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The Adventures of Huckleberry Hashimoto
autobiographical story of a radio and later television writer and his adventures with his wife and son on a trip to Japan, bw photographic illustrations
154 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
17 people want to read
About the author
Jack Douglas
94 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.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 28, 2012
Jack Douglas and his Japanese wife Reiko were frequent guests on the Jack Paar show.
Witty and enjoyable.
Witty and enjoyable.
March 2, 2025
A travel narrative published in 1964 by a comedy writer who worked with some of the top comedians of the day--Jack Paar, Bob Hope, etc. Jack was 48, his Japanese wife Reiko 27 (she was an entertainer in her own right), and their son Bobby, a.k.a. Huckleberry Hashimoto, 17 months old.
I found this by chance at the public library and as I love travel narratives, particularly those about Japan, I thought it would be interesting. It was in some spots, but those are overwhelmed by pop-culture based humor of the period that was incomprehensible to me, and a lot of cringey attitudes that reflect the norms of the time. There are derogatory jokes about homosexuality and African Americans, and a lot of focus on exploiting women (he fixates on topless women a lot). So this is as much a travelogue of a period of time and attitudes as it is of a place.
The first half of the book is about their time on a cruise ship and visit to Tahiti, with stops at Bora Bora and Hawaii. The second half is focused on visiting Reiko's family in Japan. Reiko's family lived in Hiroshima, and her father had the foresight to recognize it would be a target due to the heavy military presence and moved his family to Kanazawa just days before the bombing. They visit there, and Douglas includes a description of what it was like twenty years later that was interesting. There's also some interesting insights into Tokyo and the daily life of a middle-class suburban Japanese family of the time, including having to go to the nearby candy shop to make phone calls and bathing in a massive ancient bath tub with a fire underneath to heat the water.
The parenting attitudes seem completely foreign. On the cruise ship, they seem to leave their baby son alone in his crib while they go out, and while in Tahiti and Kanazawa, they just let him roam freely with no adult supervision. Again, he's 17-months-old. At one point, he falls out a train window while they're stopped at a station, at another he cracks his head on some concrete steps. He's often wandering alone near large bodies of water. Amazing that he survived.
He also seems immensely spoiled, and has a habit of taking the toys away from local children and throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way which his parents resolve by letting him have his own way. At one point, in a shop he takes a toy plane from a local child. The docile little boy doesn't object, though Douglas recognizes his quiet distress. When it's time to leave the shop, Bobby pitches a fit at having to return the plane, so the other boy's mother snaps the plane in half, satisfying both children. Douglas muses that this family likely had to do without to buy that toy, probably the only one the kid owned. But he doesn't offer to compensate them or buy another or even apologize for his son's behavior, they just leave with half of this kid's only toy and it's never mentioned again.
Douglas also seems keen to exploit women. He notes that despite the perceived reputation, Tahitian women are actually very conservative and modest. Nevertheless, he takes his camera to a place where some of the local women bathe and is frustrated when he can't get any photos or videos of them naked.
A good portion of this book is rather dull, and being unfamiliar with a lot of the contemporary references, it's hard to tell what is accurate and what is humor--even outrageous humor. For example, he notes that many think Kyoto wasn't bombed during the war due to it's significance as a sacred place, but a more likely theory he heard was that it was because MacArthur's mother lived there. I'm not sure if this is fact, or a lie so outrageous that it's funny. (I didn't really find any of the humor funny.)
Probably the most remarkable aspect of this book is that this copy has survived in the library collection since it was published in 1964 (there's a stamp in the back, opposite the card catalog pocket).
I found this by chance at the public library and as I love travel narratives, particularly those about Japan, I thought it would be interesting. It was in some spots, but those are overwhelmed by pop-culture based humor of the period that was incomprehensible to me, and a lot of cringey attitudes that reflect the norms of the time. There are derogatory jokes about homosexuality and African Americans, and a lot of focus on exploiting women (he fixates on topless women a lot). So this is as much a travelogue of a period of time and attitudes as it is of a place.
The first half of the book is about their time on a cruise ship and visit to Tahiti, with stops at Bora Bora and Hawaii. The second half is focused on visiting Reiko's family in Japan. Reiko's family lived in Hiroshima, and her father had the foresight to recognize it would be a target due to the heavy military presence and moved his family to Kanazawa just days before the bombing. They visit there, and Douglas includes a description of what it was like twenty years later that was interesting. There's also some interesting insights into Tokyo and the daily life of a middle-class suburban Japanese family of the time, including having to go to the nearby candy shop to make phone calls and bathing in a massive ancient bath tub with a fire underneath to heat the water.
The parenting attitudes seem completely foreign. On the cruise ship, they seem to leave their baby son alone in his crib while they go out, and while in Tahiti and Kanazawa, they just let him roam freely with no adult supervision. Again, he's 17-months-old. At one point, he falls out a train window while they're stopped at a station, at another he cracks his head on some concrete steps. He's often wandering alone near large bodies of water. Amazing that he survived.
He also seems immensely spoiled, and has a habit of taking the toys away from local children and throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way which his parents resolve by letting him have his own way. At one point, in a shop he takes a toy plane from a local child. The docile little boy doesn't object, though Douglas recognizes his quiet distress. When it's time to leave the shop, Bobby pitches a fit at having to return the plane, so the other boy's mother snaps the plane in half, satisfying both children. Douglas muses that this family likely had to do without to buy that toy, probably the only one the kid owned. But he doesn't offer to compensate them or buy another or even apologize for his son's behavior, they just leave with half of this kid's only toy and it's never mentioned again.
Douglas also seems keen to exploit women. He notes that despite the perceived reputation, Tahitian women are actually very conservative and modest. Nevertheless, he takes his camera to a place where some of the local women bathe and is frustrated when he can't get any photos or videos of them naked.
A good portion of this book is rather dull, and being unfamiliar with a lot of the contemporary references, it's hard to tell what is accurate and what is humor--even outrageous humor. For example, he notes that many think Kyoto wasn't bombed during the war due to it's significance as a sacred place, but a more likely theory he heard was that it was because MacArthur's mother lived there. I'm not sure if this is fact, or a lie so outrageous that it's funny. (I didn't really find any of the humor funny.)
Probably the most remarkable aspect of this book is that this copy has survived in the library collection since it was published in 1964 (there's a stamp in the back, opposite the card catalog pocket).
February 9, 2020
Even non-fiction needs to have a narrative structure to be satisfying as a whole, and this is missing from these adventures. There’s an awful lot of just stuff happening and then some other stuff happens.
It’s worth noting that everything terrible in this book is normalized behavior for the 60’s, as the author was a comedy writer for radio and television. There’s some fascinating casual bigotry and misogyny in this book. Also some child-rearing techniques that wouldn’t fly today. Skip the first 50 pages and you’ll actually find some reasons to like Mr. Douglas. I started amusing myself by reading the book in Thurston Howell’s voice.
I’m sad that Hinano, the Tahitian beer described in the book, is not distributed in Georgia. I would like to confirm that it is just as mediocre as this book. I am annoyed that the Jackie Chow encounter is teased heavily for a chapter and then happens entirely off-screen in a chapter break. That was one of the first bits of character weirdness that had me excited.
Humor seems to rely on references to pop culture that 50 years later I have no connection to. The only one that I caught was a reference to Carter’s Little Liver Pills, mainly because my dad used that regularly. I had always thought it had something to do with President Carter, but this book predates him, so I went down a rabbit-hole researching a weird early-1900’s medicine that appears to be adjacent to snake oil. So while I didn’t find the joke particularly funny, I learned something from it.
The one scene I liked the most was a weird pachinko live show he related. There’s a point in there considering that the joke I liked the best in the book was someone else’s performance:
The comedy sketches had all the subtlety of a water-buffalo fight. One sketch involved one of the comics playing an unusual Pachinko machine. The machine was constructed on the lines of a girl wearing only panties and a brassiere. The comic pulled the plunger and let fly. The ball shot to the top of the machine and then fell down into one cup of the girl’s brassiere. This triggered bells and lights and sparks, a panel slid open, and one of the showgirls shoved her unadorned breast through the large hole in the brassiere. The comic pulled the plunger again and the same thing happened again—the ball fell into the other cup and a panel slid back and another showgirl shoved her breast through the other hole. I say another showgirl, because you could tell—they weren’t a set. The comic then pulled the plunger for the third time, the ball fell into her panties, and after the bells, the lights, and the sparks, the crotch panel slid back, and a midget stuck his head out and yelled, “What do we care if we lost the war—we got Coca-Cola!”
