Not sure if it has been done before…I’m in a hurry and didn’t check.
Anyway, in remembrance of the late Jerry Lewis, and it also being Labor Day, I thought I would post a thread.
Does anyone remember staying up into the wee hours of the morning watching this annual event? It was a staple of my childhood every Labor Day weekend. Always enjoyed it. The only down side was that watching here in Chicago, in later years, the station that carried the telethon decided they were more important than the national production, and they would run their local cut-ins well past the time alloted by the Love Network.
I mean…they would go loooooong…often obliterating the return to the main telethon. Sometimes they would go fifteen, twenty minutes, then toss it back to the national feed, rejoining someone in mid-performance. I would bet at there was at least 15-20 per cent of the telethon that Chicago viewers did not see.
Overall though, a good event for a worthy cause. Too bad the day of the telethon has passed us by.
I think it was the summer I was 16, since I stayed up all night or for 2 or 3 day stretches earlier that same summer. I tried to watch the whole telethon through that Labor Day weekend, but fell asleep a couple of times during it.
I’m sure they do need the money- but that doesn’t mean a telethon is the best way to get it. It’s not like the old days when there were only a few channels to choose from.
Question: how much progress have they made against the disease? Were Lewis’ proceeds from this event crucial in any way, leading to any major breakthroughs?
When I was a kid, the telethon was on all the channels we could get at my grandmother’s house, so I watched a lot of it. A friend of the family had a child with MD so there was another reason to watch it as well.
We typically turned the telethon on several times throughout the day. Checking on the current total raised and to see what Jerry was doing. He always got progressively more exhausted as the hours went by.
We always watched during prime time to see the biggest acts.
Labor Day just isn’t the same without the telethon.
I think that through supportive therapies (respiratory, cardiac, etc) that “Jerry’s Kids” are now living much longer than they did when the telethons first started. I also understand the MDA helps patients and families with equipment that the insurance companies might not cover, camps for the kids, that sort of thing.
My sister and I were just talking about the telethon this past weekend. We loved it and never missed it. We were born in '61 & '63. We were always at the family cabin over Labor Day weekend so we’d watch it on a 12" B&W TV from the EARLY '60’s. We were Jerry Lewis movie fans. We remember the night Jerry and Dino were reunited!
We think back on it and wonder what was so great about it. From what I remember it was a lot of talking and going to the local telethon off and on for more talking. There must have been stars performing at some point.
Back then there were only a handful of channels. Things like the telethon, the Olympics, the annual Wizard of Oz showing - these were all Event TV. You planned your life around them.
