In addition to stripping $0, you could also use a HERE document (see perlop) to get exactly the output you want. This is what I typically use: 
use File::Basename;
my $prog = basename($0);
sub print_usage
{
    warn <<"EOF";

USAGE
  $prog [options] file

DESCRIPTION
  Whatever this program should do.

OPTIONS
  -h            Print this help message
  -o    dir     Dump output file to specifed directory

OPERANDS
  file          A path name of an input file.

FILES
  An output file is written to the current directory.
  The name of the file is foo.

EXAMPLES
  $prog -o bar in.txt
  $prog -h

EXIT STATUS
  0     Successful completion
  >0    An error occurred

EOF
}

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In reply to Re: formatting usage statements with $0 by toolic
in thread formatting usage statements with $0 by deorth

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