Lamb Chop's Play-Along

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Shari Lewis with Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, and Charlie Horse, shown here reading a story.

Lamb Chop's Play-Along was a children's television show that was shown on PBS in the United States from 1992 to 1997. It was created and hosted by puppeteer Shari Lewis, and featured her puppet character Lamb Chop. Appropriately, Lamb Chop was a sheep; other characters were puppets of other farm animals, including Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy. WTTW jointly distributed it with Paragon Entertainment Corporation to PBS stations across the country. The rights to the show are currently owned by Classic Media.

[edit] Characters

In addition to Lamb Chop, the other handpuppet characters played by Shari Lewis on the series are:

Lamb Chop

Lamb Chop can be sometimes stubborn, even to Shari. She can be funny sometimes for the things she does or says. In some episodes Shari would always tell Lamb Chop stories of when she was a baby starting with "Because when you were a baby...". The next scene would show a past sequence of when Lamb Chop was a baby. To some people Baby Lamb Chop appears to be more funny than the Lamb Chop we know now.

Charlie Horse

Charlie likes that the pizza parlor is named after him. He sometimes suffers from a mild case of "bigshotitis" but he is a great big brother to Lamb Chop and Hush Puppy. Charlie loves bugs, worms, snakes, horror stories and anything else that will gross out Shari and his two younger siblings. Charlie loves to play his drums.

Charlie is best known for singing "The Song That Doesn't End" at the end of Lamb Chop's Play-Along, when Shari Lewis tries to stop them (the children, Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, and Charlie Horse) from singing they leave, making Shari feel finally relaxed that the song was over. However the next second the barn (used when the song was playing) opens up with Charlie Horse who has come back to get the song going again but he is eventually stopped by Shari, who grabs him by the nose while telling him to stop, and this time succeeds, tells him to "go away", but before she tries to tell him another thing, Charlie Horse slams the door. Shari was actually trying to tell him not to slam the door.

The character's name is a pun on the medical condition of the charley horse, which is known to be a general, but very intense, leg pain. The pain is typically is deep within the knee joint, in the ACL area, making walking and movement quite unbearable.

Charlie Horse later starred in his own spin-off show, Charlie Horse's Music Pizza, about a singing pizzaria.

Hush Puppy

Hush Puppy is definitely man's, and lamb's, best friend. He is a real buddy who will always help you when you need it. Hush Puppy is happiest when there is a good mystery to solve and loves to play any kind of music, as long as it's fast.

[edit] Theme Song

The opening theme song was "Lamb Chop's Play-Along", written by veteran Hollywood composer Bob Golden. Others songs were written by Square One TV songwriter, John Rodby. The ending theme was more memorable, as the children and puppets sang "The Song That Never Ends", while Lewis frantically and comically attempted to stop them.

Past PBS Kids Shows (as of September 2006)