Television
One of the most famous stuttering fictional characters is the animated cartoon character "Porky Pig" from the Looney Tunes theatrical cartoon series. The creators of Porky wanted a character with a "timid" voice. Originally, an actual stutterer voiced the pig, but could not control his stutter. Mel Blanc, who had no speech impediments, took over the role and affected the stutter. In 1991, the National Stuttering Project picketed Warner Bros. demanding that they stop "belittling" stutterers and instead use Porky Pig as an advocate for child stutterers. The studio eventually agreed to grant $12,000 to the Stuttering Foundation of America and release a series of public service announcement posters speaking out against bullying.
An episode of the hit TV show M*A*S*H involved a stuttering soldier who was convinced he was unintelligent and constantly harassed by his fellow soldiers. The usually pompous Maj. Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) takes it upon himself to prove the soldier is just as intelligent (if not more, since Winchester discovers the young man has a very high IQ) as the rest of his unit, even giving him a treasured copy of Moby-Dick to read. At the end of the episode, Winchester retires to his tent and listens happily to a tape-recorded letter from his sister, who is revealed to have a pronounced stutter.
Ronnie Barker's character in Open All Hours has a stutter, which sometimes gets him into trouble. His nephew mocks him for it.
On South Park, a physically disabled character named Jimmy Vulmer suffers a severe stutter that has been used to comic effect on the show.
The character Jeremy, from the late 1960s TV series, "Here Come the Brides" played by Bobby Sherman is another example of a fictional stutterer on TV.
Actor Nicholas Brendon, who played Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for seven consecutive seasons, overcame his stuttering problem and is now a spokesperson for the Stuttering Foundation of America.
Read more about this topic: Cultural References To Stuttering
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labour in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour.”
—Frederic Raphael (b. 1931)
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“Photographs may be more memorable than moving images because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow. Television is a stream of underselected images, each of which cancels its predecessor. Each still photograph is a privileged moment, turned into a slim object that one can keep and look at again.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)