and do everything now.
I guess I've been on a frightened six-year-old's fast track ever since.
What are you going to do about it?
The unthinkable.
Rome! Thank you, blessed index finger.
I love Rome. I could spend a year there.
I just might.
Katherine, he's decided.
Don't look back, son. You've earned this.
So...
I'm going to miss you.
In Italy, I'm a dime a dozen, doog.
Guys like me on every street corner.
It'll be your worst nightmare.
I'm really going to miss you.
I know you fought hard to get me on staff.
I hope my resignation's not a disappointment to you.
Resignation? No chance, Dr. howser.
I'm thinking of this as an open-ended leave of absence.
I'm counting on you to come back here.
Thank you, Dr. canfield.
You came here a child,
you're leaving a man.
And you're still in your teens.
What must it be like to be you?
That's what I'm trying to figure out.
Here he is... The man of the hour.
Goodbye, Dr. howser.
Hello, more work.
I'd do anything to go to Rome.
Hey, send me a postcard.
I'm starting to miss you already.
This must be so great for your ego.
Yeah, well...
We need a hand over here!
Clear the way!
25-year-old male.
Possible spinal cord injury.
Put him in trauma "a."
Diving accident.
No sensation in his lower extremities.
Minimal movement in upper extremities.
Respiration 20.
B.P. 90 over 60.
Ready? And one, two, three.
Looks like he's having trouble breathing.
Set up for an intubation. He needs some blood.
Right away.
We'll have to ventilate him.
Call inhalation therapy for a respirator.
Some mannitol, please. Set up an I.V.
Foley catheter?
Yeah.
He's looking a little cyanotic.
All right, what's his pulse now?
It's 84.
So, how much are you going to miss me?
You should've worn that motion-sickness patch.
I thought you quit medicine.
Fine.
O.K., could you give me something now to help me?
Sure.
Cute.
Regardless of how this looks, I feel wonderful.
Well, you're wonderful to watch.
This is the answer to my problem.
I got writer's block 'cause I lack grist
for the screenwriters' mill.
Hemingway said it all...
You got to live life before you can write about it.
This will open a wealth of experiences for me.
My problem is, I got nothing to say.
Then why won't you shut up?
I'm not going to take that crap in Italy.
I got people there.