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After years of manic rants and crazy antics on live TV, you might think Jim Cramer's shock value has worn off.
How about this for a new surprise? Jim Cramer, sober-minded personal finance guru.
It creates some contradictions. The hyperactive stock picker on CNBC's "Mad Money" has a new book out advising most readers not to buy individual stocks at all. The man who says colleagues called him the "Reverend Jim Bob Cramer of the Church of What's Happening Now" is now patiently investing his charitable trust for the long term.
But is Cramer giving up the props, the sound effects, the temper tantrums and the lightning rounds of off-the-top-of-his-head stock opinions? Has he decided to become the next Jane Bryant Quinn? Not a chance.
His proudest moment of the year is an on-air tantrum in the middle of the summer's financial crisis, a plea to the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to take action.
"He has no idea how bad it is out there. He has no idea!" he told CNBC's Erin Burnett in what's now a YouTube favorite.
- Video: Cramer's on-air tantrum
Not long after a mostly calm interview with BusinessWeek, Cramer was on TV sucking helium to demonstrate his enthusiasm for a gas distributing company.
"I am trying to entertain," Cramer says. "I admit that." But, he adds, he's also trying to help people.
More from MSN Money and BusinessWeek
'You'll probably lose money'
The new book, "Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life," is a primer for saving and investing. It advises readers to pay off credit cards, make the most of 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and get the right kinds of insurance. The subtitle of the book, written with Cliff Mason: "Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)."Most people actually won't get rich by buying individual stocks, Cramer says. Unless you do your homework, namely spending an hour a week researching for each stock you own, "You won't beat the market, and you'll probably lose money," he writes.
- Talk back: Do you take Cramer's advice?
For Cramerites willing to do the research, the book helps construct a long-term, diversified portfolio. For most people, however, he advises low-fee stock index funds.
The new approach might please Cramer's critics, who have worried his focus on trading your way to riches sets a bad example.
Henry Blodget, a former Merrill Lynch (MER, news, msgs) stock analyst who turned writer after being forced from the industry in a scandal, called Cramer a "chair-throwing, self-aggrandizing clown" who gives terrible advice.
However, as Blodget wrote in Slate early this year, he's obviously a smart man who knows better. Cramer embodies "the essential conflict in the American financial industry; the war between intelligent investing (patient, scientific, boring) and successful investment media (frenetic, personality-driven, entertaining)."
Continued: 'Necessary and boring'
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