Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop, and Kitten

Every now and then I get YouTube obsessions over the most random topics. My latest one started last week when I saw a report about ventriloquist Terry Fator on CBS News Sunday Morning:



My parents saw him in Vegas about a year ago and they loved him. It's easy to see why; he's amazingly good.

During that report, as you may have seen, there was a very small segment featuring Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop, and Charlie Horse. They were a big part of my childhood, through the old PBS show Lamb Chop's Play Along. I was fresh out of college when she died, and I felt the same sort of sadness that I experienced when Jim Henson died years earlier: It felt like a member of the family had left me. And then I thought, "Well, how is Lamb Chop going to go on? And Hush Puppy? And Charlie Horse?" (Personally, as much as I loved Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy was my favorite. I didn't care much for Charlie Horse).

Thankfully, Shari's daughter, Mallory, has taken over the act, and is now voicing Lamb Chop. And Lamb Chop sounds exactly like Shari's version. I honestly can't tell the difference.

Judge for yourself. Here's one of the many YouTube clips featuring Shari and Lamb Chop. I watch this particular clip and wonder why children's television these days can't be as good as it was back during my childhood. Shari doesn't talk down to the kids, and she's very creative in dealing with Lamb Chop:



And for comparison's sake, here's a segment with Mallory and Lamb Chop: