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Caleb Linden

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Character
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“ Jessi's ice cream was menstrual blood. ”
—Caleb Linden in Everybody Bleeds

Caleb Linden 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, kid with autism who can't read social cues. He first appeared in "Everybody Bleeds". He is voiced by Joe Wengert.

Biography[]

He is a 14-year-old 9th-grade boy who goes to Bridgeton High School. He is a former member of the school jazz club, along with Lars, Missy, and Andrew. Caleb also worked the job of the cameraman for the school news channel. Caleb recorded Matthew, whenever he did a news report or a documentary on anything. Although Caleb is generally very socially awkward and introverted, he has made a few friends with his fellow jazz club members and Matthew.

Appearance[]

Caleb is a Caucasian 14-year-old boy with brown hair, green eyes and a hooked nose. 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. In "My Furry Valentine", his unbuttoned shirt is pink and his undershirt is white.

Personality[]

Caleb is a highly intelligent boy, who has an encyclopedic knowledge in various subjects, such as mathematics, 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, celebrating by exclaiming "Geometry!". Sadly, most of Caleb's observational genius seems to go unappreciated and even unnoticed by his fellow students. In "Dark Side of the Boob", Matthew told Lump he "wasn't going to gay him in his sleep", which Lump reacted to with confusion. Caleb then made an accurate assessment of sexual orientation, stating that it was impossible to change someone's sexuality. Caleb is a student in normal classes and, despite his difficulties with social cues, is not in special education classes.

Despite being book smart, Caleb is 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 acting inappropriately in certain situations and upsetting people by bothering them when they're already mad or sad. Caleb himself seems to completely lack emotionally expression, 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 his friends were talking about was Andrew's hat and his resemblance to a young Woody Allen. Lots of the things he says and does can come across as creepy or stalker-ish, such as drawing pictures of other students in "Super Mouth", and having miniature figurines of all the students at Bridgeton Middle School which he admitted to in "The ASSes".

Although Caleb often appears to lack any real emotion, he is very strongly attached to his yellow rolly backpack. He usually takes this 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 fucking shit out of Andrew for touching his backpack. Caleb also behaved similarly in "Guy Town", knocking Guy into the water for touching his video camera.

Caleb is also very creative, artistically speaking, as shown 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, which Matthew appreciated. He also called himself "Lord Infinite" in lieu of how he made up the story based on the real events.

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 an inner desire to spray paint the gym wall with the label "GYM WALL", so that people would know what it is.

Relationships[]

Friends[]

  • Matthew MacDell - Caleb helps Matthew with his news show, by working as the cameraman. Matthew is Caleb's only true friend as Matthew is genuinely kind to him.
  • 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 Caleb 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. Caleb is also present in many of Missy's sci-fi fantasy's as a member of her crew alongside Nathan Fillion and Andrew, fulfilling a hybrid Data/La Forge character role.
  • 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". Maury was revealed to be Caleb's Hormone Monster in Season 7 but he deals with him at 8:30 PM only.
  • Pete Doheny - Pete is Caleb's Rock of Logic, with whom he seems to have a good relationship of mutual respect and high communication. Pete understands Caleb's continued need to stay focused and in order most of the time due to his condition, so he continually helps him make logical decisions that make it easier for him to deal with new situations and help him always stay on track. correct. Caleb and Pete seem to have very similar tastes, whether in a taste for order or clothing accessories.

Enemies[]

  • Lionel St. Swithens - 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. There are fan theories that this may stem from jealousy
  • Tito Thomas -

Puberty[]

In the earlier seasons, he did not seem to have any sign of puberty. In season 7, it is revealed he masturbates at 8:30, using a "masturbation list". He also mentions he "would still like to have some sex appeal" when proposed a teddy bear backpack by Matthew MacDell.

Mental Disorders[]

Autism[]

Caleb appears to have some kind of mental disorder. Although the exact disorder remains unspecified, it is likely to be ASD (Autism), also known as Asperger's Syndrome (Not medically used anymore). There are many traits of Caleb's character that support these claims:

  • Caleb is socially inept and has problems interacting and fitting in with other kids.
  • Speaking in a flat, monotonous voice.
  • Atypical, or lack of emotional expression.
  • Difficulty comprehending non-verbal communication.
    • Because of this, Caleb carries a chart that displays different moods to show people's emotions; a tool often used by younger autistic people.
  • An encyclopedic knowledge on various subjects.
  • Noticing specific details that others normally wouldn't.
  • Caleb is very fluent and well-spoken.
  • Unusually high intelligence and understanding of complex, logical subjects.
  • Abnormal 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 Spectrum Disorder.

O.C.D.[]

Caleb also exhibits signs of having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which is commonly comorbid with ASD.

  • Urges to keep things orderly and categorized.
  • Fascination with patterns and sequences.
  • Desires to label things so that "Now people know".

Episode Appearances[]

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.
    • It is officially revealed in "Panic! At the Mall" that Maury is, in fact, his hormone monster.
  • In "The ASSes", Caleb admitted to having miniature figurines of all the students at Bridgeton Middle School.
  • Caleb mistakes menstrual blood for "ice cream".
  • Caleb's voice actor Joe Wengert also voiced Joe the Hormone Monster from Human Resources.
  • In the episode Super Mouth, it is implied the entire episode was based off of Caleb's imagination via drawings and observations of the other student's emotions and distress. This gave them their designated powers, which turned out to correlate to their personalities and/or insecurities for the episode's overarching plot.
  • In the episode Super Mouth Caleb made his own character named "Lord Infinite", who is the overarching creator of the entire storyline for the episode, his powers aren't displayed, but Caleb himself stated that he is an all-powerful being as Lord Infinite. It could be possible that Caleb is an omnipotent being for the episode's superpowers plot.
  • Caleb is small enough to fit inside his backpack.
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