United States Postal Service - in Fiction

In Fiction

  • In the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street, the identity of Kris Kringle (played by Edmund Gwenn) as the one and only "Santa Claus" was validated by a state court, based on the delivery of 21 bags of mail (famously carried into the courtroom) to the character in question. The contention was that it would have been illegal for the United States Post Office to deliver mail that was addressed to "Santa Claus" to the character "Kris Kringle" unless he was, in fact, the one and only Santa Claus. Judge Henry X. Harper (played by Gene Lockhart) ruled that since the US Government had demonstrated through the delivery of the bags of mail that Kris Kringle was Santa Claus, the State of New York did not have the authority to overrule that decision.
  • In the TV series Seinfeld, Newman is an employee at the USPS, which is portrayed in the series as a powerful, nefarious organization. In The Junk Mail episode 161 he claims that ZIP codes are meaningless; that no mail carrier has successfully delivered more than 50% of their mail (a feat he compares to the 3-minute mile), and that several postal workers go on killing sprees because, as he puts it, "the mail never stops". In the same episode, Cosmo Kramer is abducted by Post Office security men for running an anti-mail campaign after he realizes the Postal Service has become obsolete.
  • The TV series Cheers featured John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin, a USPS worker and a regular in the bar.
  • The 1997 movie The Postman portrays the United States Postal Service and its returned services to revive the United States economy in a post-apocalyptic world.

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Famous quotes containing the word fiction:

    “Although the primitive in art may be both interesting and impressive, as portrayed in American fiction it is conspicuous for dullness alone. Drab persons living drab lives, observed by drab minds and reported in drab writing ...”
    —Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)

    “It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.”
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