Television's MDA Telethon -- Long Jerry Lewis' Labor Day Show -- Is Ending

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

Associated Press Updated: May 1, 2015 - 12:25 PM

NEW YORK — The Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon, a Labor Day television tradition for decades, is ending.

MDA said Friday that "the new realities of television viewing and philanthropic giving" make it the right time to end the annual event, memorably hosted for most of its life by Jerry Lewis.

Celebrities including Frank Sinatra, John Lennon and Michael Jackson to Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez have performed on the telethon, first hosted by Lewis and Dean Martin in 1956. It moved to Labor Day in 1966.

The telethon ran 21 and a half hours in 2010, Lewis' last year as host, and had dwindled to a two-hour show the last two years.


Read more: http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/celebrities/302179471.html

[tularetom]

1. If you like Jerry Lewis it was fun to watch

If you despise Jerry Lewis it was fun to watch.

Once Jerry Lewis was gone, it just sucked.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

2. Thank GOD!! We get memorial day back!

I guess Joe Levitch is getting on in years. May I be the first to say RIP, Jerry!

[mrmpa]

16. I think we always had Memorial Day......

it's Labor Day we got back.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

17. What a putz I am sometimes! ROFL

[hlthe2b]

3. Did we ever hear the real story why they ditched Jerry Lewis?

[Arugula Latte]

5. I thought he had died ... but I see he's still alive.

He is a piece of work. I'm sure he was no picnic to work with.

But hopefully all the money he helped raise has done a lot of good for MD research, etc.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

20. Probably because he was such a train wreck on the last year he hosted

I figure MDA wanted to cut ties before the next one rolled around:

It could be possible he already knew what was coming and that's why he was such a mess that year.

[OnyxCollie]

25. Harry Shearer had a great compilation

of all the stupid things Jerry Lewis said on the telethon.
http://harryshearer.com/le-shows/september-4/

Telethon
http://ecomicbranding.com/hosted_images/harryshearer/JerryLewisTelethon.pdf

[Arugula Latte]

4. I remember watching that thing every year as a kid in the 70s.

It was always the feeling of: "Oh boy. The telethon. School is starting soon."

[SoapBox]

6. LOL

I was going to say the same.

I have no bad feeling about it...growing up, it seemed exciting...for you young ones, there was not much to watch in the 50's and 60's...this felt like a big deal.

[woodsprite]

7. Yeah, it was the last night we were able to stay up late before school started.

We always tried to stay up for the whole thing. I don't think we ever made it for the full time.

I can remember one year my friends and I put on a "Backyard Carnival" to raise money. My one friend did tricks, I baked cakes in my EZ Bake Oven, somebody sang, I forget what our other friends did to "entertain" the neighbors. Our fathers took us in to WPVI in Philly to dump our donations into the MDA fishbowl. We got to meet Wee Willie Webber and Captain and Mrs. Noah

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Bwah!

Captain Noah is still around (saw him downtown a few years ago recently). It's embarrassing to think that 50+ year olds were running up to him. Gene London is another still around too. Do miss Wee Willie Webber and Sally Starr and Chief Halftown. Remember running home from school to watch Wee Willie Webber's 4 pm show with all the cartoons and the bleacher full of kids your age... And couldn't miss the musical chairs segment.

See... this is what is missing from "television" nowadays. All the locally-produced children's programs that they used to have.

[murielm99]

10. Boy do you have that right about

locally produced children's programs. There were great ones in the Chicago viewing area. We had Bozo. We had Garfield Goose. We had Elmer the Elephant. Throw in some Soupy Sales (not local), and it was heaven.

[dhill926]

14. and the Ray Rayner show in the morning...

with Diver Dan and other weird shows....good stuff...

[MADem]

28. Bozo was franchised everywhere--different cities had different Bozos.

In Boston, it was a guy named Frank Averuch.

Another franchised children's program was Romper Room. Miss (Fill in a Name) with her Magic Mirror, Tell Me Today, Did All My Friends Have Fun At Play? This lady, apparently, was the creator and original....

And who could forget this guy? Apparently he worked in PA before moving to WBZ.

And then there was this fellow as well....

Children were glued to the (usually black and white, though some of the rich people had color) TV back in the day!

[monmouth4]

11. I'm so feckin old I remember Howdy Doody....n/t

[heaven05]

13. I remember

Soupy Sales.......White Fang and Blacktooth......

