Sunday, May 4, 2008
Hullabaloo with guest hosts Jerry and Gary Lewis (1965)
This goes down in history as one of those incredibly awkward Jerry Lewis things, one of countless uncomfortable moments in his showbiz career. In 1965, Gary Lewis and The Playboys were a huge deal on the pop charts and Jerry Lewis' legendary insecurity did not seem able to cope with his son's success, regardless of the grandstanding about how "proud of him" he said he was. Here we see Jerry trying mercilessly to upstage his son throughout this episode of teen rock show Hullabaloo.
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4 comments:
Wow! What a piece of pop culture history! It's amazing that you could have such a mix of music on one show. Wouldn't happen today. And this was probably right before everything fell apart for both Gary and Jerry. Gary went off to Vietnam and spent years getting over post-traumatic stress disorder. Jerry hurt his back around this time and became addicted to pain pills, all the while his film career went down the tubes. Interesting to see them at their peak.
Gary never served in combat at all, and has lied about having PTSD. He has also unfairly castigated his father, publicly shaming him, after his brother Joseph's OD (and perhaps suicide or carelessness). That was unfair. Didn't Joseph have 5 brothers and a mother to turn to? Why place all the blame on Jerry? And pretending that Jerry was jealous -- I do not believe it. Why did the producers invite him at all? Jerry was known to upstage and disrupt an act, that was part of his shtick, from his earliest years --he and Dean Martin did it to Milton Berle inn their appearance on his show, and on others. I am sure Gary expected exactly that. So do not take it out of context ands lie about Jerry! But Gary never served in combat, yet allowed his father to make a public spectacle of himself railing against the war for "ruining" his son, whe Gary had started drug use either before his military service, or after but not as combat PTSD at all. Gary lies and is unethical
my bet is that Jerry knew full well that Gary was using drugs and made up the PTSD s tu ory because he felt shame. He would have nothing to do with his youngest son Joseph after he sta ry ted abusing drugs and when his son died from his addiction Jerry did not attend the funeral. That is what angered Gary.
Watching how jerry treated his audiences in his later years, I lost all respect for him. And he never was that funny in the first place.
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