What's Up, Doc?

Over the holidays, my sister-in-law played a podcast of an interview about Mel Blanc for our family. You may remember this man as the voice of many well-known cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble, Daffy Duck and, by some estimates, over one thousand other voices.

In January of 1961, he had a horrible head-on collision in Los Angeles while driving on “dead man’s curve” on Sunset Blvd. He was in a coma for two weeks at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. His family and doctors spoke to him but received no response.

One day a young intern, Louis Conway, asked Mel Blanc, “Bugs Bunny, how are you doing today?

Blanc immediately replied, “Eh, what’s up doc?”

The astonished doctor then asked to speak to Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and a number of other characters. Blanc responded in each voice then began talking in his own voice and eventually came out of his coma. The doctor later told a reporter that it seemed like Bugs Bunny was trying to save his life. Talk about breathing life into a character!

A psychologist who was interviewed about the case on the podcast said Mel Blanc’s higher brain function was injured while the characters were kept in the uninjured lower function. That’s the medical answer, but as a writer I’m not sure that’s all there is to it. Some of us have had the unusual experience of characters with minds of their own. They may behave in a different ways than planned and, for instance, refuse to be the murderer and instead become the hero.

This story made me consider my characters and how to bring them to life. I’ve used different techniques over the years that I learned in writing classes and in online discussion groups but I’m always looking for new ideas. Here are some of my favorites:

·         Create in-depth character profiles detailing characters’ habits, fears, opinions, strengths, weaknesses, values, life ambitions and so forth.

·         Talk with my characters. For instance, when I’m stuck writing a scene, I pretend my character is sitting across from me and I ask what to do next. Also, I might interview a character about her life and experiences.

·         Use enneagrams to create a character. An enneagram is a diagram that lists nine personality types such as achiever, helper, etc. Using the nine-sided star diagram, it’s easy to see how one personality type plays off another and how they might conflict.

Back to the family discussion… In an interesting twist, while we were talking about Mel Blanc and his injury, my mother-in-law said, “I remember that.” At first we thought she recalled the incident from media reports. It turned out she was one of Mel Blanc’s nurses while he was in the hospital. She told us that as a young nurse recently relocated from Quebec, French was her first language and she was still learning English. One day Mel Blanc asked her to bring his briefcase. She didn’t understand the word and looked around the room for a tiny box. They both joked about the misunderstanding and after that he referred to her as “briefcase girl”.

That’s All Folks!

Got any good stories about characters to share?