Movies - Breakfast of Champions

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	Movies - Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a 1973 novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. Set in the fictional town of Midland City, it is the story of "two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast". One of these men, Dwayne Hoover, is an insane and aging Pontiac automobile dealer, who becomes obsessed with the literal accuracy of the writings of the other man, Kilgore Trout, a largely unknown pulp science fiction writer. This novel is a prime example of Kurt Vonnegut's overwhelmingly satirical style.

The novel is populated by childish drawings, intending to illustrate to the reader various aspects of life on Earth. Such drawings include that of an anus, the American flag, the number 1492, a vagina, little girls' underpants, guns, trucks, cows and the hamburgers that result from them, the electric chair, chickens and the fried food that results from them, and the sunglasses the author himself wears as he enters the storyline, among many others.

In addition to Kilgore Trout, several other characters from other Vonnegut books appear here, such as Eliot Rosewater and Rabo Karabekian. Rosewater was the main character in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) and a minor character in Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), while Karabekian later became the main character in Bluebeard (1988). Dwayne Hoover's secretary, Francine Pefko, previously appeared in Cat's Cradle (1963), where she performed secretarial duties at General Forge and Foundry, in Ilium, New York. The vicious guard dog, Kazak, was Winston Niles Rumfoord's pet in The Sirens of Titan (1959) and Selena MacIntosh's guide dog in Galápagos (1985). Many of Midland City's inhabitants reappear in Deadeye Dick (1982), which locates the city in Ohio.

The novel's name, originally from the well-known slogan for the Wheaties breakfast cereal, comes from a key scene late in the novel when a waitress says she, apparently ironically, says "Breakfast of Champions" each time she serves a customer a martini. In the preface, Vonnegut obviously recited advice from lawyers as he noted meticulously that Breakfast of Champions is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc. for its Wheaties breakfast cereal products, and that his use of the term did not serve as an endorsement or disparagement of their fine products.

The novel also describes a fictional extinct giant sea eagle called the Bermuda Ern.

Breakfast of Champions was made into a 1999 film starring Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte and Omar Epps. The movie was widely panned by the critics.

MA*SH reference

In season five of the TV show M*A*S*H
, in the first episode, "Bug Out," Hawkeye says "Breakfast of champions" as he empties his still from which he makes martinis.

ISBN numbers

ISBN 1562671138 (paperback, 1996)
ISBN 0385334206 (paperback, 1999)
ISBN 0795302401 (e-book)
ISBN 0795302428 (e-book)

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Movies - Breakfast of Champions

M*A*S*H reference

ISBN numbers

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MA*SH reference