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:
“They [parents] can help the children work out schedules for homework, play, and television that minimize the conflicts involved in what to do first. They can offer moral support and encouragement to persist, to try again, to struggle for understanding and mastery. And they can share a child’s pleasure in mastery and accomplishment. But they must not do the job for the children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)