History Literature / DaveBarrySleptHere

* SelectiveStupidity: Played with in the introduction:

* GagWords: All the mentions of '''THE HAWLEY-SMOOT TARIFF''':
-->"Quite frankly, we have no idea what this is, but we think it has a wonderful ring to it, and we just like to see it in large bold letters: '''THE HAWLEY-SMOOT TARIFF'''."\\
"Nevertheless, [Franklin Roosevelt] began immediately to combat the Depression, implementing a series of bold and sweeping new programs that came to be known, collectively, as '''THE HAWLEY-SMOOT TARIFF'''."

* RunningGag: The book has several running gags. For convenience of memorization, all major events in American history occur on October 8, his son's birthday (Most notably, the attack on Pearl Harbor happens on "the fateful December morning of October 8."). To satisfy the demands of education professors, there are periodic allusions to the contributions of women and minorities, none of which get specifically mentioned. The later chapters have the GagWords "The Hawley-Smoot Tariff," and at several points the end of UsefulNotes/RichardNixon's political career is widely predicted.

* EverythingsBetterWithCows: One of the least relevant discussion questions claims that the fastest animal on earth is a cow dropped from a helicopter.

* PistolWhipping: American revolutionaries adopt this effective tactic at the Battle of Concord of hitting the British troops over the head with their muskets, simply because guns back then took forever to load. The failure of this tactic to fend off Santa Anna's troops at the Alamo serves as a lesson to Sam Houston, who orders his troops to start using their rifles as ''rifles''.
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: A couple pages into Chapter Four: The Colonies Develop A Life-style, the {{Lemony Narrator}}s interrupt the action to notify the readers that "a review committee... has determined that, so far, this history book is not making enough of an effort to include the contributions of women and minority groups. Unless some effort is undertaken to correct this situation, this book will not be approved for purchase by public school systems in absolutely vast quantities." Whereupon the narrators/authors "just now remembered... that during the colonial era women and minority groups were making many contributions, which we are certain that they will continue to do at regularly spaced intervals throughout the course of this book." [[spoiler: They do, though their contributions are never detailed... whenever the narrative remembers to mention them, anyway.]]

* UnusualEuphemism: Invoked in one of the "discussion questions" in ''Dave Barry Slept Here''.

* BestKnownForTheFanservice: [[invoked]] Discussed in a passage where Creator/AnnetteFunicello is cited as the cultural contributions made by ''The Mickey Mouse Club'':

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* BrickJoke: The last chapter has a bit about Donald Trump buying up, among other things, the planet Mars and, in a footnote, renaming it "Trump." This joke comes up again on the final page, which suggests the future possibility of landing a manned spacecraft on Trump.

* MysteriousMiddleInitial: The book claims that Harry S Truman's family was so poor that they couldn't afford to put a period after his middle initial, and poses a "trick discussion question" about what the "S" stood for.

** If you didn't know, the real reason for the lack of period is that his middle name ''was'' just "S", this was so both grandfathers (Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young) could be honored.

...[[WellThisIsNotThatTrope well]], if such a book exists, it would be everything this "Sort of History of the United States," written by Creator/DaveBarry in 1989, doesn't even try to be. But that book would be longer than ''Dave Barry Slept Here'', and considerably less funny.

-->Annette had a ''major'' impact on many us male Baby Boomers, especially the part where she came marching out wearing a T-shirt with her name printed on it, and some of the letters were considerably closer to the camera than others. If you get our drift.

* BonusRound: UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln became a contestant in ''The Lincoln-Douglas Debates'', where he won the bonus round by answering the question "How much is four score plus seven?" This awarded him the Samsonite luggage ''and'' the presidency.