NationMaster - Encyclopedia: 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 a normal-looking but deeply deranged Pontiac dealer wfdsigl;ajsl;gkjasl;jgdfho becomes obsessed with the writings of the other man, Kilgore Trout, taking them for literal truth. Trout, a largely unknown pulp science fiction writer who has appeared in several other Vonnegut novels, looks like a crazy old man but is in fact relatively sane. As the novel opens, Trout journeys toward Midland City to appear at a convention where, unbeknownst to him, he will meet Dwayne Hoover and unwittingly inspire him to run amok. Early Wheaties Cereal Box Wheaties, a wheat and bran mixture baked into flakes, is a breakfast cereal introduced in 1924 and marketed by the General Mills cereal company of Golden Valley, Minnesota. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ... In political geography and international politics a country is a geographical entity, a territory, most commonly associated with the notions of state or nation. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative, typically in prose. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Dell Publishing was an American publisher of books, magazines, and comic books. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... The barcode of an ISBN . ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ... Pontiac is a marque of automobile produced by General Motors and sold in the United States, Canada and Mexico from 1926 to the present. ... Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. ... Flynns Detective Fiction from 1941. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

Vonnegut sprinkled plot descriptions for Trout's stories throughout the novel. He also filled the book with some of his own simple felt-tip pen drawings, intending to illustrate various aspects of life on Earth. These drawings include renderings of an anus, an American flag, the date 1492, a vagina, little girls' underpants, guns, trucks, cows and the hamburgers that are made from them, chickens and the Kentucky Fried Chicken that is made from them, an electric chair, and the sunglasses the author himself wears as he enters the storyline. Female Human Anatomy Male Human Anatomy This article is about the bodily orifice. ... Not to be confused with 1492: Conquest of Paradise. ... The vagina, (from Latin, literally sheath or scabbard ) is the tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. ... A gun is a common name given to an object that fires high-velocity projectiles. ... This article is about the toaster. ... KFC (full name Kentucky Fried Chicken) is a division of Yum! Brands, Inc. ... This article contains a trivia section. ...

In addition to Kilgore Trout, several more 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). 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. Eliot Rosewater is a recurring character in the novels of American author Kurt Vonnegut. ... Rabo Karabekian is a fictional character and the narrator of Bluebeard, 1988, by American author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ... God Bless You, Mr. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Childrens Crusade: A Duty Dance With Death is a 1969 novel by best-selling author Kurt Vonnegut. ... For the Stargate SG-1 episode, see 1969 (Stargate SG-1). ... For the fairy tale character, see Bluebeard. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For the string game, see Cats cradle. ... Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ilium is a fictitious town in eastern New York state, used as a setting for many of Kurt Vonneguts novels. ... This article is about the Kurt Vonnegut novel The Sirens of Titan. For other uses, see Siren (disambiguation). ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The novel GalÃ¡pagos is Kurt Vonneguts look at evolution. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Deadeye Dick is a 1982 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Official language(s) None Capital Columbus Largest city Columbus Largest metro area Cleveland Area Ranked 34th - Total 44,825 sq mi (116,096 kmÂ²) - Width 220 miles (355 km) - Length 220 miles (355 km) - % water 8. ...

The title, originally from the well-known slogan for Wheaties breakfast cereal, crops up in a key scene late in the novel when a waitress, apparently ironically, says "Breakfast of Champions" each time she serves a customer a martini. Vonnegut, in his typical sarcastic manner, mocks the legal and copyright systems as he notes meticulously that Breakfast of Champions is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc. for its breakfast cereal products, and that his use of the term is not "intended to disparage their fine products." The naming convention of the book, which uses an alternate title ("Goodbye Blue Monday"), looks to have been inspired by Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. Look up slogan in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Early Wheaties Cereal Box Wheaties, a wheat and bran mixture baked into flakes, is a breakfast cereal introduced in 1924 and marketed by the General Mills cereal company of Golden Valley, Minnesota. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... General Mills (NYSE: GIS) is a Fortune 500 corporation, mainly concerned with food products, which is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. ... The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (also known as Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show) was a television animated series created and produced in the USA by Jay Ward. ...

