If the world of pop culture criticism were like the Hollywood it covers, then Robert Thompson would be George Clooney, Martin Scorsese and, oh, Scarlett Johansson — all wrapped into one. He’s not just our greatest celebrity. On days when a story breaks with a pop culture angle, it feels like Thompson is our only celebrity.

Are you sensing a little jealousy? Well, it’s not there, to be honest. Maybe it’s because even though it feels Thompson is the only person the media looks to for opinions about pop culture, his analysis is usually right on. He’s always ready to give pop culture credit for its complexity and depth — and, at the same time, he’s willing to question the often questionable ideology behind some of it. And he does it all in very accessible, yet still eloquent and original, language.

Of maybe it’s because, as AP reporter Jocelyn Noveck explains, he’s a genuine, friendly guy who really knows his stuff.

Ironically, the dominant theme of Noveck’s story about Thompson is that Thompson is a media darling. The irony is not lost on Noveck, though, who points out that many media outlets, including her very own AP, have an unofficial moratorium on using him in their stories:

So often has Thompson been quoted, over 17 years at Syracuse, that some news organizations (including The Associated Press) have lately tried consciously NOT to quote him.

But nobody said we couldn’t write ABOUT him.

How often has he been quoted? “At The New York Times alone,” Noveck writes, “an archive search shows Thompson quoted more than 40 times in the last four years, by writers in a wide range of areas. At the AP, he’s been quoted close to 20 times in the past year.”

And David Rubin, dean of the Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where Thompson works, give first-hand testimony to Thompson’s popularity: “I’ve seen Bob get 60, 70, 80 media calls in one day. I’ve seen him in a hallway on his cell phone for hours. You could go so far as to say Bob is the most quoted academic in the United States.”

Besides reveling in Thompson’s hyper-popularity, Noveck also gives a lively synopsis of how Thompson got to his present position. A primer, perhaps, for the rest of us? Unfortunately, as with most things in life, including quality pop culture and pop culture criticism, it’s a combination of inspiration and hard work:

He did his undergraduate work at the University of Chicago, where he initially planned to be an art history professor. But on Sunday nights, when the dorms didn’t serve food, he would eat takeout in front of the TV. He found that he chose “CHiPs,” with Erik Estrada, over PBS, and became fascinated with the question: “Why do smart people watch dumb TV?”

He did his thesis on Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” but came to believe that “art could be something that came out of a TV set.” That led to a broader interest in popular culture. “I realized that to understand TV you needed to understand the network radio era. And vaudeville. And the circus. And comic strips. Every year I would binge on something.” [...]

Thompson, who’s written or edited six books of his own, gets up each day at five to read; he consumes three new books a week, not to mention uncounted hours of TV. (He also has a family that he spends time with.) He’s constantly becoming enamored with new areas of pop culture.

A couple years ago, for example, he realized he didn’t know enough about Shakespeare — a pop culture figure of his time, after all. He decided to watch all existing plays on VHS or DVD. In three months he watched 113 plays and read 25 books on the bard. “I was crazed,” he says contentedly.

In case you think his interests aren’t diverse enough — or that he’s all about TV — it’s good to know he’s also gone through an obsession with aluminum lawn chairs, which he believes are “really taken for granted.”

That’s not something that’s likely to happen to Mr. Thompson any time soon.