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Tag: Dean Martin

  • Jerry Lewis: MDA Pulls Plug on Labor Day Telethon

    Jerry Lewis hosted the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon on Labor Day Weekend for 45 years. On Friday, MDA executive vice-president Steve Ford announced the telethon has ended.

    For the last two years, what once was a 24-hour event, only received two hours of air time.

    “It’s not a 21-hour world anymore,” he said of the telethon, during which Jerry Lewis not only encouraged people to donate money to research, but hosted a wealth of top-name entertainers, too.

    Fox News reports that Jerry Lewis, who is 89, hasn’t commented on the end of the telethon.

    It was back in 2011, just a month before the annual telethon, that the MDA announced Jerry Lewis wouldn’t be hosting that year’s event. His abrupt exit was never explained.

    The Muscular Dystrophy Association was started in 1950 and, a year later, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin mentioned the charity on their NBC TV show. The two comics hosted a 1956 telethon before breaking up. Jerry Lewis began hosting it on his own, starting in 1966. That first year, it ran on just one TV station in New York. From that year forward, children suffering from muscular dystrophy were known as ‘Jerry’s kids.’

    Steve Ford hopes fundraising for the MDA will now take place online, much the same way the ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge” raised a huge amount of money for its cause last summer.

    It will be interesting to see if Jerry Lewis issues a statement in the coming days about the end of the MDA telethon he proudly hosted for decades. Hopefully fundraising is successful online. Do you expect the amount of money once raised in Jerry Lewis’s telethons can be raised in the future online instead?

  • Jerry Lewis: Muscular Dystrophy Telethon Ends, Marking the End of an Era

    Jerry Lewis: Muscular Dystrophy Telethon Ends, Marking the End of an Era

    Jerry Lewis worked tirelessly for more than 45 years bringing together celebrities, his humor and viewers for an annual Labor Day telethon to benefit children suffering from Muscular Dystrophy.

    It seemed the country came together to watch celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion and Jennifer Lopez perform and man telephones as the tote board marked the millions of dollars coming in for “Jerry’s kids.” Tears flowed as an exhausted Jerry Lewis ended each telethon with his broken, but moving rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone.

    That era of American television has come to an end.

    “It’s not a 21-hour world anymore,” said Steve Ford, MDA executive vice president, with the announcement that the telethon will no longer be a Labor Day tradition.

    It’s not surprising the telethon is ending in this new era of social media, technology and the ability to fundraise in a more effective manner. When Jerry Lewis stopped hosting the show in 2010, the telethon’s slow demise began. The show was reduced from 21 and a half hours in Jerry Lewis’ final year to 19 in its final year.

    Fundraising will continue, but production costs associated with the telethon makes the endeavor unfeasible.

    “The real heroes have always been our families, and what we need to do is make sure that every dollar we raise is spent working for our families,” he said.

    In 2008, the telethon marked its greatest success, raising $65 million for Jerry’s kids. And over the years, Jerry Lewis helped to raise more than $2 billion for MDA.

    Jerry Lewis’ association with MDA goes back to its inception in 1950. Lewis and his comic partner Dean Martin mentioned the charity not the NBC show, and the two hosted a telethon in 1956. Jerry Lewis began hosting the telethon regularly beginning in 1966.

    Not everyone thought that Jerry Lewis was doing good. Some felt he made people with the disease objects of pity by Lewis in order to raise money.

    With once in a lifetime performances from celebrities like John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles appearing on the telethon, the MDA has been discussing with Jerry Lewis ways to release some of the archived material.

    Do you remember watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon?