Shari Lewis

            On Thursday morning I translated the second refrain of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished memorizing “Tout l’monde est musician” (Everyone’s a Musician) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll start looking for the chords. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos before breakfast.

            I played my old Epi acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune the whole time. Tomorrow I begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer electric. 

            In my Mae West “She Done Him Wrong” Movie Maker project I made a video of the first scene and published it. I took a couple of screen shots. “She Done Him Wrong” is based on Mae West’s hit Broadway play Diamond Lil, which she also wrote.

            I weighed 88.65 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco. I bought five bags of green grapes, a pork tenderloin (I didn’t notice till I got home that it was from the US, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it), a jar of natural peanut butter, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, marinara sauce, a small jar of Calabrian sausage spread (very expensive at $10 but I was curious. It’s so hot one can barely taste the sausage), and a pack of Irish Spring soap bars. I did a price match on the grapes with the Real Canadian Superstore’s price of $6.59 a kilo. 

            I weighed 88.25 kilos at 19:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:13. 

            I reviewed one side of the next cassette on the pile and there are only two poems that I sing acapella at Fat Albert’s. The other side is a Christian and the Lions show. I’ll review that tomorrow. 

            I grilled two T-bone steaks and had one with a small potato and gravy while watching season 1, episode 20 of Car 54 Where Are You? 

            Police Commissioner Harper is cracking down on out of shape cops. If they are too fat, too skinny, too short or too tall they will be weeded out of the force. The upper height limit is 1.98 meters and Muldoon has always been that height exactly. But now he finds he has gained 2.2 cm and so he is afraid of being fired. He begins scrunching himself down during inspection. He figures if he stands next to other tall people his height will not be so obvious so his partner Toody helps him out by wearing elevator shoes. But Toody has always been the exact same height as Captain Block and so when he looks up at Toody he thinks that he must be shrinking. Muldoon is in charge of the upcoming policeman’s ball but he doesn’t want to go because his height will stand out. Captain Block orders him to go because Commissioner Harper will be there. Then when Muldoon goes home his mother introduces him to the Walsh’s who want someone to date their daughter. When Muldoon sees that both Mr. and Mrs. Walsh are tall he assumes their daughter Melinda will also be tall and so he agrees. But when he arrives to pick her up she turns out to be very short. He makes up an excuse that his right arm has suddenly gone out of wack. She is very nice about it and gives him a sweet kiss on the cheek while standing on a chair. He goes home but feels guilty and finally calls Melinda back to take her. At the ball he dances with Melinda and then Harper calls him over. It turns out that Harper is the same height as Melinda and his wife is very tall. He says he finds it admirable that like him Muldoon is not embarrassed to be seen dancing with a much shorter partner. 

            Melinda was played by the great Shari Lewis, whose father Abraham Hurwitz was the official magician of New York. She studied piano and violin at the New York High School of Music and Art. She studied dance at the American School of Ballet. She studied acting at the Neighbourhood Playhouse. In 1952 her puppetry and ventriloquism won first prize on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. In 1953 she made her hosting debut on the children’s show Facts n’Fun with her ventriloquist dummies Samson and Taffy Twinkle. Later that year she became the host of Kartoon Klub and performed with the dummies Randy Rocket and Taffy Twinkle. The name of the show was changed to Shari and Her Friends and then Shariland (which won an Emmy award). She created Lambchop and first performed with the puppet on Captain Kangaroo in March, 1956. On her 1957 show Hi Mom she introduced her puppets Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy, and Wing Ding and won another Emmy. Her first network show was The Shari Lewis Show, which ran from 1960 to 1963. She co-wrote with her husband the Star Trek episode The Lights of Zetar in 1969. She starred in Lambchop’s Play-Along from 1992 to 1997 and The Charlie Horse Music Pizza from 1998 to 1999. She was the voice of Princess Nida on The Arabian Nights cartoon segment of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. She won 12 Emmy Awards and one Peabody Award. She was also an accomplished symphony conductor.