In many stereotypical cartoons of the 20th century a crazy person is in a strait jacket wearing a Napoleon hat. What is the origin of the hat and does anyone know of the earliest reference?
Bicorne.
Wikipedia has no exact earliest date and I have no idea off the top of my head, but it is interesting that it apparently became popular in various military circles right about the time Napoleon was rising to prominence. Or in other words Napoleon was on the cutting edge of military fashion in his day :).
The delusion that you’re someone famous is encountered at least as often in the comedy writer’s imagination as on the shrink’s couch. For all we know, delusions-of-grandeur gags predate the written word — there may be some ur-joke back there about believing you’re the guy that discovered fire — but it makes sense that they’d find full flower in the 19th century, when the study of mental illness came into its own…
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-derivation-of-the-Napoleon-Delusion-cliche
For the “shorthand” needed for television, you need the nut to believe he’s someone (a) VERY famous who has (b) an easily recognizable visual shtick. (What visual shtick would instantly say “Condoleeza Rice” to you? … I can’t think of any either.) Remember “Airplane!”, where the nut believed he was Ethel Merman? They got the REAL Ethel Merman, who sang a few bars of her signature song. Napoleon is particularly useful for semaphoring “crazy man with delusions of grandeur” because of the famous hand-in-shirt pose. In addition, you don’t have to offend religious conservatives by having the nut believe he’s Jesus, God, or the Devil.
A form of insanity far more common in fiction than reality, the delusion that one is a famous person, or at the very least the modern reincarnation of same. Napoléon Bonaparte is the most commonly used person for this, possibly because the …
Patient A: I am Napoleon!
A form of insanity far more common in fiction than reality, the delusion that one is a famous person, or at the very least the modern reincarnation of same. Napoleon Bonaparte is the most commonly used person for this, possibly because the unusual hat and hand-in-jacket pose are a strong visual that immediately identifies the delusion for the audience. God and Jesus are also frequently seen.
“one crazy corsican is enough for europe.”