Shari & Lamb Chop is a life-spanning documentary about the pioneering late ventriloquist, Shari Lewis, and her iconic puppet, Lamb Chop. The thing you learn about Lamb Chop through the course of watching the film is that the puppet became something of Lewis’s alter-ego. Lamb Chop would say things that Lewis wouldn’t dare say as herself, commenting on sexism, ageism, etc.

I had initially planned to watch the documentary during my coverage of DOC NYC in 2023. After all, I grew up watching Lamb Chop’s Play-Along on PBS. I was probably older than the targeted demographic at the time. Unfortunately, October 7 happened and I wasn’t in the right headspace by the time November rolled around. Suffice it to say, I finally got around to watching the film now. Better late than never!

Like many documentaries about a subject that died several years ago, this one is largely dependent on archival materials in telling Lewis’s story. They keep coming back to interview in particular. The filmmakers also weave in a number of contemporary interviews with family, colleagues, and fans of Lewis. There are some archival interviews with late family members, too. But for the most part, the interviews with Lewis are what drives the documentary. All in all, they add so much to Shari Lewis’s story that I never knew before. I knew that she was Jewish but I had never known that her father, Abe Hurwitz, taught at Yeshiva University and played such a key role in what she would become. Abe Hurwitz had previously been named as New York’s official magician. There is also a brief history of ventriloquism.

When one thinks of children’s television, names like Sesame Street, Fred Rogers, and Captain Kangaroo come to mind. But before any of them had a show, Shari Lewis hosted various children’s programming between 1953 and 1963. Comedy writer Ken Levine found Lewis to be influential in developing children’s television programming. He notes that she was different from all the others. Of course, there was no precedent set at the time before she first went on the air. It’s no doubt a credit to Lewis’s parents for teaching her what she knew. Lewis’s mother read books to her growing up but they were never any of the typical damsel-in-distress fairytales that are so often adapted into movies.

Lewis first created Lamb Chop for an appearance on Captain Kangaroo in March 1956. “It was so clear that I found myself in myself,” she  later said in an interview.

Most notably, NBC premiered Lewis’s first network program in 1960. But as with any TV program, all good things must come to an end, which they did in 1963. Imagine finding out that NBC cancelled your show while people are discussing it in the elevator. It would be several years before Shari Lewis was back on TV as the host of her own show–PBS came calling in the early 1990s. I’m sorry to disappoint Star Trek fans but there’s nothing about the original series episode penned by Lewis and her husband, Jeremy Tarcher. We learn plenty about their relationship and how it was on the rocks for a period. This may not be the most therapeutic method but Tarcher would converse with Lewis’s puppets–mainly Mr. Bearly–while Lewis turned away.

The PBS show became a hit. It was a vaudeville-esque show that paid tribute to everything that Abe Hurwitz taught her. As family members commented, her father taught her magic while her mother taught her piano. In her later years, both Shari Lewis and Mallory Lewis would become the only mother-daughter to take home an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Children’s Series. The later years do become somewhat tragic but Lewis persevered to the end while filming The Charlie Horse Music Pizza. While they filmed the program in Canada, there is a segment filmed along the Malibu coastline. Mallory Lewis recollects her feelings of seeing more than just her mother but this glamorous star having fun and being herself.

Appropriately enough, “The Song That Doesn’t End” runs during the credits. I kept hoping it would pop up at one point or another during the film. Of course, they saved it for the credits. Fortunately for readers, this is the review that has an end and doesn’t go on and on, my friends.

Shari & Lamb Chop is a long-overdue documentary on the pioneering ventriloquist and TV personality and as nostalgic as it may be for her fans, it introduces Shari Lewis to a new generation. It’s a real shame that the film is still seeking distribution well over a year after its DOC NYC premiere.

DIRECTOR: Lisa D’Apolito
FEATURING: Shari Lewis, Mallory Lewis, Meghan Piphus Peace, Mary Lou Brady, David Copperfield, Monxo López, Ely Hurwitz, Barbara O’Kun, Ken Levine, Jay Johnson, Nina Conti, Louise Gold, Darci Lynn Farmer, Stormy Sacks, Deborah Wainwright, Shawn Williamson, Kevin Yee, Sarah Sherman

Shari & Lamb Chop holds its Miami premiere during the 2025 Miami Jewish Film Festival. Grade: 4/5

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