The Charlie Horse Music Pizza is an American children's television show that was shown on PBS Kids in the United States from January 5, 1998, to January 17, 1999, with reruns continuing to air until September 5, 1999. Reruns again aired on PBJ until 2016. It is the short-lived spin-off of Lamb Chop's Play-Along and was hosted by Shari Lewis, whose strong belief in the benefits of music education for children led to the creation of the series. The Charlie Horse Music Pizza was shot at the CBC Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Charlie Horse Music Pizza was Lewis's final project.

Cast Wezley Morris as Junior Chancz Perry as Take Out Gordon Robertson as Fingers Dom DeLuise as Cookie

Premise The series takes place around a pizzeria on the beach. Alongside the original cast of Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, and Lewis, Charlie Horse Music Pizza introduced five new characters: Take Out, a big anthropomorphized dim-witted orangutan who makes deliveries on roller skates (played by Chancz Perry); Fingers, a giant, sassy purple raccoon that lives in the dumpster behind the pizzeria (played by Gordon Robertson); Cookie, the soft-hearted opera loving cook (played by Dom DeLuise), Junior, a cool teenager who works at the pizzeria part time and plays the tuba for his high school marching band (played by Wezley Morris), and Holly, a young girl in a wheelchair (played by Chantal Strand).

Episodes Season Episodes Originally aired (U.S. dates) Season premiere Season finale 1 20 2 3

Season 1 (1998) #List of episodesRelease date 1 Back Story January 5, 1998 2 My Dog Has Fleas January 6, 1998 3 Musicians of Bremen January 7, 1998 4 Blow Hard January 8, 1998 5 Follow the Leader January 9, 1998 6 Spooky Opera Show January 12, 1998 7 A Pirate's Life January 13, 1998 8 The Audition January 14, 1998 9 Group Soup January 15, 1998 10 Rapunzel January 16, 1998 11 Toy Exchange January 19, 1998 12 Charlie on the Run January 20, 1998 13 Wise Queen January 21, 1998 14 Star-Spangled Charlie January 22, 1998 15 Charlie's Ant January 23, 1998 16 Whistle While You Work January 26, 1998 17 Jazzy January 27, 1998 18 Hush Puppy the Hero January 28, 1998 19 Can I Sing You My Song? January 29, 1998 20 Drum Show January 30, 1998

Season 2 (1999) #List of episodesRelease date 21 One Man Band January 3, 1999 22 The George & Bill Show January 10, 1999 23 Hello, Goodbye January 17, 1999

Cancellation When Lamb Chop's Play-Along! ended, Lewis and her husband Jeremy Tarcher created The Charlie Horse Music Pizza to teach children about music after talking about what kids loved the most. Because a third of elementary schools were cutting music class from their curriculum at the time, Lewis and Tarcher felt that they should introduce kids to music through the show. Lewis was diagnosed with inoperable uterine cancer, and the show was put on hold on June 18, 1998, while she underwent chemotherapy at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. She died from viral pneumonia on August 2, 1998. After her death, The Charlie Horse Music Pizza was cancelled. The last episode of The Charlie Horse Music Pizza aired on January 17, 1999, on what would have been her 66th birthday.

Awards

| 2000 | Shari Lewis for playing "Host" (posthumous award; accepted by Mallory Tarcher Lewis) | Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series

References

External links

Official website at pbskids.org (archived)