to mean a fool or simpleton. It may derive from the German Dudeltopf or Dudeldop, meaning simpleton or noodle (literally "nightcap"). It is the origin of the early eighteenth-century verb to doodle, meaning "to swindle or to make a fool of". The modern meaning emerged as a term for a politician who was doing nothing in office at the expense of his constituents. That led to the more generalized verb "to doodle", which means to do nothing.

In the final courtroom scene of the 1936 film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,