PEOPLE Magazine Article

Gene was featured in the November 17, 1986 issue of PEOPLE Magazine.

Sit-Down Comic Gene Mitchener Takes a Stand: the Handicapped Have a Sense of Humor Too

by Margot Dougherty

How do you like my wheelchair?” asks Gene Mitchener, caressing the spokes of his two-wheeled throne. Silence. “Real sporty, huh? Two grand I paid for it.” The audience at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles is shifting uneasily. “Then I found out it was a recycled grocery cart.” A nervous titter. “You may not believe this, but every time I go into a food store it pulls to the right.” A loud guffaw follows an involuntary giggle and finally, permission given, laughter rumbles through the house.

Mitchener, 43, suffers from Kugelberg-Welander disease, a neuromuscular disorder which affects more than 50,000 Americans. “Basically,” explains Mitchener, “the motor nerves don’t relay their messages efficiently through the body. My parents first noticed it when I couldn’t crawl to reach my toys. I sort of scootched myself across the floor.” The farther from the brain that nerve impulses travel, the more likely they are to be delayed or confused. As a result Mitchener’s hands and feet are most severely affected. He started using crutches at age 3 and switched to a wheelchair at 26.

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