Lewis financed and produced nearly all of his own movies with funds he made from his successful advertising firm based in Chicago. Always resourceful despite the low budgets he worked with, Lewis purchased the rights to an unfinished film and completed it himself, re-titling the film "Monster a Go-Go" (1965). Many years later, the film gained notoriety after being shown on the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" television show, where the cast stated it was the worst film they have ever done. Lewis would repeat this formula when he acquired a gritty psychological piece called "The Vortex" and released it as "Stick It in Your Ear" (1970) to be shown as a second feature to "The Wizard of Gore" (1970). This approach demonstrated Lewis's business savvy; by owning the distribution rights to both features (as well as most of his feature films), he knew he would not get fleeced by theaters juggling the box office returns, a common practice at that time.