History Literature / BreakfastOfChampions

* ExtinctInTheFuture: Kilgore Trout, whose earlier stories were published in pornographic magazines with covers luridly advertising "wide-open beavers," mentions in a FlashForward to 1979 that he "mourned especially when the last beaver died."

* CampGay: Wayne's effeminate son, who goes by the nickname "Bunny".

* WouldHitAGirl: Dwayne, during his rampage, says, "Never hit a woman, right?" before punching Beatrice Keedsler and Bonnie [=McMahon=], who were trying to restrain him. He also beats up his mistress, Francine Pefko.

* WouldHitAGirl: Dwayne, during his rampage, says, "Never hit a woman, right?" before punching Beatrice Keedsler and Bonnie [=McMahon=], who were trying to restrain him.

* AscendedExtra: Kilgore Trout appears as a minor character in Vonnegut's earlier ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'' and ''Literature/GodBlessYouMrRosewater''. He's one of the two principal protagonists in this story.

''Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye, Blue Monday!'' is Creator/KurtVonnegut's seventh novel, and one of his stranger dips into metafiction. First published in 1973.

Made into a film by Alan Rudolph (''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120618/?ref_=sr_2 Breakfast of Champions]]'') in 1999, with Creator/BruceWillis as Dwayne Hoover and Creator/AlbertFinney as Kilgore Trout. Vonnegut himself called the film "painful to watch".

The name comes from the slogan for Wheaties breakfast cereal (see OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope below).

* SparedByTheAdaptation: In the novel, Dwayne's wife Celia commits suicide by drinking Drano. She survives and at least partly snaps out of her depression in the film.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: [[invoked]] Rabo Karabekian, who goes on to star in ''Bluebeard,'' revels in making money through modern art. Once Rabo explains his artwork, Vonnegut says it is fantastic, whereas before he wasn't very impressed with it.

** KickTheSonOfABitch: Vonnegut notes that out of the people attacked by Dwayne in his rampage, only one deserved it: Don Breedlove, the mechanic who raped Patty Keene. Dwayne claps him in the side of the head, dropping Breedlove and permanently deafening him in one ear.

* CanonWelding: Eliot Rosewater and Kilgore Trout return after previous appearances in Vonnegut's work. Vonnegut says in the introduction that the book was written to retire all of his older characters (although Kilgore Trout's son Leon appears as a prominent posthumous character in Vonnegut's later novel ''Galapagos'').

* CallARabbitASmeerp: In one of Kilgore Trout's stories, another planet calls the local equivalent peanut butter 'Shazzbutter'.

* PollutedWasteland: America as a whole is portrayed like this. Midland City itself has a river full of toxic sludge running through it (in one scene, Kilgore Trout attempts to wade through the river and the sludge winds up forming a plastic like-casing around his feet).

* PollutedWasteland: America as a whole is portrayed like this.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Harry [=LeSabre=] and his wife Grace.

* DeadpanSnarker: Kilgore Trout, again.

* CanonWelding: Eliot Rosewater and Kilgore Trout return after previous appearances in Vonnegut's work. Vonnegut says in the introduction that the book was written to retire all of his older characters.

* PantyShot: Implied and illustrated. An early passage says that it's a boy's job to try to peek at a girl's underpants, while it's the girl's job to keep a boy from seeing her underpants. A drawing of girls' panties is displayed.

* DemotedToExtra: Eliot Rosewater, protagonist in Literature/GodBlessYouMrRosewater, makes a brief appearance as Kilgore Trout's sponsor at the arts festival.

Dwayne Hoover is the fabulously well-to-do owner of a Pontiac dealership. He's made his money in real estate. He's handsome and has oodles of charm. He's also slowly been going insane since his wife committed suicide.

* ContemptibleCover: Kilgore Trout's stories are usually published with pornographic illustrations, leading to the name and author credit of one of his books being covered by a promise of "wide open beavers."