# Mental Images: Best Hits; Worst Misses **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 4, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233 "2009-03-04T03:19:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/1 "2009-03-04T03:19:53Z")
Trying to cram the idea for this thread into a meaningful title is too hard, so I hope it at least piqued your interest long enough to read the OP. If you’re like I am, every voice you hear on the radio, every style of writing you encounter, will more or less automatically draw a mental picture of the person behind it. The more exposure you have to those non-visual aspects of another’s personality, the clearer that picture of them forms in your mind. Then one day you get to see them for real. On TV or in a movie, in a magazine or newspaper, at a party, at a Dopefest, somewhere like that. Now, what this thread is about: who has come closest in real life to your mental picture of them? Who has been the closest to opposite of what you had visualized? Let me try a little example of how this works for me. Long ago when radio was the only form of home entertainment we had, Arthur Godfrey’s voice was one of the most captivating on the air. In my mind I had him looking a lot like Basil Rathbone or Vincent Price. Imagine my shock when I saw him on TV and he looked more like Porky Pig. The best example in the other extreme would be Elvis. I had him pretty well nailed from hearing him on the radio and when I eventually saw him wherever it was he was 95% what I had visualized. I have pictures of most of the regular Dopers in my mind’s eye. I have met maybe 30 in real life. None of the real life images matched what was in my head, but none of them were too far off either. I think I missed the greatest on Bosda and came the closest on Brynda. But the cops wouldn’t have found Brynda on my mental image picture of her, and that’s a fact. What’s your story? If this OP doesn’t make sense, please ask questions or try your own paraphrase of what I’m trying to say. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/2 "2009-03-04T03:31:48Z")
When I lived in LA, I always thought the radio station KROQ’s “Kat” sounded like such a hottie. I think I saw a picture of her eventually and she was everything I imagined. On the other hand, The Dresden Dolls’s Amanda Palmer is not at all what I envisioned – I had more Amy Lee in mind than Michael Jackson. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/3 "2009-03-04T04:06:02Z")
It is a truism among the radioheads at the Mother Corp. that every radio person looks completely different in person than he or she sounds on the radio. It was certainly the case with my dad, who had this very trustworthy, incisive, businesslike, articulate radio voice but was a funny bald dude in person. In one particularly memorable incident, for some reason they couldn’t get a TV reporter out to cover a piece of breaking news – a winter flood in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec, if I remember correctly – so they had him do both the radio and TV coverage, which he scarcely ever did. So it was that a national audience got to see this commanding, trusted voice of the radio combined with the image of a drenched reporter standing in the pouring rain wearing a Kermit-the-Frog-esque trench coat and a big fur hat that looked like he had a drowned cat on his head. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/4 "2009-03-04T04:14:19Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > and a big fur hat that looked like he had a drowned cat on his head. omg. Where can I get one?! ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/5 "2009-03-04T04:16:44Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > omg. Where can I get one?! George HW Bush had one at the inauguration! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/6 "2009-03-04T04:20:11Z")
I don’t know why I didn’t think to include it in the OP, but the picture threads here are really great for dealing with these very issues. With that in mind, who have been your biggest surprises for closeness to and divergence from your mental pictures of them? Maybe a set of links to the threads that still have live links to the pictures would be a fun side-project in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/7 "2009-03-04T05:38:14Z")
Well, this isn’t a _person_, but it’s a good example of how my mental images can be off. Way back in the eighties, my sister’s best friend started a software company, to produce custom clothing patterns. When she described it to me, [images of](http://gallery.me.com/komiksulo#100055/bartly1&bgcolor=black) [automatic T-shirt manufacturing](http://gallery.me.com/komiksulo#100055/bartly2&bgcolor=black) [like this](http://gallery.me.com/komiksulo#100055/bartly3&bgcolor=black)\* went through my head. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the software simply took a person’s actual measurements and output a custom pattern for that person. You still had to cut and sew all the material yourself… Still, the software was an impressive achievement. [sub]\*Artwork mine; copyright not a problem.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/8 "2009-03-04T12:59:15Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > I don’t know why I didn’t think to include it in the OP, but the picture threads here are really great for dealing with these very issues. > > With that in mind, who have been your biggest surprises for closeness to and divergence from your mental pictures of them? Maybe a set of links to the threads that still have live links to the pictures would be a fun side-project in this thread? Here’s a little follow-up along those lines. Using the keyword search option for “photo” in thread titles only, and limiting the search to 50 replies or more, I got two pages of hits going back to 2000. The 2000 one seems to involve dead links at a defunct site. The 2004 one has many dead links to the photos themselves, but some are still viewable. Same story on the 2005 set. The 2008 one starts off with a hit to a real photo. And the 2009 one starts off with a working picture as well. I have not examined the actual threads beyond getting their links and counts for replies and views and their starting dates, and making sure there’s at least one working picture in the batch, but it’s a start. If you know of more photo threads of Dopers, please add to the list below. 