Just in time not for Labor Day, here's a few occasions where Jerry Lewis was entertaining and NOT irritating...
His 1980 "comeback" film, "Cracking Up," was a complete mess... but this opening sequence is vintage Lewis. It may not have held up as well, what with some French-cinema-inspired gags, but it's probably the final time he approached the spirit of his early films.
Lewis appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on January 27, 1973, a few years after his film career had cooled down, and his prospects for a TV career seemed permanently over after a huge flop (1963) and a moderately received two-season wonder (1967-69). Cavett, by the way, had been a writer on the 1963 show.
At the beginning, he's relatively gracious answering questions from the audience. Then, during the commercial break, he started his famous pantomime with Bobby Rosengarden, and the director had the presence of mind to bring the cameras up. Later, the interview seems to be the source for much of Lewis' reputation as a self-aggrandizing nut. This episode is available on the Shout Factory DVD sets that came out in the early 2000s. The pantomime starts about 4 minutes in... before that, notice he mentions the elusive "The Day The Clown Cried":
There's a similar pantomime in this live Paris performance (which derives from this scene in the film, "Cinderfella"):
And as long as we're on Lewis and pantomime (no I will not post "The Typewriter"), here he is in "The Errand Boy":
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