SHARI & LAMB CHOP - Mark Reviews Movies

Shari & Lamb Chop, Kino Lorber

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 17, 2025

The main takeaway of Shari & Lamb Chop is how talented Shari Lewis was, as well as how underappreciated the extent of her talents actually was. The release of director Lisa D'Apolito's documentary almost 30 years after Lewis' death almost serves as further evidence of that second part. Those who would have grown up with the multi-hyphenated performer at the height of her fame could be more than a decade into retirement at this point. Those who would have watched her shows on national public television as kids have reached or about to reach middle age.

D'Apolito's most notable accomplishment with this movie is in the wealth of archival footage it offers. It has video clips of Lewis from her first appearance on television, as part of a broadcast talent competition when she was still a teenager, to some behind-the-scenes footage of the last thing she filmed for the medium. In between, there are clips of her early television programs, broadcast live to a sizeable audience, and appearances as an actress or dancer or singer on other shows, as well as the local telethons that would remind the right people that Lewis could still put on a show if given the opportunity.

For those who may have forgotten or have never known about Lewis, she was primarily famous as a ventriloquist. Her most popular puppet creation was a little lamb, appropriately named Lamb Chop, which had the cutest voice and an attitude that could be equally innocent and cheeky. After watching clips representing decades of the little lamb singing and being shy, it's something to witness the puppet flirting with assorted men on TV variety shows or performing drunk during Lewis' stint at Las Vegas nightclubs. Lamb Chop could pull off all of that with ease.

The fact that it's easy to refer to a puppet as its own entity, obviously, gets to the heart of Lewis' talent. Lamb Chop, as well as her other puppets, really did feel like a character, wanting and reveling in the spotlight even more than Lewis did. At its best, ventriloquism is as much an illusion as any magic trick. The best in the field convince us, despite our rational minds and better judgment, that there really is some kind of life in a puppet—even one that probably is just a sock with stitched-on arms and legs, fake eyelashes, and some curly fuzz.

We don't really need to be told this, especially because the extensive footage of Lewis at work over the decades proves it, but D'Apolito wants to say it anyway. Hence, we also get clips from lengthy interview with stage magician David Copperfield that was filmed for the documentary. He's not the first person one would think to speak about puppetry, especially since the filmmakers also have Megan Piphus, a ventriloquist and puppeteer who did grow up watching Lewis in the 1990s and followed that career path, on hand. Beyond her, Mallory Hurwitz Lewis, the subject's daughter who is also a ventriloquist and took up the mantle of Lamb Chop, is also one of the interviewees here.

From that collection of talking heads, the basic structure and goal of this documentary should be obvious. Yes, it's biographical one, presented in an entirely straightforward and chronological manner. Yes, it's also one that attempts to balance insights about Lewis' professional life with details about her personal one. Lewis, who also appears—with and without puppets—in various interviews in which she participated over the decades, pretty much says that her work was her first priority, so maybe that's why the private details are so scant and not particularly revealing.

In some of those interviews, Lewis almost seems to give the filmmakers a way around the apparent requisite that the subject's personal life should be a major part of a documentary about that person. She points out that her puppets, particularly Lamb Chop, are in some way a reflection of different parts of her personality and inner life. With that in mind, Lamb Chop's more risqué moments might tell us as much about Lewis as the puppet's usually soft-spoken manner.

It might have been fascinating to hear about that element of a puppetry performance from some working ventriloquists, such as the few that are present here, and how it might tell us everything we really need to know about Lewis. Lamb Chop may be the star of the act, too, but she had other regular characters, such as Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy. What do those puppets reveal about her?

Such questions are hinted at in Shari & Lamb Chop, but the fact of the matter is that nothing offered by this documentary is more compelling or enlightening than the footage of Lewis performing. We may get a lot of that here, but the movie's search for some further insight outside of its subject's professional life and dedication to documentary formula get in the way of the movie's best element.

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