That thing on the left is a weasel
Beginning around 1910, a man named Howard Garis (1873–1962) began writing a series of stories about a character called Uncle Wiggily Longears, a wise old gentleman rabbit, for newspaper serialization. Estimates are, he wrote five thousand of them. Every day but Sunday. They were hugely popular.
And they were a feature of my childhood. I suppose the books belonged to my father, or my auntie (who died earlier this year at a very respectable age). Back when bedtime stories were a thing.
As you might expect, they were highly formulaic. Uncle Wiggily went out on an errand, encountered a villain, villain was thwarted by pure chance, happy ending (the villains above are Pipsisewah the weasel and the Skeezicks, the whatever it is). Very rigid structure, tight word count.
And they always, always ended with a line like:
“And if the dish of ice cream doesn’t skate away with the spoon and hide behind the lemon pie, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the striped chipmunk.”
or
“And if the pancake doesn’t flip over the stove and tickle the coffee pot with a feather, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the hollow stump.”
It comes to mind because that’s what I think whenever ChatGPT ends an answer by saying, “if you like, I can tell you some more odd facts about Victorian underwear” or “there’s an interesting connection between the Bolivian nose flute and prostate cancer.”
Incidentally, Howard Garis also wrote the first 38 Tom Swift books (all authors for the series wrote under the pseudonym Victor Appleton).
March 12, 2026 — 6:00 pm
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