37 The Shari Lewis Show

First  watched  : Uncertain

This  one  returned  to  the  screen  on  Sunday  19  April  1970.

Shari  Lewis  was  essentially  an  American  ventriloquist  who  worked  with  sock  puppets . She  was  a  big  TV  star  in  the  1950s  and  early  60s  but  was  ditched  in  1963  when  the  moguls  decided  that  childrens'  TV  should  be  100 %  animation. She  was  doing  live  work  when  the  BBC  approached  her  to  do  18  shows  a  year  for  them  starting  in  1968  and  running  till  1976.

The  show   used  more  or  less  the  same  format  as  the  American  series  so  she  was  perhaps  fortunate  that  the  latter  had  already  been  largely  wiped.

It  wasn't  a  great  favourite  of  mine  to  be  honest. Her  New  York  accent  was  grating  enough  before  being  exaggerated  for  the  whiney  voice  of  her  main  character  Lamb  Chop.

Starting  in  1992  she  made  a  major  comeback  on  US  TV  and  was  working  right  up  to  her  death. She  contracted  viral  pneumonia  while  being  treated  for  cancer  and  died  in  August  1998.