The Labor Day Telethon

I continue to be amazed by the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon on Labor Day. It is a reflection of its host, that is, I find it unusual, entertaining, bizarre, corny and it does a lot of good things for people.

I found an error in one of my previous facts within a minute of so of Jerry's arrival onstage. This was the 43rd telethon--and it is real weird Americana.

We began locally with Dean Richards, who is a very likable guy, Dina Bair, who creeps me out, and Bart Connor and Nadia Comaneche. Nadia is pretty scary, and Bart is one of those lucky people who appears to not age. Dean promised 24 hours of telethon, Bart promised us 20, and the website said 20 1/2. Whatever.

Then the coverage headed to Vegas, yeah, baby, Vegas, and to...South Point? It looks like a nice place, it's a couple-three miles south from the airport, in an area that I've never visited. Their website starts by advertising $49 rooms and an equestrian center. Nice looking, but this ain't Bellagio.

The show opened with the Cactus Cuties singing the national anthem. I did not make this up. They were four little girls who sang really nicely, if you ignored that they sound just like the Chipmunks. The Cactus Cuties were followed by a big tap dance production number, with a few dozen dancers tapping and flailing away to Stars and Stripes Forever. This was apparently a leftover from someone's Fourth of July show, with Sousa blaring as the dancers stomped away with all the false endings that every tap number gets and the crowd waving flags and how this landed here in Vegas on Labor Day is a mystery.

Jerry came out then, but he was having a lot of trouble catching his breath. They cut away to one of those public service announcements for MDA, this particular one by a smiling blond with big knockers, and who doesn't like that. Then, back to Jerry, now seated and breathing better, but before he could speak there came a disembodied voice, a female voice. Jerry looked flummoxed, the voice began to laugh about having screwed up so early in the broadcast, and Jerry introduced the owner of the voice, a used-to-be-a-hottie announcer chick named Jan Karl. Jan did that phony Vegas shtick, laughing off her mistake with feigned embarassment, and then interviewed an MDA family who her as "Jerry". The firefighters came to the rescue, dropping off a check for five million smackers and giving Jerry and some old firefighter guy a few minutes to kibbitz on stage. Classic telethon.

Celine Dionne was next, with a taped spot that was testimony to Jerry's ability to hit up the big stars. I'm not a Celine fan, but it was a fine performance. After Celine, Ed McMahon was introduced once again as official sidekick. Ed, as you may know, was about to be evicted from his Bel Aire home when Donald Trump stepped in just a few weeks ago with a personal bailout. Pretty cool move by Donny T. Ed looks and moves like an 88 year old guy, which is how old I think he is. Jerry, on the other hand, looks really, really good. For a while, Jerry needed steroids for some ailment he suffered, and his head ballooned up, creating some bizarre telethon images for a few years, like the Charlie Brown balloon from the Macy's parade had commandeered my tv. His head is normal sized again, so there's no telethon fright night. He's 82 years old, and he's still fun to watch. Jerry trots out some ancient comedy stuff, like spitting out his candy when the camera "surprises" him, and doing weird old man stuff at other times, contorting his old Jewish guy face for who knows what, maybe he's got gas or something, and his dentures must slide around, 'cause he starts sh-sh-shing words in the middle of sentences.

So all this weird stuff hits us in the first 40 minutes. Then I look up the numbers, and (insert drum roll) this man has raised nearly $1.5 BILLION for Muscular Dystrophy. Billion. So I think that even if the telethon isn't the star studded must see event that it used to be, there is no one single person who's done as much as this 82 year old guy has done for many, many people, and I'm feeling as if I shouldn't be so nasty.

Then comes the weird Chinese arm waving act, and the return of Nadia Comaneche, who looks like Boris Badenov in drag and reads just the donation amounts but not the name of the donors ("I have ten dollars, and fifty dollars, and twenty dollars and ten dollars and back to you Bart"), then starts hollering at someone to anwer a phone that's started ringing.

I love the telethon.