The novel also describes a fictional extinct giant sea eagle called the Bermuda Ern. In biology and ecology, extinction is the ceasing of existence of a species or group of species. ...

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 critics. Breakfast of Champions is a 1999 film adapted and directed by Alan Rudolph from the novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ... Breakfast of Champions is a 1999 film adapted and directed by Alan Rudolph from the novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ... Convenience store window poster featuring Willis, Prague, Czech Republic (2002) Bruce Willis (born Walter Bruce Willis on March 19, 1955) is a two-time Emmy Award-winning, Golden Globe-winning American actor and singer. ... Albert Finney (born May 9, 1936 in Salford, Lancashire, England) is a five-time Academy Award-nominated English actor of Irish descent. ... Nick Nolte at Cannes, 2000 Nicholas King Nolte (born February 8, 1941) is a Oscar-nominated American actor, model, and producer. ... Omar Hashim Epps (born July 20, 1973) is an African American actor and musician. ...

Plot Summary

The early chapters of the book introduce the two main characters: Kilgore Trout, a struggling science fiction writer, and Dwayne Hoover, an increasingly insane, but "fabulously well-to-do" car dealer. Kilgore receives an invitation to speak at a convention in Midland City, Dwayne's home town. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

Dwayne meanwhile is slowly going mad. He hallucinates, and his "bad chemicals" make him do many strange things. He insults his employees, making one of them think that Dwayne knows he is a secret transvestite. Many minor characters are introduced, most of whom have hidden links to other characters. Kilgore hitchhikes his way across the country and ends up in the bar at the same hotel as both the author and Dwayne. A hallucination is a sensory perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus, as distinct from an illusion, which is a misperception of an external stimulus. ... For a discussion of the history and current usage of the term transvestite, see transvestism. ... Hitchhiking in New Zealand, 2006 Hitchhiking (also called lifting, thumbing or hitching, Thumb up a ride) is a form of transport, in which the traveller tries to get a lift (ride) from another traveller, usually a car or truck driver or occasionally even a motorcycle driver. ...

The author points out the spiritual climax of the book; a snobbish painter explains his greatest work to the silent bar. The painting is of a single orange bar on a huge green canvas. He explains that at the core of everything that is can be found a shining bright line. A mother and her son, a father and his daughter, or two lovers: nothing but two shining bands of light.

The author speaks of various fates that will befall the characters within the world he has created. Dwayne finally meets Kilgore and his "bad chemicals" trigger a rampage. He attacks many people at the bar and bites the end off Kilgore's finger. They are all hauled off in a huge ambulance.

After Kilgore is released from the hospital he is confronted by the author of the novel and has a few last things explained to him. The author tells Kilgore that he can send him anywhere in his past or future. The author then transports himself back to his own dimension as Kilgore's shouts fade out: "Make me young!... Make me young!..."

Editions

Image File history File links Breakfast_of_Champions. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... A user viewing an electronic page on an eBook reading device An e-book (also: eBook, ebook), sometimes called an electronic book, is an electronic (or digital) equivalent of a conventional printed book. ...

External links

Works of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

v • d • e

Novels	1950s: Player Piano (1952) • The Sirens of Titan (1959) 1960s: Mother Night (1961) • Cat's Cradle (1963) • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) 1970s: Breakfast of Champions (1973) • Slapstick (1976) • Jailbird (1979) 1980s: Deadeye Dick (1982) • Galápagos (1985) • Bluebeard (1987) 1990s: Hocus Pocus (1990) • Timequake (1997)
Short story collections	Canary in a Cathouse (1961) • Welcome to the Monkey House (1968) • Bagombo Snuff Box (1999)
Collected essays	Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974) • Palm Sunday (1981) • Fates Worse than Death (1990) • God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999) • A Man Without a Country (2005)
Scripts	Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970) • Between Time and Timbuktu (1972) • Make Up Your Mind (1993) • Miss Temptation (1993) • L'Histoire du Soldat (1993)
Adaptations
Stage	Welcome to the Monkey House (1970, 1974) • Sirens of Titan (1974) • Cat's Cradle (1976) • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1979) • Breakfast of Champions (1984) • Requiem (Stone, Time, and Elements: A Humanist Requiem) (1988) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1996)
Film	Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) • Next Door (1975) • Slapstick of Another Kind (1982) • Mother Night (1996) • Breakfast of Champions (1999)
Television	Displaced Person (1958, 1985) • Between Time and Timbuktu (1972) • EPICAC (1974, 1992) • Who Am I This Time? (1982) • All the King's Horses (1991) • Next Door (1991) • The Euphio Question (1991) • Fortitude (1992) • The Foster Portfolio (1992) • More Stately Mansions (1992) • Harrison Bergeron (1995)

