| “ | Hi, you're looking at me. How tall are you? There's a monster next to you. | ” |
—Caleb Linden in Everybody Bleeds
| ||
Caleb is a recurring character in Big Mouth. He is a student at Bridgeton Middle School, who participates in the school jazz club and works as the cameraman for the school news, which makes him part of the AV club. He is an asocial, yet very intelligent special needs kid who can't read social cues. He is a student at Bridgeton Middle School. He first appeared in "Everybody Bleeds". He is voiced by Joe Wengert.
Biography
Caleb is a 13-year-old 7th-grade boy who goes to Bridgeton Middle School. He is a member of the school jazz club, along with Lars, Missy, and Andrew. Caleb also works the job of the cameraman for the school news channel. Caleb records Matthew, whenever he does a news report or a documentary on anything. Although Caleb is generally very socially awkward and introverted, he has still managed to make a few friends with his fellow jazz club members and of course, Matthew.
Appearance
Caleb is a Caucasian 13-year-old boy with brown hair and green eyes. He has a short, tubby, and portly physique. Caleb wears a red unbuttoned shirt, a light black undershirt, blue jeans, and purple and white tennis shoes.
Personality
Caleb is a highly intelligent boy, who has an encyclopedic knowledge in various subjects, such as math, science, physics, and human biology. He is able to perform complex mathematical equations in his head in a manner on par with a computer. In "Steve the Virgin", Caleb was playing mini-golf and made a perfect hole in one shot at a convoluted course, after planning out the exact angle and speed to hit the ball at in his head. Sadly, most of Caleb's observational genius seems to go unappreciated and even unnoticed by his fellow students. In "Dark Side of the Boob", Jay was afraid that Matthew was turning him gay. Caleb made an accurate assessment of sexual orientation, stating that it was impossible to change someone's sexuality. This statement fell on deaf ears and Jay continued to fear the irrational. Because of Caleb's vast knowledge, he is a student in normal classes, despite being a special needs kid.
Despite being book smart, Caleb is deplorably lacking in the street smart department. He is known for not being able to read social cues and failing to understand even the most obvious exhibitions of human emotions. This leads to him behaving inappropriately in certain situations and pissing people off by bothering them when they're mad or sad. Caleb himself seems to completely lack emotion, often appearing as a blank slate, who only talks in a flat, monotonous voice. In "Am I Gay?", Caleb carried around a chart with a bunch of pictures of smiley faces expressing emotions and their names. He used this to deduce that Jessi was angry. Caleb has the tendency to blurt out embarrassing facts about people. In "Everybody Bleeds", he made a list of everyone who went to the bathroom. In "Steve the Virgin", he pointed out that Nick has a tiny penis. Not only this but he often randomly mentions subject matter that can be considered shocking or offensive, such as mentioning the Woody Allen sexual allegations in "Pillow Talk", when all his friends were talking about was Andrew's hat. Lots of the things he says and does can come across as creepy or stalkerish, such as drawing pictures of other students in "Super Mouth", which Jessi didn't like and having miniature figurines of all the students at Bridgeton Middle School, which he admitted to in "The ASSes".
Although Caleb usually lacks any real emotion, he is very strongly attached to his yellow rolly backpack, in an emotional sense. He usually takes his backpack with him almost everywhere he goes, even when going to places where he doesn't need it and he gets really mad if someone else touches it without his permission, as seen in "What Is It About Boobs?", when he beat the shit out of Andrew for touching his backpack. Caleb also behaved similarly "Guy Town", knocking Guy into the water for touching his video camera.
Caleb is also very creative, artistically speaking, as seen by the fact that he is part of the school music club. He also has a talent for drawing pictures and storytelling, as seen in "Super Mouth" when he drew superhero caricatures of all of the other students at Bridgeton Middle School and created a superhero story about them.
Caleb likes to keep things in order and doesn't like it when he notices things out of place. He feels the need to "fix" things that he thinks are messy or unkempt. In "My Furry Valentine", Caleb was shown categorizing candy hearts by color, separating candy hearts of specific colors and keeping them each in their own individual stack. In "Smooch or Share", Caleb acted on his innermost desire to spraypaint the gym wall with the label "GYM WALL", so that people would be able to know what it is.
Relationships
Friends
- Matthew MacDell - Caleb helps Matthew with his news show, by working as the cameraman.
