Lamb Chop

What Lamb Chop actually is

Strip away seventy years of affection and Lamb Chop is a sock with a felt mouth, floppy ears and long lashes. There is no mechanism. No pull-strings, no glass eyes, no carved head, none of the engineering that hard-figure builders spend careers perfecting. The only moving part is the performer's hand.

That is exactly what makes her worth studying. Most ventriloquist figures do some of the work for you — a good Marshall or McElroy head has expression built into the carving before anyone says a word. Lamb Chop has none of that. Every ounce of her personality is performance.

The character

Shari Lewis was unusually specific about who Lamb Chop was: "a 6-year-old girl, very intuitive and very feisty, a combination of obstinacy and vulnerability… you know how they say fools rush in where wise men fear to go? Well, Lamb Chop would rush in, then scream for help."

That is a character brief a screenwriter would be happy with, and Lewis held it for forty-two years. Lamb Chop had a friend she talked about but nobody ever saw, Lolly Pincus. She had opinions. She lost arguments. The consistency is the craft.

On screen

Lamb Chop debuted in March 1956 as a guest spot on Captain Kangaroo, then moved to Hi Mom on WRCA-TV in New York (1957–59). She appeared through The Shari Lewis Show (1960–63) and Lewis's long BBC run, and reached her largest audience on Lamb Chop's Play-Along, which premiered on PBS on 10 September 1992 and ran to 1 January 1997.

The show closed each episode with "The Song That Doesn't End," written by Norman Martin — a single verse built as an infinite loop, which the puppets and studio children would sing while Lewis tried and failed to stop them. It first appeared on the 1988 home video Lamb Chop's Sing-Along, Play-Along. It is, for a certain generation, an inescapable piece of music.

After Shari

Shari Lewis died on 2 August 1998. Two years later her daughter Mallory Lewis — who had produced Lamb Chop's Play-Along and The Charlie Horse Music Pizza — began performing the character herself, on the advice of family and the family friend Dom DeLuise.

Mallory holds the live performing rights and still tours, largely for USO and Fisher House audiences, performing arts centers and state fairs. Copyright in the character passed to DreamWorks Classics. And since 2010 Lamb Chop has had an unlikely second life as one of the best-selling dog toys in America — a fact that would probably have delighted her.

Where the puppets are now

Shari Lewis's figures survive, and they are split between two museums — both because of Mallory.

The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta holds one of the original Lamb Chops, along with costumes and an Emmy Award, in its permanent Global Gallery. Mallory Lewis donated the Shari Lewis puppets there.

The Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky — the only museum in the world devoted to ventriloquism — has a Shari Lewis exhibit in its Bob Baker Gallery, substantially expanded by a donation from Mallory. It includes puppets from The Shari Show (1975) and a larger-than-life Charlie Horse from The Charlie Horse Music Pizza.

Mallory still performs with a Lamb Chop of her own.

In their own words

A 6-year-old girl, very intuitive and very feisty, a combination of obstinacy and vulnerability… you know how they say fools rush in where wise men fear to go? Well, Lamb Chop would rush in, then scream for help. Shari Lewis — describing the character

Performed by

• Shari Lewis 1956–1998
• Mallory Lewis 2000–present

On screen

• Captain Kangaroo — 1956 (debut, March)
• Hi Mom — 1957–59
• The Shari Lewis Show — 1960–63
• Lamb Chop's Play-Along — 1992–97 (PBS; premiered 10 September 1992, final broadcast 1 January 1997)
• The Charlie Horse Music Pizza — 1998 (canceled after Lewis's death)

Songs

• “The Song That Doesn't End” — written by Norman Martin. 1988, on the home video Lamb Chop's Sing-Along, Play-Along; later the closing theme of Lamb Chop's Play-Along.

Books

• Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop: The Team That Changed Children's Television Mallory Lewis and Nat Segaloff, with David Copperfield · University Press of Kentucky · 2023 ⚠️ publication year needs confirming against the publisher.