Kill Your Television!

Previous legend || Kill Your Television! || Next legend

Hart Throb

The triggers that may set off seizures in someone suffering from epilepsy are among the trivia of modern society, in part because of the advent of things like strobe lights and Japanese cartoons. The effects of these things on a comparitively small, nigh-invisible minority make trivia and legends about epilepsy potent UL material.

Documented: There exists a woman who has epileptic seizures upon hearing the voice of Mary Hart, co-anchor of the American Hollywood gossip show Entertainment Tonight.

An article in a 1991 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine quoted a doctor regarding the case of a 45 year old woman, for whom the pitch of Mary Hart's voice would "... set off abnormal electrical discharges in the brain, resulting in not only seizures, but mental confusion, headache and upset stomach. Upon hearing Hart's voice, the woman would rub her stomach, hold her head, and 'look confused and far away . . . and out of it.'" It is also cited in an article entitled "That's Entertainment?" in Science News v140, n3 (July 20, 1991) :45 (1 pages)

References:

• http://tafkac.org/medical/hart_seizure.html