Most of today's audience only knows comedy legend Jerry Lewis as the man who does the telethons every Labor Day for muscular dystrophy. Lewis, though, had previously had a couple of prime-time series bearing his name that didn't quite work out as well as hoped. The same thing applies to a 1970 cartoon for which Filmation obtained a license to use Lewis' likeness and those of characters he created for some of his films, including "The Family Jewels". ToonTracker uploaded the opening & closing to Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down to YouTube:
While Lewis served as an uncredited creative consultant, he didn't lend his voice to his animated likeness. That job went to a then unknown David L. Lander, who later earned his big break as Andrew "Squiggy" Squigman on Laverne & Shirley. Lander & Howard Morris handled all the Lewis creations, while Jane Webb voiced all the female parts. Unfortunately, the series only had 1 season's worth of episodes, and was shunted off to Sundays the next year. Lewis owns the rights to the series, and reportedly has no intention of releasing them into syndication any time soon. That's a shame, since it might be worth the while to look back and laugh after all.
Rating: B.
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