How does one have some modicum of fun as a blind person? Or, to put the matter succinctly, “how fun is fun?” When I was a child they called me “Mr. McGoo” and taunted me. I would never dream of dressing as Mr. McGoo. But Marty Feldman, he’s my brother. We each underwent primitive strabismus surgery as children. In case you don’t know, “strabismus” is the term for crossed eyes. The children of the 1950’s who had this surgery were typically transformed from cross-eyed to “cock-eyed” which is what’s known in the literary world as a pyrrhic victory and in the world of ophthalmology as “well, I guess that’s the best we can do–now go outside and be humiliated…” And though McGoo was bad, there was always the infinitely meaner chorus of “Barney Google, with the goo goo googley eyes” sung block after block as you walked home from school. So Marty is my pal. Feldman was not blind and he had Grave’s Disease which often produces exophthalmic or bulging eyes. But just like me his eyes were always looking off kilter. In the ancient world he’d have been a shaman. He’d have been the guy who knew how to get the wheat growing again. He most certainly would have known how to talk to horses.
Planet of the Blind 