[BumRushDaShow]

15. Only remember occassional syndicated Howdy Doody re-runs

along with the same for the Micky Mouse Club episodes. One of my faves though was Kukla, Fran, and Ollie (also syndicated). My mother always told the story of being shocked one year to see me in elementary school on stage during a school show standing next to a big box with a cutout for a "puppet stage" playing "Fran".

Soupy Sales was a fixture about everywhere for a long time though! Willy the Worm!

OMG I have regressed thanks to youtube.

(and to think there was no "Cartoon Network" or "Nickelodeon" - although I think there was some precursor of the 24/7 cartoon networks around in the early '70s as some of my cousins had such a channel when they lived up in New England and had an early version of "cable" since they were too far away from Boston to get a good signal)

[Skittles]

21. you want I should kick your ancient ass, monmouth4?

I WOULD YOU KNOW

[monmouth4]

22. I am way overdue, I'm sure...LOL..n/t

[alphafemale]

23. Weren't stations required to have a certain number of hours of Children's/Education programming?

Something they had to comply with to keep their license or something?

[BumRushDaShow]

24. I don't think that happened until recently

with the "Children's Television Act".

But back in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, television wasn't on 24 hours a day either (and some stations were sunrise/sunset stations - 6 am - 6pm). So usually by 2 am, you got the national anthem, a test pattern, and then snow!

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. I remember sitting half awake around 7 am on a Sat. morn staring at the test pattern

waiting for the Sat. cartoons to begin, bowl of cereal in front of me. Parents still asleep, we had to be quiet, but they knew we would not move from the tv for hours.
The tv had an Indian head and some bar lines for a test pattern.
I think the stations shut down at midnight, we would hear the same old scratchy national anthem, then a high pitched squealing noise and snow.
Mid-1950's.....in Seattle area.

Never ever did like Kulka Fran and etc.
Or Soupy Sales.

I remember a sheriff Tex and of course Howdy Doody.

[BumRushDaShow]

30. I live in Philly but remember some farm report show

that used to come on a 6 am when whatever station it was on, started its broadcast day! OMG.. just found a story about the guy who did it (who has since passed away)... so I wasn't dreaming that. lol

But I also remember Jack LaLanne and the jumping jacks just for us kids in the morning too!

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. Jack Lalanne.....!

I remember seeing him on tv, and remember not liking him much ( I had SUCH decided opinions for a 7-8 yaer old!)
but dn't remember when I saw him.
My parents did not have tv all the time, and I spent a lot of summers and even partial school years with my Grandmother, who did have a tv,
so until around 1960 most of my tv memories are scattered.

I DO remember listening to the radio shows....we kids would lie on our stomachs on the rug in front of this huge radio and eat dinner and listen to Superman and Sky King and Orphan Annie...and lots of others.

do you remember those?

[BumRushDaShow]

32. My parents had a regular radio

although they never had on any of the serials. I do remember a little of my grandmother and her "stories" (soaps). I think she was into "The Guiding Light". My dad was into jazz, and he had his "Fisher Hi-Fi" stereo (that we were not allowed to touch...lol). One of the components looked like this -



We listened to a lot of records (including some "Babar the Elephant" 78s that a neighbor gave us...OMG). But once we got a color TV in the '60s, that sortof took the attention away from most everything else - at least for a little me! My Mom was always a radio listener over the years (she would have been 85 this year) but more for either talk shows or baseball (her fave) and I have been a radio listener as well...

[Arugula Latte]

12. I remember those backyard carnivals. I loved those.

There were games like pop the balloons with the darts and some sort of fishing game with paper clips as hooks. It seems like such quaint, simple fun now. I wonder if any kids still do that.

[BumRushDaShow]

26. They still have them

My younger nieces and nephews had gone to those summer carnivals recently and they still have stuff like tossing the ping pong ball into a fish bowl to get a gold fish and the old beanbag toss -

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Me too

Used to try to figure out what time a favorite celebrity was supposed to perform and try to stay up to see them if they were on late.

[davidpdx]

18. It is an outdated thing

MDA is a good cause and still needs funding, but 21 1/2 hours of TV has gotten ridiculous. They should have made 2010 the last year.

[LiberalElite]

19. I was never a fan of

Jerry Lewis BUT when they unceremoniously kicked him to the curb after all the decades he worked for this cause - I called them up and let them have it.

[maryellen99]

27. I remember it was a huge deal back in the 1970s to mid 1980s

They used to show it on WJBK in Detroit