Stu’s Show is also Lucy and Jeanine show

Uber TV show fan Stu Shostak long ago turned his idol worship into a full-time gig that boomeranged into a following of his own among the very celebrities he befriended initially by doing audience warm-ups at TV show tapings and later through the popular Internet talk program he launched in 2006. Now that story is the subject of a new documentary that takes an equally unexpected path in diverting to telling the story of Lucille Ball in the decade prior to her death, and then taking a severe right turn to follow Shostak’s months-long rage against the health care system to literally save the life of a mutually dedicated full-time TV show fan who had become his partner in life and fandom.

Indie filmmaker CJ Wallis bookends the 95-minute “Stu’s Show” (available on major digital streaming and VOD platforms May 2, 2022 from Upstream Flix – all listed at end of this review) with Stu’s wedding to Jeanine Kasun, a ceremony at which the attendees are largely his celebrity fans, including his Best Man Tony Dow and Dow’s wife Lauren, who officiates.

The first few minutes are the profile of Stu that most viewers of this documentary would be expecting, especially based on the title. We are immediately immersed in the frenetic personality of Shostak as he races a cameraman through rooms at his home filled with TV memorabilia and racks of film cannisters. We learn that Shostak got his start handing out tickets to Norman Lear sitcom tapings and parlayed that into audience warm-ups for shows such as “All In The Family” and “One Day At A Time” — we see some highlights of Shostak doing audience warm-up on the set of the 1980s sitcom “Silver Spoons.”

Before we know it, the film focus shifts to a half-hour mini-documentary of Lucille Ball during the 1970s and early 1980s through the eyes and perspective of Shostak, whose encyclopedic knowledge of TV and her shows led to him being invited into Ball’s small inner circle as her archivist and assistant to her husband Gary Morton as Ball segued into a producer of other shows and made occasional appearances on the shows of others. This section could easily have justified its own feature, filmmaker Wallis told me, noting that Shostak “initially resisted including the Lucy days but, aside from getting to show a side of Lucille Ball not many have seen before, I think it perfectly sets up the part of the story that’s most important.”

That leads to what comes next, the final and lengthiest pivot to an introduction of music teacher Kasun, first attending LOVING LUCY fan conventions co-produced by Shostak, and then becoming a partner in his fan endeavors, quickly endearing herself to Shostak’s celebrity friends.

Soon their mutual passion lead to a dating relationship that took a shocking and frightening turn when Kasun literally fell ill with a brain aneurysm that was nearly catastrophic, but for Shostak’s relentless dogged pursuit of proper care for her. This section consumes the entire last hour of the film.
“Stu was very close with Lucy when she unexpectedly passed and you can see how it effected him in the film,” Wallis said, “so when the idea is then introduced that he’s losing the love of his life, you know Stu’s going to go Tasmanian Devil doing any and everything possible to stop it from happening again.”

Producer/director Wallis (also credited with editing, photography, animation and additional music) Intersperses an impressive number of newly-produced interviews beginning near the end of 2019 with Shostak celebrity devotees, including the Dows, and the likes of actors Michael Cole (Pete on “The Mod Squad”), Dick Van Dyke and the late Ed Asner (“Lou Grant”), Butch Patrick (“The Munsters”), Stanley Livingson (“My Three Sons”), Academy Award Winner Margaret O’Brien, Geri Jewell, game show host Wink Martindale, writers Ken Levine (“MASH”), and many others. While many of them make teasing comments about Shostak’s manic personality and his non-stop talking, most also credit that relentless nature to ultimately getting the care that was needed to save the life of Kasun.
“The thing everyone we interviewed stressed was the importance of having a truly dedicated health advocate with you at all times if something happens,” Wallis said.

Mallory Kennedy and Arik Kislin are also producers on the film. The British Columbia-based Wallis said he met Shostak when he was putting on promotional screenings around Hollywood for their first documentary “Perfect Bid,” where Stu showed up, enjoyed the film, and invited “Price Is Right” producer Roger Dobkowitz and Wallis onto his show to discuss it.
He said call-time for the show is four hours prior to taping so that Shostak can get to know his guests over a complimentary lunch at his favorite deli. “Over the course of the day I heard bits and pieces of his life and what he’s been through and it was obvious pretty quickly his story needed to be told next.”

As a disciple of TV himself, Wallis said that while each of the interviews he did for “Stu’s Show” was a “total thrill,” Michael Cole (“The Mod Squad”) “was pretty incredible” because he was extremely candid and “couldn’t have been cooler.” And being a “behind-the-scenes” guy, Wallis also really enjoyed getting to meet and hear the stories of Emmy-winning writers Robert Illes and Ken Levine, as well as animation legend Mark Evanier.

Here’s where you will find “Stu’s Show” starting May 2: iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Vudu, InDemand, Dish, Vubiquity, Verizon, DirecTV, Comcast/Xfinity, Spectrum, Cox.

— By Scott Hettrick