What do you think?
Rate this book
Rubber duck
Rubber Duck Sugar Cookie Our extra large, sweet & yummy gourmet cookies make the perfect favor at your event and add that very special decorating touch! Sold by the Dozen
220 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 1979
11 people want to read
About the author
Jack Douglas
103 books36 followersJack Douglas (born Douglas Linley Crickard , July 17, 1908 - January 31, 1989) was an American comedy writer who wrote for radio and television while additionally writing a series of humor books.
On radio, he was a writer for Red Skelton, Bob Hope and the situation comedy, Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou (1938–46), in which Riggs switched back and forth from his natural baritone to the voice of a seven-year-old girl.
Continuing to write for Skelton and Hope as he moved into television, Douglas also wrote for Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet , The Jack Paar Show , The George Gobel Show, and Laugh-In .
The producer of Laugh-In , George Schlatter, said, "He saw the world from a different angle than the rest of us. He was not only funny, he was nice." Douglas won an Emmy Award in 1954 for best-written comedy material.
He was best known for his frequent guest appearances on Jack Paar's shows of the late 1950s and early 1960s. On one such appearance, when Douglas was well established as a Paar guest, he was chastised by Paar for holding a stack of file cards with his jokes while talking with Paar.
When Paar returned to television in 1973 and was confronted by unexpected low ratings, he engaged Douglas to contribute monologue material by mail. One week, there was no mail from Douglas; but his next package contained a "Sorry I didn't send anything last week. I forgot you were on."
Douglas and his third wife Reiko, a Japanese-born singer and comedian, were regular guests on shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, and Johnny Carson.
On radio, he was a writer for Red Skelton, Bob Hope and the situation comedy, Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou (1938–46), in which Riggs switched back and forth from his natural baritone to the voice of a seven-year-old girl.
Continuing to write for Skelton and Hope as he moved into television, Douglas also wrote for Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet , The Jack Paar Show , The George Gobel Show, and Laugh-In .
The producer of Laugh-In , George Schlatter, said, "He saw the world from a different angle than the rest of us. He was not only funny, he was nice." Douglas won an Emmy Award in 1954 for best-written comedy material.
He was best known for his frequent guest appearances on Jack Paar's shows of the late 1950s and early 1960s. On one such appearance, when Douglas was well established as a Paar guest, he was chastised by Paar for holding a stack of file cards with his jokes while talking with Paar.
When Paar returned to television in 1973 and was confronted by unexpected low ratings, he engaged Douglas to contribute monologue material by mail. One week, there was no mail from Douglas; but his next package contained a "Sorry I didn't send anything last week. I forgot you were on."
Douglas and his third wife Reiko, a Japanese-born singer and comedian, were regular guests on shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, and Johnny Carson.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 9, 2019
Jack Douglas is always at his best when he's working with the surreal and unconnected. This book has some of that, but it's held together with an often tedious framework of sitcom. Douglas is not a sitcom writer; he hasn't got the timing for it. He's a surrealist and a randomist. His best work is when he's shouting weird things and going chapter by chapter with something totally different (you can tell I prefer My Brother Was an Only Child to his later work). In fact, I ended up rewatching some scenes from Stardust Memories because this book brought to mind the lines, "we really enjoy your comedy. Especially your early, funny ones."
Oh, I forgot to mention the plot. Screw the plot. The plot isn't important. If you read a Jack Douglas book for the plot, you're just encouraging the bum to put plots in his books and you should be ashamed of yourself. No good Jack Douglas book ever had a plot. Or a chapter 19. Every book you pick up these days has a chapter 19, and when he was at his best, Jack Douglas knew that this was a sham and a shonda, and that chapter 19 should always be haughtily and swiftly dismissed.
All in all, it was entertaining, but only occasionally hilarious, which is better than a lot of humor books manage. I'm going to read all his books to see if it was just the first two I read that were excellent, or if there might be one more in his canon that was outstanding. Except The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves. I'm not buying a collectible just to see if the writing got good again.
Oh, I forgot to mention the plot. Screw the plot. The plot isn't important. If you read a Jack Douglas book for the plot, you're just encouraging the bum to put plots in his books and you should be ashamed of yourself. No good Jack Douglas book ever had a plot. Or a chapter 19. Every book you pick up these days has a chapter 19, and when he was at his best, Jack Douglas knew that this was a sham and a shonda, and that chapter 19 should always be haughtily and swiftly dismissed.
All in all, it was entertaining, but only occasionally hilarious, which is better than a lot of humor books manage. I'm going to read all his books to see if it was just the first two I read that were excellent, or if there might be one more in his canon that was outstanding. Except The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves. I'm not buying a collectible just to see if the writing got good again.
Displaying 1 of 1 review