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:
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)
“There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials ... despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.”
—Peter Ustinov (b. 1921)