Categories: 1973 novels | Novels by Kurt Vonnegut | Postmodern literature The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ... The following is a complete list of literary works by the late author Kurt Vonnegut. ... Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ... The player piano is a type of piano that plays music without the need for a human pianist to depress the normal keys or pedals. ... This article is about the Kurt Vonnegut novel The Sirens of Titan. For other uses, see Siren (disambiguation). ... Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1961. ... For the string game, see Cats cradle. ... God Bless You, Mr. ... Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Childrens Crusade: A Duty Dance With Death is a 1969 novel by best-selling author Kurt Vonnegut. ... Slapstick, or Lonesome No More is a 1976 science fiction novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut. ... Jailbird is Kurt Vonneguts 1979 fictional novel about a man recently released from a low security prison. ... Deadeye Dick is a 1982 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. ... The novel GalÃ¡pagos is Kurt Vonneguts look at evolution. ... For the fairy tale character, see Bluebeard. ... Hocus Pocus is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. ... Timequake is a semi-autobiographical work by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ... Canary in a Cathouse is a collection of twelve short stories by Kurt Vonnegut published in 1961. ... Welcome to the Monkey House is an assortment of short stories written by Kurt Vonnegut. ... Bagombo Snuff Box (ISBN 0399145052) is an assortment of short stories written by Kurt Vonnegut published in 1999. ... Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions) is a collection of essays, reviews, short travel accounts, and human interest stories written by Kurt Vonnegut from c. ... Palm Sunday is a 1981 collection of short stories, speeches, essays, letters, and other previously unpublished works by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ... Fates Worse than Death subtitled An Autobiographical Collage, is a 1990 collection of essays, speeches, and other previously uncollected writings by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ... God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, by Kurt Vonnegut, is a collection of short interviews written by Vonnegut and first broadcast on NPR. The text of these interviews makes up the content of . ... A Man Without a Country is a collection of essays published in 2005 by the author Kurt Vonnegut. ... Happy Birthday, Wanda June is the 1971 film adaptation of the play by the same name by Kurt Vonnegut. ... Between Time and Timbuktu is a television adaptation of Kurt Vonneguts science fiction novels and stories, and the title of a book containing the script of the broadcast. ... Histoire du soldat (sometimes written Lhistoire du soldat; translated as The Soldiers Tale or A Soldiers Tale) is a 1918 theatrical work to be read, played, and danced (lue, jouée et dansée) set to music by Igor Stravinsky. ... Happy Birthday, Wanda June is the 1971 film adaptation of the play by the same name by Kurt Vonnegut. ... Slaughterhouse-Five ais a film adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut novel of the same name. ... Next door, as defined by its proximity to 96_Maindy_Road ... Slapstick of Another Kind is a 1984 film based on the novel called Slapstick or Lonesome No More written by Kurt Vonnegut. ... Mother Night is a 1996 film based on the book by Kurt Vonnegut of the same name. ... Breakfast of Champions is a 1999 film adapted and directed by Alan Rudolph from the novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ... Displaced Person is the name of a 1985 Emmy award winning drama based on a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. ... Between Time and Timbuktu is a television adaptation of Kurt Vonneguts science fiction novels and stories, and the title of a book containing the script of the broadcast. ... Who Am I This Time?: Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon as Vonneguts offbeat thespian couple. ... Next door, as defined by its proximity to 96_Maindy_Road ... It has been suggested that Handicapper General be merged into this article or section. ...