The Day The Critics Cried: 'The Show Won’t Go On’ authors defend Jerry Lewis’ lost Holocaust film on the Shut Up I Love It podcast

The authors of The Show Won't Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage go back to their roots, lay it on the line and challenge the conventional snark propagated by some of the biggest names in comedy, in an appearance on the popular comedy podcast, Shut Up I Love It.

Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns defended their obsession during the ninety-minute podcast hosted by comedy performers and writers Sasha Feiler and Steve Cohen. Shut Up I Love It "celebrates those aspects of pop culture that make you go OOH and others go YUCK.”  In this case, in the podcast episode launched this morning, the topic is Jerry Lewis, and his infamous lost Holocaust drama from 1972, The Day The Clown Cried.

Two guys one mic

Abraham and Kearns are recognized Jerry Lewis aficionados.  Abraham is a top Hollywood publicist, show business historian and comedy archivist.  Kearns is a documentary writer, producer and director.  The pair met when Abraham represented Kearns' 1999 book, Tabloid Baby.  They bonded over a love of Jerry Lewis.  Abraham had worked and spent time with Lewis often.  Kearns had a production job on one of the Jerry Lewis Telethons and was allowed unprecendented access behind the scenes of the telethon when filming a documentary report in 1989.

Steven Cohen and Sasha Feiler in the podcast studio

On the podcast, Feiler notes that Kearns has not one but two Jerry Lewis tattoos on his arm.

“These aren’t fake Jerry Lewis fans, just trying to hop onboard the hype train,” Cohen points out.

“Absolutely,” Abraham says. "I sit here wearing my Jerry Lewis watch and shirt."

"Why are you asking us to shut up and love him?” Feiler asks the authors.

"He's also been a very divisive figure in entertainment," Kearns says.  "Some people love Jerry Lewis. Some people hate Jerry Lewis."

Due to rights issues, lawsuits and other factors, The Day The Clown Cried was never released, and for forty years the only word on the subject -- the single review -- came from satirist Harry Shearer.  In a 1979 article for Spy magazine, Shearer claimed to have seen a bootleg version of the film and compared it to “a painting of Auschwitz on black velvet.”  Decades later, hipster comedian Patton Oswalt produced mocking readings of the script on stages in Hollywood and New York, laughing and denigrating at Lewis along the way. In part because of these comics who actually owed so much to Lewis, The Day The Clown Cried became a joke.

In recent years, however, clips from the film have surfaced. A German assembly of the footage, combined with dramatic readings of missing scenes by the film’s actors, created a 31-minute rough cut that led to a reappraisal of the work.

"It’s unfortunate that Shearer, who seems to revel in the snarky spotlight, turns out to be the movie’s sole critic," Richard Brody wrote in The New Yorker. "If these clips suggest anything of the rest of the film, any tastelessness, sentimentality, or clumsiness of Lewis’s effort would be beside the point. He was working in the dark, in a self-inflicted state of moral shock, and attempting the impossible."

On the Shut Up I Love It podcast, Abraham and Kearns go farther. 

After the team summarizes the script and quality of the production, Kearns actually states: "I think it's an Oscar-worthy film. I think Lewis' performance is an Oscar-winning performance."

Comedy talents Feiler and Cohen are left to weigh the evidence and give their verdict as to where Jerry Lewis and The Day The Clown Cried land on the Shut Up I Love It spectrum. 

 And as they do in The Show Won’t Go On, Abraham and Kearns are rewriting history with their frank and honest appraisal of The Day The Clown Cried!

The podcast was videotaped for posterity.

Burt Kearns & Jeff Abraham surround the SHUT UP I LOVE IT team, Sasha Feiler, consultant and technical adviser Jay Hunter and Steven Cohen

Is this the world's first Jerry Lewis-Jacques Tati tattoo?

Cinephiles and comedy aficionados know the effect that French filmmaker and comedic actor Jacques Tati had on Jerry Lewis (and some would say, vice versa).

Now, that connection is more than skin-deep, with this tattoo, inked by Crankee at his Inkpire Tattoo Studio in Northridge, California, on the forearm of a producer and author we all know.  (It is his second Lewis inking but his first Tati tat).

The Lewis picture is based on the  work by American caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.  The drawing of Tati is from French comic strip artist and caricaturist Cabu (Jean Maurice Jules Cabut), who died in the January 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper office.

JERRY LEWIS BY CRANKEE, BASED ON AL HIRSCHFELD CARICATURE

JACQUES TATI’S MONSIEUR HULOT BY CRANKEE, BASED ON CABU CARICATURE

Frank, Dean & Sammy! Producer inks the Rat Pack

Word’s in that our man Burt Kearns, the writer-producer who made headlines in 2014 as one of the few people in show business (Richard Belzer is another) to have the famous Jerry Lewis caricature tattooed on his arm, has taken his obsession to a new level with the Rat Pack.

A version of the classic Three Hipsters work by the artist Shag was inked by acclaimed tattooist Mister Crankee at the So Cal Tattoo and Art Gallery on Ventura Blvd in Tarzana.



This is one of Crankee’s last works before he takes his inks and needles to Mike Devries’ MD Tattoo Studio in Northridge on Monday.

Jerry Lewis Just Talks: ‘Lost’ interview surfaces after more than 25 years

A rare interview with comedy superstar Jerry Lewis went online this holiday weekend. Filmed on the eve of the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon in 1989, the 45-minute feature is said to be a companion to Telethon, the two-hour documentary film that appeared without fanfare online in August 2014 and quickly went viral.

Oscars to honor Jerry Lewis!

American treasure Jerry Lewis will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards ceremony on February 22nd.

Jerry has has raised over $2 billion for the Muscular Dystrophy Association through his annual Labor Day telethon.

His role in the telethon was revealed in the book Tabloid Baby.

Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, described Jerry as "a legendary comedian who has... brought laughter to millions around the world" and "helped thousands upon thousands by raising funds and awareness for those suffering from muscular dystrophy."

Jerry is 82 years young!