READ OUR 2024 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL COVERAGE
Never has a sock provoked so many emotions.
The Milwaukee Film Fest kicked off Thursday night with a screening of Shari and Lamb Chop. The documentary chronicles the pioneering career of Shari Lewis, the ventriloquist and entertainer who brought the sock puppet Lamb Chop into millions children’s lives.
The daughter of Abraham Hurwitz, known as “Peter Pan the Magic Man” to the kids he entertained with his magic act, Lewis was trained for a vaudevillian career from a young age before discovering her particular talent for puppetry and ventriloquism as a teenager.
From 1956-63, she hosted several beloved children’s shows on NBC, introducing the world to her cast of sock puppets, including Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy and Wing Ding, alongside fan favorite Lamb Chop. And from 1992-98, she returned to television to host “Lamb Chop’s Play-Along” and “The Charlie Horse Music Pizza” on PBS, introducing a new generation to Lamb Chop and the gang.
Shari and Lamb Chop explores both of those fruitful periods in Lewis’ career, as well as the fallow years between them. It’s a fitting tribute to an entertainer who paved the way for children’s television titans like Mr. Rogers and Jim Henson – and was often overshadowed by them. The documentary showcases what made her presence so enthralling for generations of children, from her bewildering feats of ventriloquistic trickery and her boundless energy, to the adorable, sassy, loving banter with her right-hand girl, Lamb Chop.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Lewis was a multi-talent of the kind you don’t often see in entertainment anymore. She could sing, dance and act, all in multiple voices, thrown wildly from one character to other to the other to the other and then back again without missing a beat.
In a particularly memorable anecdote from the film, a backstage hand recalls preparing the studio for a taping of Lewis’ show. One of the techs, trying to figure out where to run lighting cables, asked, “Where’s the power on the stage?” Lewis raised a hand and pointed to herself.
In many ways, the same sentiment applies to this documentary. The movie’s lifeblood is its extensive archival material showing off Lewis’ talents, whether it’s her exchanging cute jabs with Lamb Chop, singing the relentless earworm “The Song That Doesn’t Ends,” or doing a dance routine while eight months pregnant.
The film takes some time to explore her personal life, as well, focusing largely on her marriage to Jeremy Tarcher and its rough patches, including an affair and his experimentation with drugs. But those forays into what went on behind-the-scenes don’t quite hold the same vibrancy as the career-focused portions of the film, likely because – as the movie makes clear – Lewis was an intensely career-driven woman.
Her dedication to her craft make the dips in her career, explored in the movie’s middle section, painful at times. After NBC canceled her show, Lewis found herself trying to branch out from her “children’s entertainer” roots, putting on elaborate dance numbers on late-night TV, experimenting with racier nightclub acts, doing TV guest spots, and much more. Nothing ever quite caught fire like her work entertaining kids with Lamb Chop. And even the puppet ended up part of Lewis’ evolving efforts to “re-brand,” as it might be termed today. In one uncomfortable moment of the documentary, Lewis brings Lamb Chop to a 1969 interview with Hugh Hefner for “Playboy After Dark.”
During the down-and-out portion of the movie, Ken Levine, a sitcom writer known for “Cheers,” “Frasier,” and “Wings,” among others, shares an illustrative story. He was walking through a state fair with a friend, when he saw that Lewis was about to perform live – and only four people were in the audience. He expected her to cancel the show when faced with rows and rows of empty chairs, but instead she put on her full hour, with all the requisite enthusiasm.
Lewis’ long foray through the desert makes the movies’ triumphant ending much more satisfying. Around 30 years after her NBC cancellation, she was finally given the chance to host another show, this time on PBS, and she didn’t squander it. In fact, she proceeded to win about a dozen Emmys, one of which she shares with her daughter Mallory Lewis, who continues to perform with Lamb Chop to this day.
The movie ends with a touching look at the taping of her final show after her diagnosis with terminal cancer. Sniffles were audible in the Oriental Theatre.
I will admit that I went into this movie with little to no knowledge of Lewis. I was born in the mid-90s and was too young to remember her PBS series. With that in mind, the movie couldn’t hook me with nostalgia the way I imagine it quickly will those who grew up with the sock puppet squadron. Despite that, it still won me over with its charm, boosted by Lamb Chop’s frequent wisecracking, and I quickly found myself invested in the career of the striving, indefatigable ventriloquist.
You can watch Shari and Lamb Chop Friday, April 12 at 12:30 p.m. at the Downer Theatre.
