In 1963,the prime-time series "The Jerry Lewis Show", a jumbled talk-variety effort was a massive Saturday night disaster for ABC(not to mention one of the weakest of shows that premiered on the ABC schedule for the 1963-1964 season),and left its star vowing never to return to the medium. He continue his stints in motion pictures and later on as the official host for "The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon",for which he serves as chairman for the Muscular Distrophy Association which he continues to do so until this very day-happens every Labor Day.
It would be seven years later that the network and the comic decided to let bygones be bygones as ABC gave him his very own Saturday Morning cartoon show which was created by BUT not using Jerry Lewis' voice. "Will The Real Jerry Lewis,Please Stand Up?" was produced by Filmation Associates and ran for 18 episodes,all in color for ABC-TV from September 12,1970 until September 2,1972. Only the original episodes ran in the first season,while its second season consisted of repeated episodes from the first season. Produced by Norm Prescott and Lou Scheimer along with direction by the great Hal Sutherland. Lewis did do show development(for which he was one of the writers of the show along with David L. Lander,Bill Danch,Chuck Menville,and Jim Ryan)and function as a script consultant for all 18 episodes. As far as the animation was concerned,Don Bluth was one of the animators for this series. According to an article in Variety magazine,Lewis declined the voice-over work because he felt some mimics did his younger voice better than he did when this came out in 1970! The series had Lewis as a temp with the Odd Job Employment Agency who took different occupations with each episode,from a valet to a spy,and always with disastrous consequences. Seen occasionally were Jerry's girlfriend Rhonda and his sister Geraldine(both were voiced by Filmation stockplayer Jane Webb who did basically all the female characters). Howard Morris(another of the Filmation voice-over stock players who was also the voice of Jughead Jones on "The Archies",and one of the Hanna-Barbera stockplayers;and also was known for his role as Ernest T. Bass on "The Andy Griffith Show")was Jerry's agency boss Mr. Blunderbuss plus a multitude of other characters,many of which were inspired by Jerry Lewis' movies of the 1950's and 1960's. The was an attempt to give Mr. Lewis his one and only chance at a Saturday Morning cartoon show,which did very well for the two seasons it was on the air.
