Anybody here watch the Chabad Telethon last night? I apologize for not reminding you it was on…but frankly, strictly as entertainment, it stopped being exciting, and therefore something to which I looked forward, back when Jan Murray gave it up. I guess downsizing has hit everywhere because this year, instead of doing a six-hour telethon to raise the usual six million dollars, they did a three-hour telethon to raise the usual six million dollars. And I'm not forgetting, by the way, that the six million is the point of it all. Chabad does very good work and they need and deserve that money. The telethon succeeded in its main goal…and it probably succeeded in its secondary goal, as well. That's to tell everyone who tunes in about Chabad and what it is and does.
A distant third is to entertain but that's what I'm going to write about here. Jan Murray was a great host and I'm afraid they haven't had one of those since. Fyvish Finkel came close while the hands-down worst was Dennis Prager, who never seemed to figure out that he was presiding over a TV program. This year, the "host" was Larry King and I put that in quotes because as a general rule of thumb, you have to show up at a telethon in order to be its host. Mr. King was not present, having pre-taped a number of segments that were interspersed throughout the proceedings, grinding them to a turgid halt.
So the host wasn't there. Most of the entertainers weren't there, being represented primarily by clips from previous telethons. I'm not even sure the studio audience was there. A lot of the laughter and applause sounded pretty canned to me. Happily, Rabbi Cunin and other, dancing members of his profession were there…and the donations apparently were there. I guess it's an enormous achievement that they still made it to their target tote with half the time and probably less than half the production budget.
Maybe I'm making too much of this but it's always sad to see another remnant of live television disappear. The telethon was broadcast live but so much of it was pre-taped that it was like they're trying to wean themselves off the live part. I suppose it's inevitable…and frankly, it hasn't mattered much since Jan Murray went away. Next year, they might as well just pre-tape the whole thing, including the part at the end where they announce they're raised the usual six million dollars.