Shari and Lamb Chop - Director Lisa D’Apolito

Before Fred Rogers and Jim Henson, there was Shari Lewis, a children’s television pioneer whose whimsical characters and ebullient spirit have guided generations of children as they came of age. Raised in the Bronx by a proud feminist mother and a professor father who moonlighted as Peter Pan the Magic Man, Shari became a multitalented dancer, singer, and magician. But when an injury sidelined her dance aspirations, she channeled her creativity into a passion for ventriloquism, creating the now beloved sock puppet characters Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy and, of course, Lamb Chop. From her early years of TV success to the crush of her show’s cancellation to her 1990s comeback in her 60s.

Director Lisa D’Apolito joins us for a conversation about Shari’s early days, and the connection that her characters had on children, her bounce back after her show’s cancellation and Lisa's own memories in front of a TV set watching the gentile lives Lamb Chop and Hush Puppy.