At almost six years old going on 40, Lamb Chop is one of TV's most enduring ingenues.
Sweet as mint jelly, she charms each new wave of youngsters, even as adults nurse hopeless crushes that reach back to their preschool years.No wonder. With fluffy leggings and long lashes, Lamb Chop isn't just a sock puppet but also the embodiment of ageless girlishness.
"Really?" says Shari Lewis, amazed as a reporter rhapsodizes about Lamb Chop's mutton-down appeal. "I wish she were here to hear all this."
Instead, the hoof-loose-and-fancy-free Lamb Chop is off playing as Lewis talks up their latest success: "Lamb Chop's Play-Along," a starring vehicle for its leading lamb, but an effort in which Lewis also clearly lends a hand.
"Play-Along" began its weekday run in January 1992 on PBS stations - including KUED-Ch. 7 and KBYU-Ch. 11.
The newest "Play-Along" playmate is BUSter the Bus, an 8-foot by 6-foot creation that Lewis proudly calls "the biggest puppet to ever hit children's television."
The series features Lewis, decked out in her flouncy overalls, along with two or three adorable youngsters, plus puppet pals including Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy and Charlie Horse.
Each half-hour is filled with jokes, games, songs and tricks. Everything takes place in a grassy backyard underneath a tree (leave it to television to rediscover the backyard as a place for kids to play in).
One minute it's a knock-knock joke, the next a tip on how to make what seem to be two pieces of rope fuse like magic. After that, maybe Lewis will lead a silly song about Little Bunny Foo Foo, who gratuitously bops field mice on the head. And then she flusters her ovine aide-de-camp with a neverending tale about the brothers Pete and Repeat.
As Lewis can't seem to point out too often, her goal for the audience is participation, not passive observance.
"Our focus is, don't just sit there - come play with me," says Lewis, who sitting in a Manhattan publicist's office seems adult-like, allright,in her gray pantsuit, but still has the bright shining eyes and slightly fidgety manner of any kid.
This, in someone who has been in show business for four decades.
"A woman came up to me the other day and said, `Are you the original Shari Lewis?' "
Yes, and that's no woolly bully.
As a teen-ager in 1952, Lewis and her ventriloquism skills took first prize on Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scouts" program. In the early '60s, she and her lamb of opportunity starred in a Saturday morning kids' show on NBC. Then Lewis expanded her audience by performing in summer stock and Las Vegas showrooms.
In 1977, she began conducting major symphony orchestras in a family-oriented show she devised. Along the way, she produced a dozen videos and published more than 50 children's books.
Then, about a year and a half ago, she was back on TV with a new series almost willfully old-fashioned, both in form and content.
Lewis calls her subsequent warm reception "the result of more responsible parenting. Many baby boomers are not eager for their children to have a steady diet of cartoons."
"If we can provide entertainment for children that's thoroughly innocent, really wholesome, and at the same time stimulating, we'll be providing a real service."
She recounts how recently in Atlanta a parent stepped up and said, "I want to thank you for helping to keep our kids kids just a little while longer."
"That really hit the spot with me," says Lewis.
But one question young fans keep asking always puts her ON the spot:"What does Lamb Chop eat?"
Lewis mulls it over, laughs, then sheepishly confesses, "That is a question that leaves me speechless."
Fortunately, Lamb Chop never is.
"Lamb-Chop's Play Along" airs weekdays at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Ch. 7 and at 1:30 p.m. on Ch. 11.