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Jerry Lewis will be MIA at MDA Telethon
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK
No one would sniff at all the dollars Jerry Lewis raised for muscular dystrophy: a couple of billion during his 45-year reign as host of the MDA Telethon.
But what kind of TV did he offer in exchange? The short answer: Jerry put on a show like no other.
Labor Day this year promises to be bland by comparison, with the 85-year-old Lewis now banished from the annual rite he built from scratch and molded in his image.
As if deflated by the absence of its larger-than-life host, “The 46th Annual MDA Labor Day Telethon” will fill just six hours (Sunday from 6 p.m. to midnight on WYTV-TV 33 in Youngstown), rather than the grueling 211/2-hour endurance contest that Lewis used to churn through with his viewers in tow.
On this year’s broadcast (which, ironically, will no longer be actually airing on Labor Day), a quartet of lightweights are standing in for Jerry: Nigel Lythgoe (“So You Think You Can Dance”), Nancy O’Dell (“Entertainment Tonight”), Alison Sweeney (“The Biggest Loser”) and Jann Carl (billed as “an Emmy-winning journalist”).
Celebrities will include Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Lady Antebellum, Richie Sambora and Jordan Sparks.
It may be entertaining. It may spur contributions. But as a media event, this year’s telethon can hardly match the display of wretched excess Jerry Lewis guaranteed, especially in his epic, unbridled prime.
“Jerry is a ferociously contradictory personality, and that’s what makes him fascinating to watch,” says satirist-actor-writer Harry Shearer, a Jerry-watcher for a half-century. He noted just two of Lewis’ clashing identities: “the inner 9-year-old, set loose” and the would-be deep thinker “who fancies himself something of an autodidact.”
“It all makes for psychodrama of a high order,” Shearer marvels.
Year after year, Lewis bounced between the polarities of smarmy sentimentalism and badgering lunacy as if in a weightless environment. He put his multiple identities on raw display, each constantly jostling for the spotlight.
It was fascinating, ridiculous and cringe-worthy to see how Jerry held court for the parade of entertainers, the checks-bearing civic leaders and corporate sponsors, and the adorable, afflicted kids.
The Jerry Lewis telethon was a reality show decades before the term or genre had been invented. It was video retailing, years before QVC. It was round-the-clock TV companionship long before cable news and the Weather Channel.
For nearly a full day, it was a spectacle of show-biz glitz, heart-tugging emotion and suspense: Would Jerry make it to the end without unraveling? Would the level of pledges do justice to his efforts at soliciting them?
There was a perfect symbiosis of the telethon and Lewis. He made muscular dystrophy as big a star as he had once been. Meanwhile, aligning himself with the search for its cure gave him the gravitas he had always sought. He branded the disease with himself, and vice versa.
He was not only the host of the telethon and chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (a job he would have for 60 years), but the self-styled avenging angel of a dread disease.
On Aug. 3, with no elaboration, MDA announced that Lewis had “completed his run” as national chairman, and that he would not be appearing on the telethon.
Lewis has provided no insight into the matter. But it’s hard to imagine how wronged he must feel.
The telethon will be on again this weekend, in some faint version of what Lewis wrought. But for those who watch, and remember it with Jerry, it is likely to be a lonely affair.