Guardian Angel, or Possessing Demon?
Sep. 28th, 2013 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorBack in 1988, I was lying in bed listening to Mel Blanc (you know, the voice of just about every well-known cartoon character, famously Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Barney Rubble . . . I could go on) being interviewed by the local station as part of his book tour, his autobiography That's NOT All, Folks!. He told Robin and Maynard a tale I was too young to hear as a lad, the story of his car wreck in early 1961 that left him very near death in a coma.
Here's the weird. Mel told the story that his doctor came by every day and ask, "Mr. Blanc, how are you?" to see if he could elicit a response. Every day, nothing. Finally, Mel said, the doctor tried a different tack; he asked, "How's he doing in there, Bugs?" To the shock of both the doctor and Blanc's son, also in the room, Bug's voice came out, saying weakly, "Ah, he'll be alright, Doc."
I always loved that story. Even when I found out it was wrong, since it was wrong in a way that said so much about the nature of our brains and how we perceive the world and us within it.
You see, Blanc's Doc Louis Conway didn't ask Bugs Bunny how Mel was doing. As both he and Mel's son Noel Blanc witnessed, the doctor asked Bugs how he was doing, as in "Bugs Bunny, how are you doing today?" And rather than attest to Mel's well-being, Blanc said in Bugs' voice, "Nyeah, What's up Doc?"
Doctor Conway then went down a list, asking for Porky, Tweety, Foghorn . . . and each answered in their respective voice. Finally, after a string of six or so characters emerging, Blanc himself came out of the coma, asking about what happened and where he was.
And that's weird; not that Blanc answered in the characters he so ably brought to life, but decades later that he would mis-remember this story on his Seattle radio interview (and, one would assume, others as well), placing these personas deep within him as guardian angels, not as shattered fragments, distinct individuals buried deep within his conscious but yet whole, sometimes whole enough to take over his body and communicate when he himself was too broken to answer.
Son Noel gives credence to this idea of the characters being a part of Blanc, noting that watching his dad, he sometimes turned down the volume from the recording studio, but could still tell which character his dad was voicing just by the posture, the demeanor Blanc assumed. "So, I think they were part of him, basically," Noel notes in the Radiolab piece. He even evaded the question of why his father responded first to Bugs' summons, not to dad, or father, or Mel.
It's a weird thing, this brain of ours, in that we may not be alone within it.
Here's the weird. Mel told the story that his doctor came by every day and ask, "Mr. Blanc, how are you?" to see if he could elicit a response. Every day, nothing. Finally, Mel said, the doctor tried a different tack; he asked, "How's he doing in there, Bugs?" To the shock of both the doctor and Blanc's son, also in the room, Bug's voice came out, saying weakly, "Ah, he'll be alright, Doc."
I always loved that story. Even when I found out it was wrong, since it was wrong in a way that said so much about the nature of our brains and how we perceive the world and us within it.
You see, Blanc's Doc Louis Conway didn't ask Bugs Bunny how Mel was doing. As both he and Mel's son Noel Blanc witnessed, the doctor asked Bugs how he was doing, as in "Bugs Bunny, how are you doing today?" And rather than attest to Mel's well-being, Blanc said in Bugs' voice, "Nyeah, What's up Doc?"Doctor Conway then went down a list, asking for Porky, Tweety, Foghorn . . . and each answered in their respective voice. Finally, after a string of six or so characters emerging, Blanc himself came out of the coma, asking about what happened and where he was.
And that's weird; not that Blanc answered in the characters he so ably brought to life, but decades later that he would mis-remember this story on his Seattle radio interview (and, one would assume, others as well), placing these personas deep within him as guardian angels, not as shattered fragments, distinct individuals buried deep within his conscious but yet whole, sometimes whole enough to take over his body and communicate when he himself was too broken to answer.
Son Noel gives credence to this idea of the characters being a part of Blanc, noting that watching his dad, he sometimes turned down the volume from the recording studio, but could still tell which character his dad was voicing just by the posture, the demeanor Blanc assumed. "So, I think they were part of him, basically," Noel notes in the Radiolab piece. He even evaded the question of why his father responded first to Bugs' summons, not to dad, or father, or Mel.
It's a weird thing, this brain of ours, in that we may not be alone within it.