It’s worth noting that everything terrible in this book is normalized behavior for the 60’s, as the author was a comedy writer for radio and television. There’s some fascinating casual bigotry and misogyny in this book. Also some child-rearing techniques that wouldn’t fly today. Skip the first 50 pages and you’ll actually find some reasons to like Mr. Douglas. I started amusing myself by reading the book in Thurston Howell’s voice.
I’m sad that Hinano, the Tahitian beer described in the book, is not distributed in Georgia. I would like to confirm that it is just as mediocre as this book. I am annoyed that the Jackie Chow encounter is teased heavily for a chapter and then happens entirely off-screen in a chapter break. That was one of the first bits of character weirdness that had me excited.
Humor seems to rely on references to pop culture that 50 years later I have no connection to. The only one that I caught was a reference to Carter’s Little Liver Pills, mainly because my dad used that regularly. I had always thought it had something to do with President Carter, but this book predates him, so I went down a rabbit-hole researching a weird early-1900’s medicine that appears to be adjacent to snake oil. So while I didn’t find the joke particularly funny, I learned something from it.
The one scene I liked the most was a weird pachinko live show he related. There’s a point in there considering that the joke I liked the best in the book was someone else’s performance:
The comedy sketches had all the subtlety of a water-buffalo fight. One sketch involved one of the comics playing an unusual Pachinko machine. The machine was constructed on the lines of a girl wearing only panties and a brassiere. The comic pulled the plunger and let fly. The ball shot to the top of the machine and then fell down into one cup of the girl’s brassiere. This triggered bells and lights and sparks, a panel slid open, and one of the showgirls shoved her unadorned breast through the large hole in the brassiere. The comic pulled the plunger again and the same thing happened again—the ball fell into the other cup and a panel slid back and another showgirl shoved her breast through the other hole. I say another showgirl, because you could tell—they weren’t a set. The comic then pulled the plunger for the third time, the ball fell into her panties, and after the bells, the lights, and the sparks, the crotch panel slid back, and a midget stuck his head out and yelled, “What do we care if we lost the war—we got Coca-Cola!”
June 7, 2018
For the first time, I'm reading the Douglas collection in order. From this effort, I'm learning how weak Douglas' first efforts were. With this book Douglas hist the stride he'll maintain to his last book.
This book is basically a travel narrative. Not with the flow of Perelman's 'Westward, Ha!', but more a collection of anecdotes as the Douglas family travels from California to Japan and stops along the way. The anecdotes are very good and funny. Moreover, unlike the often odd entries in the Douglas previous books, this is well written and planned out. With a HUGE exception.
The book moves from one spot to another as Douglas experiences life in the Pacific islands and their son, Bobby. Suddenly the book ends with them wrapping up with the family still in Japan. I'm sure there is a good reason for this on the publication side. but for the reader, it's like us also being abandoned in Japan.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 6 out of ten points.
This book is basically a travel narrative. Not with the flow of Perelman's 'Westward, Ha!', but more a collection of anecdotes as the Douglas family travels from California to Japan and stops along the way. The anecdotes are very good and funny. Moreover, unlike the often odd entries in the Douglas previous books, this is well written and planned out. With a HUGE exception.
The book moves from one spot to another as Douglas experiences life in the Pacific islands and their son, Bobby. Suddenly the book ends with them wrapping up with the family still in Japan. I'm sure there is a good reason for this on the publication side. but for the reader, it's like us also being abandoned in Japan.
Bottom line: I recommend this book. 6 out of ten points.
February 14, 2015
Jack Douglas continues getting lots of mileage from his family and his sense of humor.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews