For the centennial of Jerry Lewis’s birth, three vintage Funhouse episodes!

People might think I’m just fickle, jumping back to this blog after having started a Substack. Well, there are things this blog can do that Substack won’t — namely, allowing embeds of videos on sites other than those owned by Google. So, in honor of the centennial of Jerry’s 100th I offer three vintage episodes of the Funhouse that were done in tribute and aired (when else?) on Labor Day weekend.

The first one, from 2016, includes “news updates” about what Jerry had been up to in the preceding year (focusing on the revelation online of “Day The Clown Cried” clips). Then I sail into an assemblage of choice Telethon clips, including guests like Wayne Newton, Charlie Callas, Bobby Vinton, and Steve and Eydie.

 

The next show, from 2017, starts out with me reviewing the then-recent DVD release of Don’t Give Up the Ship (1959). I then move onto the topic of Jerry’s latest (last) interview on video. And I close out with more, extremely primo Telethon clips, this time featuring Kasey Kasem, Tony Orlando, Charlie Callas, and the late, irreplaceable Sammy Davis Jr.

 

The last of the trio for this upload session is one from 2018. In this instance, Jerry has indeed passed on, and I do an inspirational reading from a French book on Jerry’s life and career up until the mid-Sixties [translations my own]. Then I move onto a piece of history — images from the auction catalog of Jerry’s effects. (Somewhat quickly gotten rid of by his family, including items that couldn’t be legally sold and an immense assortment of Jerry-owned firearms!)

These are but three of the over 30 tributes I’ve done to the comedian, actor, filmmaker, and troublemaker whom everybody “loves to hate to love to hate to…” In other words, a mere drop in the bucket of Jerry-iana from the coffers of the Funhouse. And, to think, Jerry never got to do his proposed 100th b-day gig at a Vegas casino….