History Main / JeevesAndWooster

* IdiotPlot

* GenreSavvy

* HangingJudge: "In Court After the Boat Race (or, Jeeves' Arrival)" features a magistrate who hands down a five shilling fine for stealing a policeman's helmet as if he were pronouncing a death sentence.

* LargeHam: Roderick Spode. It helps that was written as an {{Expy}} of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s.

* HiddenDepths: Sir Watkyn Basset, incredibly relieved that Bertie intended to marry his ''niece'' not his daughter, rather optimistically (and against all available evidence to the contrary) speculates Bertie might have some. Berties doubts it.

* HiddenDepths: Sir Watkyn Basset hopefully suggests Bertie might have some. Bertie doubts it.

*** [[spoiler: Particularly he often agrees (or has his arm twisted until he agrees) to steal things, even those of fairly high value. Notably he agreed to try and steal a silver cow-creamer and a manuscript, but has also been instrumental in making and breaking a large number of engagements and passing himself of as such disparate characters as a jute-salesman and Gussy Fink-Nottle]]

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Jeeves doesn't give a fig if Bertie gambles, drinks too much, or commits burglary. But he will countenance no fiancées, moustaches, or white dinner jackets.

A TV Series starring (in the most recent incarnation) StephenFry and HughLaurie and based on the short stories and novels of PGWodehouse, ''Jeeves and Wooster'' is set [[ChristieTime sometime between the wars]] and focuses on Bertie Wooster, an affable but not overly bright young chap with an unfortunate tendency to get accidentally engaged to every woman he so much as looks at, and his valet (''not'' butler), Jeeves, the brains of the operation.

** For once, though, brought off successfully. Wodehouse based Spode on an acutal person. In addition, once Spode inherits his familial title (becoming the 7th Earl of Sidcup), he gives up his quirky version of fascism.

* JiveTurkey: In New York, Jeeves warns some visiting small-town Midwesterners against letting it get out that they've been "mousetrapped by a pari of suede-shoed feather merchants."

'''Jeeves:''' I regret not, sir. I have to learn to bear it.
'''Bertie:''' As do the rest of us, Jeeves.\\

* GorgeousPeriodDress: It makes a man wish that dinner jacket (tuxedos to Americans) was still ''de rigueur,'' even when dining alone in your own home.

* AdaptationDecay / AdaptationDistillation: While the first two seasons stay very close to the tone of the original stories, the latter seasons got a bit broader and sillier, with more slapstick and the endings of some of the stories changed for no apparent reason.

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: Bertie finally gets one over on his Aunt Agatha in "Pearls Mean Tears".
** To elaborate, because it is ''that'' awesome: Aunt Agatha regularily tries to force Bertie into marriage because she thinks he's a fool who needs someone to straighten him out. During a vacation trip, she tries to set him up with a fair and virtous society woman whose brother is also a pious clergyman. Agatha's pearl necklace is stolen, and she assumes the maid took it, and harrasses the girl thoroughly. Meanwhile Jeeves identifies the brother and sister as two rather infamous con artists, deduces that they stole the pearls, and steals them back. Bertie returns the pearls and delives an ''epic'' put-down on Aunt Agatha, in the most condescending, disappointed manner ever, over how she's not only harrassing a poor girl with no evidence, but also her horribly bad judgement of trying to set him up with a con artist, even elaborating (in a comedically overwrought manner) on how disastrous their life together would be should they marry. This ensures that Agatha stops thinking she knows better... [[StatusQuoIsGod for a few months at least]].
** Bertie gets to rather magificently tear into Spode and his "blackshorts" (and [[TakeThat by extension their real life counterparts]], Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists):
--> "The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: "Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?""
* CrowningMomentOfFunny: Gussie's drunken speech at Market Snodsbury. Heavily shortened and toned down from the book, but it's ''still'' hilarious, and can arguably double as a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for Gussie, even if very few of the characters think so.
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: Anytime we see how loyal Jeeves really is, or how much awe Bertie has for him.
** At the end of the novel ''Thank You, Jeeves'', when "Jeeves Applies for a Position".
** Near the end of ''The Code of the Woosters'', when Aunt Dahlia offers to sacrifice her cook Anatole to save Bertie from thirty days in the clink. Also subsequently, when [[spoiler:Bertie turns her down]].

* TearJerker: "Well, then... ''Leave,'' dash it!" [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-4r0-CrfbI "...Very good, sir."]] Jeeves is [[NotSoStoic blinking an awful lot]] as he turns away.

* TheWoobie: We dare you to not want to give Bertie a hug after all the crap he goes through in some episodes. True for the books as well.

* LargeHam: Roderick Spode. It helps that he's a blatant {{Expy}} of [[AdolfHitler That Guy]].
** More like Mussolini. He even has a picture of Mussolini and he is more a buffoon than a homicidal maniac.
*** He was written as an {{Expy}} of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s.

* Bertie gets to rather magificently tear into Spode and his "blackshorts" (and [[TakeThat by extension their real life counterparts]], Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists):