‘Shari & Lamb Chop' Review: Shari Lewis and Her Most Famous Puppet Get the Star Treatment They Deserve

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17-07-2025

It's fitting that Shari Lewis, the iconic ventriloquist and puppeteer at the center of Lisa D'Apolito's winning documentary 'Shari & Lamb Chop,' never seemed to get too hung up on religion (at one point in the film, Lewis tells us that she thinks the best religious ceremony is life itself). Another person, someone more compelled by providence or divine fate or what-have-you, would likely have been been far more preoccupied with the origin story behind how they met their most famous partner, their felt-y little soulmate.
For Lewis, it was thus: she was a young entertainer, appearing on an episode of 'Captain Kangaroo' in 1956, when someone commented on how heavy and unwieldy her ventriloquist dummies were for a relatively diminutive gal like her. She looked around, found a lamb puppet she (by her own, very amusing words) 'didn't know,' and the rest is history. Lewis wasn't very sentimental, but she was open-hearted, and dwelling on how she and Lamb Chop came to be wasn't exactly her thing. That suits D'Apolito's doc, which covers the majority of Lewis' life and work in less than 90 minutes, little time to dwell.
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But don't let that slim running time fool you: D'Apolito covers a staggering amount of ground here, much of that possible because of Lewis' special brand of candor. A straight-shooting Type-A overachiever who could do just about anything in the performing arts realm, Lewis is undoubtedly best known for her work with Lamb Chop, the wee lamb puppet with whom she shares the title of the film. Despite that seemingly blasé way the pair first met, the documentary is willing to get a bit more touchy-feely than Lewis herself, making a sterling argument that the duo were really just two pieces of one entity.
That's not to say that Lewis herself didn't make that determination many times throughout her life, but again, each interview (and D'Apolito surely had a treasure trove of archival footage to raid for this) that focuses on the topic is relatively straightforward about it. That Lewis and Lamb Chop (and Hush Puppy and Charlie Horse) were part of one, greater whole is a given. Funnily enough, that attitude makes that relationship all the more special. (Still, when Lewis tells us that she went 'looking for God' in her puppets, and only found it when Lamb Chop arrived, it's one of the most touching and incredibly self-aware moments of any doc this year.)
Told mostly in linear fashion (and a bit breakneck because of it), Lewis' early days alone would make for a neat feature. The daughter of a magician and a pianist, creativity was in young Shari Hurwitz's blood, but as she explains in an older interview, ventriloquism proved to be the 'most natural thing' she did. That natural proclivity led Lewis to do nothing less than forever change the face of children's television, a point made early and often throughout the doc. It's certainly not wrong.
As well-known as Lewis (who passed away in 1998 at the age of 65) is for her work with Lamb Chop and friends — and, depending on your generation, either the hit '60s series 'The Shari Lewis Show' or the beloved '90s joint 'Lamb Chop's Play-Along' — D'Apolito's doc makes it clear how very much she accomplished with and without the puppets.
And D'Apolito and editor Andrea Lewis (no relation) inject lots of Shari Lewis into the film, by way of a variety of archival interviews (a later one is also used as voiceover throughout the film), though these moments often leave us hungry to see more sequences of Lewis actually performing. Those are the real stunners, and a series of cleverly deployed talking head interviews (including Lewis' daughter Mallory, her sister Barbara, her assistant Mary Lou, plus starry admirers like David Copperfield and Sarah Sherman) help contextualize the full breadth of Lewis' incredible talent. Fellow puppeteer Megan Piphus Peace especially stands out, particularly when she explains just how remarkable Lewis' ability to puppet two of her creations at the same time, while also performing as herself.
And who really was Shari Lewis? As the documentary chugs along through the messier moments of Lewis' life (mostly in the late '60s, after 'The Shari Lewis Show' was canceled, and then later into the '80s, when her marriage to Jeremy Tarcher was failing), we get many glimpses, but fewer answers. 'The Queen of Reinvention,' as Mallory Lewis termed her mother, tried a little bit of everything before coming back into the fold with 'Play-Along,' much of it bizarre to look back on. (Footage showing everything from Lewis and Lamb Chop appearing on 'Playboy After Dark' to Lewis dancing, quite well, with a life-sized Fred Astaire puppet must be seen to be believed.)
Things picked back up in the '90s with the creation of 'Play-Along,' which most everyone believes is Lewis' real legacy and her greatest achievement. As she grew older, Lewis became even more work-focused and pinpoint-precise, laser-focused on delivering the best possible show for her best and most lasting audience: kids. Those kids? They're likely to find this documentary especially compelling, offering a new way into Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop, one that somehow delivers the facts with the kind of showmanship only Lewis could offer.
Grade: B
'Shari & Lamb Chop' will be released by Kino Lorber in select theaters on Friday, July 18.
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