The much-maligned Jerry Lewis is now being honoured with a rerelease of six of his "classic" comedies on VHS and DVD this month

I've loved Lewis's rubber-faced, ludicrous-expressioned shtick since I was a kid--though that impression could be because I first saw these movies when I was a kid. Included in the series are The Family Jewels, in which Lewis plays seven different characters, The Disorderly Orderly, a health-care laff-fest in which Lewis turns a nursing home upside down, and The Nutty Professor, one of Lewis's most famous, which Eddie Murphy remade to great box-office success two years ago.

Yes, there are all those gags about how bad French people's tastes are, because they gave Lewis a medal. But consider this: words of praise and affection have come from some very, very diverse places, including Fassbinder and Woody Allen, who've both referred to Lewis as a genius in interviews over the years.

Not to miss out on the opportunity to cash in on a cherished celebrity's death, Paramount Home Video is honouring Charles M. Schulz with a release of It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown, another animated special featuring the Peanuts crew. Many of the Charlie Brown classics are also available in rerelease.

--Matthew Hays