Labor Day is almost upon us and you know what that means: Jerry.
As usual, I am baffled as to how long the telethon is. The press releases say it runs 21 and a half hours but I don't think that means they're doing a show of that length. Many of the hours are reruns of other hours and there are probably very few stations across the country that broadcast all 21.5 hours. WGN in Chicago is running it from 8 PM Sunday until 11 AM Monday morning then they play hooky from the Love Network to air a baseball game (Astros vs. Cubs) for approximately three and a half hours, then they come back and go 'til five…so that's 17 and a half hours. Some air a lot less…but some run more than there are. In Los Angeles, KCAL Channel 9 is airing the show from 6 PM Sunday evening through 5 PM Monday evening…so they're running 23 hours of a 21 and a half hour telethon.
Does anyone have any idea how many hours they're actually doing from the South Point hotel-casino in Las Vegas? You have all those musical numbers that are pre-taped elsewhere. You have all the segments on the work MDA is doing. You have your local cutaways. It probably isn't a lot.
(By the way: If you want to set your TiVo, try searching under "45th Annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.")
In case you missed last year, here's nine minutes of mostly non-Jerry content. I never heard of some of these acts either but a lot of them are very good…