Absolutely agree. In my career, I met more than a few unpleasant celebrities. I can't think of anyone who also did as much good (or tried to) as Jerry.
Just don't get me started on Robert Goulet...
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Watch the 1983 Jerry Lewis Telethon in it's entirety on YouTube's "TheTelethon Channel"
- Thread starter caller10
- Start date
Absolutely agree. In my career, I met more than a few unpleasant celebrities. I can't think of anyone who also did as much good (or tried to) as Jerry.
Just don't get me started on Robert Goulet...
Nope, Ted, you picked up on that well.
A "Las Vegas" show without it being exactly a Las Vegas show.
For a couple decades, mom was a big viewer of the program. "Oooh, so-and-so is coming on in the next segment..."
I just tripped over this earlier this morning on YouTube. It is NOT from the MDA Telethon, but it's a great illustration of a "something for everyone" number of the era:
While we're talking about local hosts, did the MDA telethon (or any major telethon) have local segments with entertainment? That was always a staple of sitcom episodes but I never saw a local segment of an actual telethon with entertainment.
From my experience with telethons (not just MDA) the national organization discourages entertainment on local segments, as that is provided by the national program.
I’ve been to a few regional and national meetings for those involved with local telethon production, and the message was that the national broadcast hooks viewers with entertainment and some feature stories while the local broadcasts push for the money while highlighting the work of local organizations and those that receive their services. Running local entertainment would take away time needed to encourage the viewers to make the phones ring with donations.
Local broadcast inserts also have to prominently feature local businesses that donate to the cause. Entertainment would get in the way of that.
It would also take time away from the local live shot of cars driving up to drop money into the giant fish bowl outside the station.And the giant check presentation from local businesses.
In Reno the two years I did it (1979 and 1980), that was the policy.
The businesses could be wide-ranging. The first year I did it, the producers forgot to tell me how far-ranging until two young women showed up from Joe Conforte's Mustang Ranch Brothel with a check to present on-air. Apparently it had been going on a while.
I was 23 years old and knew Mom was 200 miles away in Bishop watching on the cable, so I took the check, thanked them and then looked into the camera and said---"Mom---just to be clear, they're giving me money---and it's for Jerry's kids."
The closest to entertainment we got in the Reno segment was in the second year when I was just about to go on air, felt a tap on my shoulder from behind, looked and it was Tony Orlando. He'd finished his two shows at Harrah's and still had some energy to burn. I asked the crew to get him a mic and we went on. He did every local cut-in that hour (I think 1:00-2:00 a.m.) with me and was terrific.
I have him to thank for my TV career. In between our first cut-in and our second, he asked what I did for a living. I told him I was a local radio disc jockey and he said "You're wasting yourself. The camera loves you. Get a job on TV."
It was something I'd thought about, but that was some pretty serious motivation and kinda kicked any doubts and insecurity to the curb.
A year later, I started as the weekend anchor at a competing Reno TV station, after having moved from programming and talent to news at KOLO-AM.
There was on telethone I listened to that did include local artists during local breaks--at least between midnight and 5AM. It was a telethon for children's hospitals (I think it called itself "The Children's Miracle Network,") that was anchored nationally by, if memory serves, Marie Osmond and Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere & the Raiders fame). In Phoenix, I only saw parts of this for one year, and it was aired on Channel 10.
Musically, I think the most hip telethon I ever listened to was the Easter Seals one. I listened to parts of the 1988 telethon on KUSW, the shortwave outlet based out of Salt Lake City that later became religious KTBN. When I heard Zapp and Roger on that show funking it up, I knew there was no comparison musically to what i heard on the MDA telethon. I suppose Easter Seals had more hip acts on as a way to reach out to younger audiences.
Some markets seemed to have more elaborate local productions than others, but, no entertainment.
I was told by someone who used to be in TV in Nashville (behind the scenes) that a different telethon (Not MDA, might have been Children's Miracle Network) that they did have local entertainment in local segments, and were trying to get someone to sing at 6am. The guy that was willing to come in wasn't that good. It was a young, unpolished Garth Brooks.
He was much too young to be playing for an audience that damn old.
It was 6am Sunday, they were desperate from what I understand.
My reference was to Garth's first hit, "Much Too Young to Feel This Damn Old," in case it went over your head.
Tony Orlando hosted the WWOR side in NY. Wasn’t that its own telethon that would run inside the mothership.
If nothing else the telethon provided us with this jam. How could something from 2009 be so 1979?
My wife's the Garth fan, sorry I was unfamiliar. You'd think as many hours she logged listening to the Garth channel with me in the car I'd have picked up on it LOL.
That look on Jerry Lewis's face is priceless! BTW, Charo has not slowed down one bit, when looking at her Tik Tok videos.
I assume local promos WITH Jerry Lewis were phased out as he got older. I don't recall ever seeing Jerry and the Q13 (KCPQ) Seattle personalities together on a promo when they aired the botched 8-hour tape-delay in the 2000s. It was 9AM-5PM, because they really needed to air morning news on a holiday. There weren't many Love Network stations by the end of the run that went the "distance" and broadcast 21 hours complete. WGN was one of the few, and even then, the Cubs would preempt a few hours on Labor Day.
To this day I have never found any of the telethons on the 1,500+ recorded VHS tapes I have digitized and acquired (and for some, sold off).
I try to watch the Dean Martin surprise clip from 1976 every year. Definitely a classic moment on the Jerry Lewis Telethon...also the final tote clip from 1984 where Jerry just about loses his marbles as his "one dollar more" was met three times in a row.
I hope that many of his "kids" are still alive and well, continuing the effort to get these disorders eradicated for good. There has to be some type of near-future breakthrough in this modern era of science.
When I was 10 in 1975, I watched the telethon at a department store. Jerry sang his closing theme "You'll Never Walk Alone," as he is carried off the stage in tears. I thought--what a terrible thing to say, as my brain processed that lyric as "You'll never walk without help."