patrick.net

When I was growing up, the official end to summer wasn't the beginning of school - it was the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. All you had to do was say "Jerry Lewis," and the next word was "Telethon." We didn't know Jerry from his movies or television appearances or from his famous feud with Dean Martin; he wasn't a comedian to our generation. Jerry was that bigger than life guy who looked a little more bloated every year and told inside jokes to people we'd never heard of. Jerry stayed up all night, and we stayed up with him. It was a tradition: Jerry, the ever-changing tote board, and the huge variety of mediocre live acts intermixed with the short films about handicapped children who might get better if only we'd send in our money. Jerry paraded the little crippled kids in front of us and attempted to make us feel guilty because we could walk. It obviously worked, because the telethon has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.

Back in the good old days, the telethon was popular if only because we had no other viewing options. There were only three networks and the dreaded UHF channels, so it's not like we had a lot of options. But we believed in Jerry - he was everywhere. Nearly every store had a poster about the MDA efforts and right around Labor Day the television was filled with commercials about how to help the MDA raise money. We held those McDonald's fundraisers (home fairs), we dropped money into the boots that those obnoxious firefighters held out on every street corner (you couldn't ignore them when they walked up to your car and peered into the window), and we felt great about helping sick people. Our poor parents; we hounded them to give up their spare change and to cater the all night parties we held with our friends. We promised to be good...

...but we still had fun. We had the sleepovers, where we tortured those unfortunate friends who fell asleep before we did - the classic hand in warm water trick, dipping training bras in water and placing them in the freezer, trying to trick a kid into eating chocolate exlax... the boys snuck into our room at some point and we laughed and failed at keeping our voices down until an exhausted parent came in and yelled at us to shut the hell up. We played cards and board games, we told stories, we snuck cigarettes out back, stole beer out of fridges and played Truth or Dare (we lost a $20 donation bet to Mark when he accepted our challenge to streak up & down the street at 5:00am). The telethon played in the background the entire time, occasionally showing photos of little children in wheelchairs to remind us why we were there.

We called in our pledges to the volunteers in the studio just to see if our names would be displayed on the crawler at the bottom of the screen. One of my friends even spoke to some semi-celebrity who was answering the phones - I'll never forget the scintillating conversation they had: Friend: "How ya doing?" Semi-celebrity: "Fine." We heard about that conversation for months afterward. Funny, I don't remember the name of either the friend or the celebrity anymore, but I was reminded of it every year when the telethon took over our television.

We watched Jerry & the gang become increasingly desperate as they went without sleep for the length of the telethon - and couldn't figure out why it was a struggle for them considering it wasn't for our prepubescent selves. We were sure that they had beds backstage where they could sleep during the mediocre performances and the times that Jerry "threw" the broadcast to the local stations.

Things have changed over the years... in these times of political correctness, some cities have passed ordinances limiting firefighters' abilities to solicit donations (Las Vegas), while others passed them years ago but ignored them until recently (Anchorage). What used to be all about the telethon is now relegated to a few hour broadcast on a few stations. Jerry isn't associated with the telethon any longer, either. He either quit or was fired last year - a sad way for the telethon to end its run. There are some people who thought it was about time he ended his association with MDA. He made some pretty offensive comments during its run and presented children as the victims, even though many adults utilized the monies raised. Cute kids trump ugly adults every time.

A couple of my favorite Jerry Lewis comments:
1973: Jerry holds up a child with muscular dystrophy and announces, “God goofed, and it’s up to us to correct His mistakes.”
1986: Jerry responds to critics. When a female writer for the Montreal Gazette described his performance as “hyperactive, dated slapstick,” Jerry tells the press, “When they get a period, it’s really difficult for them to function as normal human beings.”
http://www.thenation.com/blog/163119/end-jerry-lewis-telethon-its-about-time#

The amounts reported to have been raised were the pledges recorded on the famous tote boards; however, the actual amounts raised were quite different. According to the MDA, the $61,492,000 reported on last year's tote boards translated into $30,684,000 in actual donations.

Maybe the time has truly come for the MDA to throw in the telethon towel. I seriously haven't watched it since I got cable and was presented with other viewing choices. I asked around my office - most of my coworkers don't watch it any more either. That might explain the drop in donations. But another explanation might be that the telethon didn't change with the times. The telethon always kept Jerry at the helm rather than to provide someone for the younger generations to identify with. According to what I've read, the acts never got much better, and one can only watch so much mediocre television before Honey Boo-Boo starts to look good. One thing is for sure - I'll miss the nostalgia of the telethon, although nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.

-ellie