- Andrew Glouberman - Caleb is in jazz class with Andrew. However, the two don't always get along. In "What Is It About Boobs?", Andrew layed down on Caleb's backpack, which pissed Caleb off. Caleb ran toward him and started screaming and punching him for touching his backpack. In "Super Mouth", Andrew lashed out at Andrew and cussed at him, which Caleb was perfectly fine with.
- Missy Foreman-Greenwald - Caleb is in jazz class with Missy. Missy tries to remain respectful to Caleb's disability by treating him the same way she'd treat anyone else. If Caleb makes a non-sequitur statement, Missy will respond as though what he said was relevant. For instance: In "Pillow Talk", Missy, Lars, and Caleb were discussing whether or not to allow Andrew into the jazz club and Caleb simply stated. "He has a hat." Missy responded by saying, "I also like his hat." as a way of making him feel included in the conversation. However, if Caleb even makes an inappropriate comment, Missy will simply ignore it, as seen in the same episode, when she turned a blind eye to Caleb's mention of Woody Allen's sex abuse scandal.
- Lars - Caleb is in jazz club with Lars. The two rarely seem to directly interact but it is implied that they get along quite well and work together in harmony, due to the fact that they play music together.
- Coach Steve - Caleb and Coach Steve are casual friends as they share common interests in random nonsense. In "Everybody Bleeds", Caleb and Coach Steve had a conversation about sitting in ice cream and later, which students have gone to the bathroom during the field trip.
- Maury - Caleb can clearly see and talk to Maury, even though he's not his hormone monster. In "Everybody Bleeds", Caleb pointed out Maury to Andrew. Unenthused, Maury responded, "Hey, Caleb".
Enemies
- Shame Wizard - As seen in "Smooch or Share", Caleb is one of the people who feared The Shame Wizard. However, along with all the other victims, Caleb stood up to The Shame Wizard and took him down.
- Aiden - For reasons that have not been explained, Caleb dislikes Aiden as seen in "Rankings", when out of nowhere, Caleb just flatly stated "I don't like Aiden." right in front of the latter's face.
Puberty
Caleb is one of the few characters in the show who has not exhibited any interest in sex or even any signs of going through puberty. That being said, it makes sense that he has not been assigned a hormone monster. Despite this, he can still see and talk to Maury, which goes against the rule that you can only see a hormone monster if it's been assigned to you. (Caleb is not the only character to break this rule. Lars has interacted with Maury directly in "What Is It About Boobs?" and Jew Fishman has interacted with him in "I Survived Jessi's Bat Mitzvah", even forming a friendly relationship with him.) Although Caleb has never expressed any sexual urges, he still fully understands the birds and the bees and knows what he's talking about if he brings it up.
Mental Disorders
Autism
Caleb appears to have some kind of mental disorder. Although the exact disorder remains unspecified, it is likely to be high-functioning autism (more specifically, Asperger's syndrome). There are many traits of Caleb's character that support these claims.
- Caleb is socially inept and has problems fitting in with other kids.
- Talking with a flat monotonous voice.
- Not expressing emotion.
- Lacking the ability to understand other people's emotions.
- Because of this, Caleb carries a chart that displays different moods to show people's emotions; a tool often used by autistic people.
- An encyclopedic knowledge on various subjects.
- Noticing minor details that others normally wouldn't.
- Caleb is very fluent and well-spoken.
- High intelligence in a myriad of subjects.
- Emotional attachment to inanimate objects such as his backpack.
- Caleb has exhibited short but strong bursts of violent rage toward anyone who touches his belongings; being overprotective of things like this is a common symptom of autism.
O.C.D.
Caleb also exhibits signs of having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
- Urges to keep things orderly and categorized.
- Fascination with patterns and sequences.
Episode Appearances
- Everybody Bleeds
- Am I Gay?
- Pillow Talk
- The Pornscape
- Am I Normal?
- What Is It About Boobs?
- Steve the Virgin
- The Planned Parenthood Show (Imagination Sequence)
- Drug Buddies (Pictured)
- Guy Town
- Dark Side of the Boob
- Smooch or Share
- My Furry Valentine
- Girls Are Angry Too (Cameo)
- Rankings
- The ASSes
- Disclosure the Movie: The Musical!
- Super Mouth
Trivia
- In "Everybody Bleeds", Caleb was clearly able to see Maury and communicate with him, despite the latter not being his hormone monster. This makes him one of the few characters in the show, who can see hormone monsters that don't belong to them. The reason why has still been left unexplained.
- In "The ASSes", Caleb admitted to having miniature figurines of all the students at Bridgeton Middle School.