Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down

Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down
Directed by Hal Sutherland
Voices of Howard Morris
Jane Webb
David Lander
Theme music composer Jeff Michael
George Blais
Country of origin USA
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 18
Production
Producer(s) Norm Prescott
Lou Scheimer
Production company(s) Filmation
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run September 12, 1970 – September 2, 1972

Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down is a 1970 animated showcase for various caricatured Jerry Lewis characters, all based on characters from the Lewis film, The Family Jewels and styled in a fashion similar to Archie's TV Funnies and the Groovie Goolies. The title is a variant of the deciding question on the game show To Tell the Truth: "Will the real __________ please stand up?". Like most 1970s-era Saturday morning cartoon series, Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down contained an adult laugh track.

Premise

As with all of their wilder comedies, such as those mentioned above and later shows like Uncle Croc's Block and The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty, Filmation stuffed the episodes with slapstick jokes, and the rubbery, gangly animated version of Lewis was well realised. Among the caricatured characters were Chinese detective Hong Kong Flewis and his rotund son, One Ton Son; Professor Lewis, and his sister Geraldine (and her pet frog, Spot). In the series, Jerry worked for the Odd Job Employment Agency under the supervision of the obnoxious Mr. Blunderbuss. A typical episode found Jerry being assigned a job, and making a complete shambles of it in his harmless, naive way.

Though Jerry Lewis himself contributed to some of the scripts, he did not voice his own character. That distinction belonged to David Lander, who would later be better-known for his role of Squiggy on Laverne & Shirley.

Notably wild in their style were the opening credits and commercial bumpers, and the title of the show was spoken by an announcer, simply at first followed by stretching the word 'please' and shouting 'sit down'. The stories themselves were perhaps slightly more conventional. Will The Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down contained several ethnic (notably Asian) stereotypes.

Along with Groovie Goolies, this was one of the first Filmation series to feature the rotating Lou Scheimer/Norm Prescott "wheel" credit. Previous shows featured a standard credit with Scheimer's name above Prescott's. It was also Filmation's first show to feature director Hal Sutherland's name written in fancy lettering.

Cast

Production credits

External links