Line #26 Creator/SJPerelman


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/perelman_2289.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"His nose, broken in childhood by a self-inflicted blow with a hockey stick, has a prehensile tip, ever quick to smell out an insult; at the least suspicion of an affront, Perelman, who has the pride of a Spanish grandee, has been known to whip out his sword-cane and hide in the nearest closet."]]
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4	->''"Button-cute, rapier-keen, wafer-thin and pauper-poor is S.J. Perelman, whose tall, stooping figure is better known to the twilit half-world of five continents than to Publishers' Row. That he possesses the power to become invisible to finance companies; that his laboratory is tooled up to manufacture Frankenstein-type monsters on an incredible scale; and that he owns one of the rare mouths in which butter has never melted are legends treasured by every schoolboy."''
5	-->--'''S. J. Perelman,''' describing himself.
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7	Sidney Joseph "S. J." Perelman (February 1, 1904 – October 17, 1979) was an American humorist whose work appeared in several different media. Website/TheOtherWiki puts it bluntly: "Perelman's work is difficult to characterize."
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9	Perelman co-wrote the scripts for the Creator/MarxBrothers films ''Film/MonkeyBusiness'' (1931) and ''Film/HorseFeathers'' (1932) (which should establish his humorist bona fides), and won an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward in 1956 for his screenplay for ''Film/{{Around the World in Eighty Days\|1956}}''. He also co-wrote (with Creator/OgdenNash) the book to the 1943 Broadway musical ''Theatre/{{One Touch of Venus}}'', to music by Kurt Weill; a few years later ''Sweet Bye and Bye'', a musical which employed the talents of Perelman, Creator/OgdenNash and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hirschfeld Al Hirschfeld]], "closed in Philadelphia like a ten-cent mousetrap" (as Perelman put it) before reaching New York.
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11	But it is his humor writing, in ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'' and elsewhere, which is commended here. As Andrew Ferguson wrote about Perelman's 1948 book ''Westward Ha!''[[note]]A chronicle of him and Hirschfeld traveling around the world on various cargo/passenger ships[[/note]] in that well-known humor compendium, ''The Wall Street Journal'', in 2006: "For sheer verbal virtuosity, for his dizzy manipulation of language, Perelman deserves a place at the top of the trade." His wordplay was reminiscent of Creator/JamesJoyce, but ... well, read the quote above and you'll see.
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13	Perelman could apparently write about anything. For example, an off-hand phrase he stumbled upon in a ''New York Times Magazine'' article ("...the late Pandit Motilal Nehru-- who sent his laundry to Paris-- the young Jawaharlal's British nurse etc. etc.") became his 1955 classic "No Starch in the Dhoti, S'il Vous Plaît", a series of imaginary letters that might have been exchanged in 1903 between an angry Pandit Nehru in India and a Parisian laundryman. One posthumously-published piece ("To Yearn Is Subhuman, To Forestall Divine") references ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre'' (!!).
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15	Those seeking an introduction to Perelman should check out one of the many collections of his work, such as ''The Most of S.J. Perelman''.
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17	!! S.J. Perelman's works include examples of:
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19	* BasedOnAnAdviceBook: Perelman and Creator/OgdenNash worked on an unproduced screenplay based on Dale Carnegie's ''How To Win Friends and Influence People''.
20	* TheCharmer: With overtones of CasanovaWannabe or DirtyOldMan (see SelfDeprecation below). Quite a few of Perelman's stories use his flirting with attractive ladies (or escorting one on a date at a friend's behest) as a plot point. Perelman's real-life affairs give this a RealitySubtext.
21	* {{Crunchtastic}}: His fondness for wordplay made adspeak an especially ripe target, though other commercial tropes got mocked as well, including
22	** BeforeAndAfterPictures ("Sauce For the Gander")
23	** EverythingTalks ("Well, Roll Me In a Turkish Towel!", "This Little Piggy Went to Market", "I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been, a Matrix of Lean Meat")
24	** HopeMongering ("Tomorrow-- Fairly Cloudy")
25	* HorribleHollywood: though with enough lightness to be more of a Ridiculous Hollywood.
26	* HypocriticalHumor: There's at least one piece out there where Perelman decries women as frivolous creatures unable to comprehend perfectly sensible actions like [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext using a tape recorder to eavesdrop on the conversation of the groceries in the refrigerator.]]
27	* KavorkaMan: As seen above, he wasn't exactly a slab of beefcake, but evidently managed to bed a long string of women.
28	* NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe: The "Cloudland Revisited" essays mock movies and books that Perelman had thought were terrific when he was younger.
29	* PungeonMaster: Often in the form of {{Punny Name}}s, such as {{the law firm of\|PunPunAndWordplay}} Howells & Imprecations.
30	* SelfDeprecation: Lots of it, usually about his looks or being a {{Dirty\|Coward}}[=/=]LovableCoward.
31	* SincerestFormOfFlattery: Creator/WoodyAllen's 2007 collection of humor essays, ''Mere Anarchy'', contains some pieces that very closely ape Perelman's SignatureStyle.
32	* TransAtlanticEquivalent: He was sort of the American Creator/PGWodehouse, and not just because of that use of initials.
33	* TravelogueShow: or rather, Travelogue Story-- in particular ''Westward Ha!'' and its sequel ''Eastward Ha!'' (as well as ''Swiss Family Perelman'', where his wife and kids come along for the fun).
34	* ViewersAreGeniuses: He tried to sneak a pun in German into a Marx Brothers movie. Groucho (who tended towards the ViewersAreMorons belief) objected.

Context Creator / SJPerelman