I kind of miss the Stock evil-corporate-guys-with-briefcases characters. Not enough of those anymore

That couldn't have been just the dwarfism. Did he have that weird anti aging disease where he never entered puberty? Because that is creepy as fuck.

There's no denying that Lewis' 4'3 height is short (Peter Dinklage is 4'5) but Sammy Davis Jr's height was 5'5 and is double Lewis' height. Maybe he was still growing? Or was shortsploitiation just a thing?

The 70s and 80s were characterized by roles for black men that were particularly diminutive and emasculating. ABC made Webster because Gary Coleman was a star. White audiences wanted to see a harmless black child being raised by white people, where he would serve as a jovial little garden gnome with a quick pseudo-ebonic retort to the stodgy white culture, which they were all too happy to be a part of. On the other hand you had Bill Cosby, an upper class doctor who told everybody that race didn't actually exist and everything was fine, and then you had Jimmy Walker, a half-witted minstrel straight out of Song of the South.

Side note...I saw a doc in which Jimmy Walker explained that he chose to play the character that way, and some of the other cast members were rather annoyed at that.