The Shari Lewis Show

The Shari Lewis Show
Presented by	Shari Lewis
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Running time	30 minutes-NBC, 10-15mins-BBC.
Release
Original network	NBC, BBC
Chronology
Related shows	Lamb Chop's Play-Along

The Shari Lewis Show is a children television program that first appeared on NBC from 1960 to 1963, when it was dropped. In 1968, the BBC picked up the series which continued until 1975.

The show starred Shari Lewis, who was both the show's host and the puppeteer for the characters Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, and Charlie Horse. The show also starred Ronald Radd, 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 in 1958. The show was awarded a Peabody Award in 1961. Despite warm reviews, the show was cancelled after three seasons.

The NBC series premiered on 1 October 1960 as part of NBC "Saturday morning color television program", which replaced Howdy Doody. The show ran until September 28, 1963.

In 1968, the BBC picked up the series, broadcasting from 13 April 1969 to 28 August 1976. The series was picked up at a time when the BBC was experimenting with using American performers in light entertainment.

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 conventions. 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 even on DVD.

The same fate has befallen the BBC series, but a few episodes are know to exist.

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Wikipedia