The outer suburban experiences of a comedy writer in a Connecticut town called Old New Litchridge.

“My Brother Was an Only Child” was Jack Douglas’ very first humour book, having written for famous radio and television celebrities such as Jack Paar, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Jimmy Durante, as well as TV shows such as “Adventures of Harriet and Ozzie”, “The George Gobel Show”, and “Laugh-In”. It perfectly captures the sense of humour prevalent in this era and is as refreshing and side-splittingly funny now as it was then.

In many ways, the history of domestic humor writing is also a history of domestic life in the twentieth century. For many years, domestic humor was written primarily by females; significant contributions from male writers began as times and family structures changed. It remains timeless because of its basis on the relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, houses and inhabitants, pets and their owners, chores and their doers, and neighbors. This work is a historical and literary survey of humorists who wrote about home. It begins with a chapter on the social context of and attitudes toward traditional domestic roles and housewives. The following chapters, beginning with the 1920s and continuing through today, cover the different time periods and the foremost American domestic humorists, and the humor written by surrogate parents, grown children about their childhood families, husbands, and Canadian and English writers. Also covered are the differences among various writers toward traditional domestic roles--some, like Erma Bombeck and Judith Viorst, embraced them, while others, like Caryl Kristenson and Marilyn Kentz, resisted them. Common themes, such as the isolation and competitiveness of housework, home as an idealized metaphysical goal and ongoing physical challenge, and the urban, suburban, and rural life, are also explored.

New Canaan, Connecticut, is one of the richest towns in the U.S. The book is a compilation of 140 arbitrarily chosen individuals who have been past or present residents, from moralist Anthony Comstalk, the first female ambulance surgeon, and the inventor of the Tommy Gun, to David Letterman, Paul Simon, and Brian Williams. All is documented and includes tales never before published. Major architects, critics, authors, painters, business CEOs (IBM, GE, JetBlue, Perkin-Elmer), inventors, cartoonists, sculptors, teachers, and humanities leaders lived in the small town with a private railroad track directly to Grand Central in New York City. The compilation includes negative as well as positive views.

Prince of the TV talk shows, champion of endangered species everywhere (even the human), author of laugh-smashes like "What Do You Hear from Walden Pond?" and "Shut Up and Eat Your Snowshoes!" - Jack Douglas is running free and footloose once again, from the suburban wilds of Connecticut to the bucolic, out-of-the-way shores of Lost Lake, Ontario."Cheerful, zany, tongue-in-cheek fun." - Publishers Weekly"Savagely . . . brilliantly funny." - Detroit Free Press"A zany and amusing book." - Seattle Post-Intelligencer Book World"The script is unpredictable and the tale is one of the funniest to come down the pike." - Charleston Evening Post

In a mostly abandoned city, Ben lives in a musty basement room, terrified of the "woolvs" that dwell in the shadows outside, with only an upstairs neighbor, Mrs. Radinski, to help him cope with his fears.

First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.