''The Shari Lewis Show'' is a children's television program that first appeared on
NBC Saturday mornings from 1960 to 1963.
Premise
The show starred
Shari Lewis, who was both the show's
host and the
puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, called a puppet, to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden fr ...
for the characters
Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, and Charlie Horse.
The show also starred
Ronald Radd
Ronald Radd (22 January 1929 – 23 April 1976) was a British television actor. He is perhaps best remembered for originating the role of Hunter in the television thriller series '' Callan''. In 1971, he was nominated for a Tony Award for ''Ab ...
, who played Mr. Goodfellow and
Clive Russell, who made his television debut on the series.
Fred Gwynne also made appearances as Lamb Chop's doctor. Lamb Chop made her debut on ''
Captain Kangaroo
''Captain Kangaroo'' is an American children's television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television progra ...
'' in 1956. The show was awarded a
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
in 1961. Despite warm reviews, the show was cancelled after three seasons.
NBC series
The NBC series premiered on 1 October 1960 as part of NBC's Saturday morning lineup, which replaced ''
Howdy Doody''. The show ran until 28 September 1963.
BBC series
In 1968, the BBC picked up the series, broadcasting from 13 April 1968 to 28 August 1976. The series was picked up at a time when the BBC was experimenting with using American performers in light entertainment.
Archive
Almost no full episodes of the NBC show are known to exist today. The original tapes of many episodes were wiped and reused by NBC to record coverage of the 1964
Democratic and
Republican national convention
The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year Nation ...
s. Lewis said in an interview decades later that this "was a shame, since the shows were beautifully done as a showcase of NBC's early color broadcast work." However, some episodes and some clips of the show have survived, and the existing footage was restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and some episodes are available on DVD.
The same fate has befallen the BBC series, but a few episodes are known to exist.
References
External links
''The Shari Lewis Show''on the
Internet Movie Database
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
1960s American children's television series
1960 American television series debuts
1963 American television series endings
NBC original programming
Television series by Universal Television
Peabody Award-winning television programs
American television shows featuring puppetry
English-language television shows
BBC children's television shows
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