02-24-2009, 06:33 PM [Yet Another Photo Thread?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=508081&highlight=photo) 196 replies 4,614 views 08-21-2008, 04:56 PM [Another doper photo thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=480499&highlight=photo) 360 views 14,419 replies 02-12-2005, 09:21 AM [Another Doper Photo thread. . .](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=302057&highlight=photo) 926 replies 30,373 views 06-14-2004, 12:37 PM [I want to know what you look like- Post your photo!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261528&highlight=photo) 594 replies 24,250 views ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/9 "2009-03-04T13:59:31Z")
I always thought “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” was sung by a black man until I learned it was Elton John. Now I can’t imagine how I could have not known, but in my defense, I didn’t know who Elton John was at that point in my life. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/10 "2009-03-04T14:11:54Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I always thought “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” was sung by a black man until I learned it was Elton John. > > Now I can’t imagine how I could have not known, but in my defense, I didn’t know who Elton John was at that point in my life. I had the same issue with Gregg Allman on _Midnight Rider_ from the _Laid Back_ album which was my first exposure to him or the Allman Brothers. He is definitely not black! Now I have thought about who was my first major shock: Frank Sinatra. I had him looking more like Tony Martin or even Robert Mitchum in my mind’s eye. That eye was pre-school age! ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/11 "2009-03-04T14:36:30Z")
[David Dye](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4717757) looks nothing at all like I expected. [Scott Simon](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3874941), on the other hand, looks pretty close. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/12 "2009-03-04T14:48:23Z")
Rickroll, anyone? What, you don’t actually want me to link to it, do you? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/13 "2009-03-04T14:55:53Z")
> [@Paintcharge](#): > > [David Dye](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4717757) looks nothing at all like I expected. > > [Scott Simon](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3874941), on the other hand, looks pretty close. I was not at all prepared for [Terry Gross.](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=2100593) I had more of a [Julia Louis-Dreyfus](http://www.starsmix.com/celeb_picture/335julia_louis-dreyfus04_jpg.jpg) image listening to her on _Fresh Air_. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/14 "2009-03-04T15:13:17Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > It is a truism among the radioheads at the Mother Corp. that every radio person looks completely different in person than he or she sounds on the radio. When I was a teenager (early 80s), the top-40 radio station in my hometown (WIXX, Green Bay, WI) had an afternoon DJ named Bill LuMaye. Great deep voice, it made me picture a big guy. One evening, I was working in my dad’s hardware store, when this man came in, looking for some plumbing parts. Maybe 5’7", slender build, longish hair starting to gray, big nose. As I was helping him, I noticed that he was wearing a WIXX baseball jacket, with “Bill” stitched on the chest. Then, I finally recognized the voice (his speaking voice was similar to, but not the same as, his radio voice). We talked for quite a while about the radio business, since it interested me, and he turned out to be a very nice guy, but I’ll always remember how he looked **nothing** like what his radio voice connoted. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/15 "2009-03-04T16:42:39Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Rickroll, anyone? What, you don’t actually want me to link to it, do you? Are you talking Rick Astley, because that was my answer to this thread. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/16 "2009-03-04T16:50:04Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Are you talking Rick Astley, because that was my answer to this thread. 🙂 You betcha! Whenever I get in a conversation like this Mr. Astley is always the first thing that comes to mind. How can he \*not \*be a large, Black man? ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/17 "2009-03-04T16:57:45Z")
David Sedaris. Nothing like what I imagined. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/18 "2009-03-05T07:54:27Z")
Isaac Asimov mentions that the radio actor who played the character Mullen in the dramatisation of his short story “C-Chute” so fitted his visualisation of the person that he deliberately did not learn the actor’s real name. He would always be “Mullen” to him ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-images-best-hits-worst-misses/488233/19 "2009-03-05T08:12:42Z")
[**Tress MacNeille**](http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/wax/329/tress_macneille_index.html) is an interesting case, depending on which voice you associate her with. If you know her as Mom on _Futurama_ or Agnes Skinner and Lindsay Neagle on _The Simpsons_, the picture doesn’t fit the voice at all. But as Dot from _Animaniacs_, it works. Speakikng of _The Simpsons_, I always thought [**Yeardley Smith**](http://voicechasers.com/database/showactor.php?actorid=1225) looked about like the voice of Lisa Simpson should look. > [@matt\_mcl](#): > > So it was that a national audience got to see this commanding, trusted voice of the radio combined with the image of a drenched reporter standing in the pouring rain wearing a Kermit-the-Frog-esque trench coat and a big fur hat that looked like he had a drowned cat on his head. Well, at least they probably couldn’t tell he was bald.