Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop: Still TV Pals

BRANSON, Mo. - A woman approached the diminutive, redheaded children's entertainer with great skepticism.

"Are you the original Shari Lewis?" she asked.

"I had to tell her I was the original Shari Lewis, with almost all the original parts," Lewis recalled onstage, drawing confused smiles from children and knowing laughter from their parents.

Four decades after she first appeared on television with her puppet Lamb Chop, Lewis continues to get international recognition as a performer and innovator in children's programming.

While children's programming has changed dramatically, Lewis' themes have been remarkably consistent. The lessons about sharing, cheating, separation - as told through humorous songs and personified socks - have managed to persevere in the age of the Mighty Morphin Power Ranger.

"I think there's a simplicity to Lamb Chop that is an important part of her appeal," Lewis said before a recent show at Andy Williams' Moon River Theatre. "But I don't really know what it is that is the continuing element. I know that I don't like to lose, and that certainly is an element."

Lewis has surmounted plenty of obstacles.

She landed her own television show in 1957 after a single appearance with Lamb Chop, a white sock fixed up to look like a lamb, on the "Captain Kangaroo Show." But that show went off the air in 1963, when most children's programming went to animation.

Lewis then became a Las Vegas performer. When Vegas went rock and country, she did the celebrity game-show circuit. When those went off the air, she conducted symphony orchestras.

It took three decades to come full circle.

In 1992, she returned to children's television - with a bang. This year, she captured her fifth consecutive Emmy Award as the outstanding performer in a children's series for "Lamb Chop's Play-Along" on PBS.

Make no mistake, however. Lewis doesn't want to entertain only children.

"I don't tend to favor an all-children's audience," she said. "They have been exposed to so much that's stupid that when children are all together they expect nothing but stupidity."

There's no vulgarity, violence or profanity during any of Lewis' performances - whether she's appearing on a musical CD-ROM, on stage, in a book or on television.

At 62, Lewis said her biggest struggle in entertainment is staying current in musical styles and language. To keep up, she is constantly interviewing young children to pick up the latest vocabulary.

Lewis said she's not bothered by the gray-haired audience members remembering her from their childhood.

"I think it's wonderful," she said. "I'm waiting for the next generation."