Line #8 Creator/JeanShepherd


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jean_shepherd.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"Excelsior, you fathead!"'']]
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4	Jean Parker Shepherd Jr. (July 26, 1921 – October 16, 1999) was an American humorist who had a long career working in various media.
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6	Shepherd specialized in irreverently humorous monologues about growing up in a middle class family in Hammond, Indiana during TheGreatDepression, along with accounts of his young adulthood, including his time in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, which mixed sophisticated reflections with broad comedy.
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8	The website [[http://www.flicklives.com Flick Lives]] is an exhaustive collection of info about Shepherd and his extensive, extremely eclectic career.
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10	Shepherd is noted as one of the writers of the film ''Film/AChristmasStory'', which is based on anecdotes primarily from his book ''In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash''. He also provided the voice of the {{nostalgic narrator}} in that film and had a brief [[TheCameo cameo appearance]] in it.
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12	He once played a prank in which he asked listeners of his late-night radio program to go to their local bookstore and request a nonexistent book by a nonexistent author: ''I, Libertine'' by Frederick R. Ewing, a social satire set in 18th century England about a rakish socialite named Lance Courtenay. The prank was so successful that the book ended up on the ''New York Times'' bestseller list (which was then compiled based on feedback from bookstores) despite not actually existing, and in the process exposed a large number of literary critics as frauds after they began writing phony reviews to cash in on the novel's supposed popularity. After the truth came out, publisher Ian Ballantine approached Shepherd about [[{{Defictionalization}} actually writing the novel]], with noted science fiction writer Creator/TheodoreSturgeon being brought on as a co-author with Shepherd. As one might expect, the real ''I, Libertine'' then went on to become an ''actual'' bestseller thanks to the notoriety of the prank.
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14	Not to be confused with CountryMusic singer Jean Shepard (who he called "The girl who sings through her nose" as opposed to his being "The guy who talks through his nose.")
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16	----
17	!!Jean Shepherd's works include:
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19	[[foldercontrol]]
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21	[[folder:Radio]]
22	Starting as an [[UsefulNotes/TwoWayRadio amateur radio operator]] in his teens, Shepherd spent thousands of hours on the airwaves, with stints in Cincinnati, Philadelphia and finally New York, where he hosted a nightly show for several decades on WOR-AM, which with its 50,000-watt signal was heard throughout the Eastern U.S. He was also syndicated to other markets. While he started out as a typical DJ, he gradually devoted time to storytelling, until that became the focus of the show.
23	[[/folder]]
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25	[[folder:Literature]]
26	Starting with regular short story contributions to ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'', he went on to publish several books.
27	* ''In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash'' (1966)--The source for the vignettes that ultimately became ''Film/AChristmasStory''.
28	* ''Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: and Other Disasters'' (1971)
29	* ''The Ferrari in the Bedroom'' (1972)
30	* ''The Phantom of the Open Hearth'' (1978)
31	* ''A Fistful of Fig Newtons'' (1981)
32	[[/folder]]
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34	[[folder:Television]]
35	After a stint as a local TV host in the 1950s, he became a regular presence on Creator/{{PBS}} in the '70s and '80s, hosting the video essay series ''Shepherd's Pie'' and ''Jean Shepherd's America'' and presenting dramatized versions of his short stories on anthology series such as ''Visions'' and ''American Playhouse''.
36	* ''The Phantom of the Open Hearth'' (1976)
37	* ''The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters'' (1982)
38	* ''The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski'' (1985)
39	* ''Film/OllieHopnoodlesHavenOfBliss'' (1988)
40	[[/folder]]
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42	[[folder:Film]]
43	A comparatively small part of Shepherd's career compared to his other work, but ''Film/AChristmasStory'', which he co-wrote and narrated, is far and away his best-known work.
44	* ''Film/AChristmasStory'' (1983)
45	* ''Film/ItRunsInTheFamily1994'' (1994)
46	* Also two ''A Christmas Story'' sequels that he had nothing to do with, on account of having died in 1999, but using his characters and style.
47	** ''A Christmas Story 2'' (2012)
48	** ''Film/AChristmasStoryChristmas'' (2022)
49	[[/folder]]
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51	[[folder:Discography]]
52	Shepherd released several spoken word albums and tapes. Some of these were RecordedAndStandUpComedy, while others consisted of him reading his own works or his favorite poems.
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54	* ''Into the Unknown With Jazz Music'' (1956)
55	* ''Jean Shepherd and Other Foibles'' (1959)
56	* ''Will Failure Spoil Jean Shepherd?'' (1961)
57	* ''"Live" at the Limelight'' (1965)
58	* ''The Declassified Jean Shepherd'' (1971)
59	* ''Jean Shepherd Reads Poems of Robert Service'' (1975)
60	* ''Shepherd's Pie, Slices 1-7'' (1990)[[note]]A series of seven cassettes which feature Shepherd reading his own stories[[/note]]
61	[[/folder]]
62	----
63	!!"Keep your knees loose, and keep your tropes well-oiled!":
64	* AuthorAvatar: While Shepherd presented his radio monologues as personal recollections, for the print and screen versions he invented the character of Ralph Parker as a fictionalized stand-in.
65	* {{Catchphrase}}: He had a bunch on his radio show, but the standouts were "Excelsior, you fathead!" (his all-purpose salutation) and "I'm this kid, see..." (generally how he started out his stories about his youth). His SigningOffCatchphrase was "Remember, kiddies: [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} keep your knees loose and your glove well-oiled]]."
66	* CreatorCouple: Shepherd and his wife Leigh Brown, who acted as producer of his radio show and later co-wrote the screenplay of ''Film/AChristmasStory'' with him.
67	* DeadpanSnarker: Exemplified the Midwestern wise guy version of this.
68	* EmbarrassingFirstName: Got teased for having a girl's name as a kid. His friend Creator/ShelSilverstein allegedly based "A Boy Named Sue" partly on Shepherd.
69	* FramingDevice: In pretty much every case. ''In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash'' has a frame narrative with an adult Ralph Parker visiting his old hometown. ''A Christmas Story'' and ''It Runs In The Family'' are unusual in that they have a disembodied narrator.
70	* HeAlsoDid: Featured in Walt Disney World's Ride/CarouselOfProgress.
71	* {{Joisey}}: He considered New Jersey an acceptable target, even though he lived there at several points in his life.
72	-->''New Jersey–the most American of all states. It has everything from the wilderness to TheMafia. All the great things and all the worst, for example [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Route 22]].''
73	* LemonyNarrator: His standard approach to storytelling.
74	* LifeEmbellished: Exactly how truthful his stories are is an eternal debate among Shep fans. Shepherd himself freely admitted that he took liberties with the truth in order to make things more entertaining, but most of [[http://www.flicklives.com/index.php?pg=350 the people and places he mentioned in his stories]] were real. But he also very blatantly messed with the actual facts of his life. One example is that Shepherd was really in his late teens in the period when ''Film/AChristmasStory'' took place.
75	* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: Hohman, Indiana became the fictional version of Hammond, his hometown.
76	* NostalgicNarrator: Did voiceovers for all his films acting as this, but the main running theme in his work is that the NostalgiaFilter is very deceptive. The past was just as crazy and tacky as the present, it's just that we were too young to notice or care at the time.
77	* NotAllowedToGrowUp: In the adaptations Randy Parker is always the same age, even though Ralph will go from being a kid to being just out of high school.
78	* SesameStreetCred: Wrote and voiced the classic "Cowboy X" cartoon.
79	* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Loved to drop arcane words like "bacchanalia" into otherwise down-to-earth prose.
80	* SophisticatedAsHell: Could easily toggle between a highbrow and lowbrow tone.
81	* SpokenWordInMusic: He provided narration for the title track on ''The Clown'', a jazz album by Music/CharlesMingus.
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Context Creator / JeanShepherd