Last October, it was announced that the annual Jerry Lewis Telethon was being pared to a shorter length, that Jerry apparently had not been consulted on this, and that there was some speculation as to whether he'd want to stay on…or if the telethon organizers even wanted that. Now, it's been announced that his next will be his last.
Rough translation, I'm guessing: Jerry wanted to keep doing it. In fact, now that it was going to be shorter, he wanted to do all of it and dispense with the other hosts. The telethon overlords didn't want that and instead wanted to negotiate a figurehead role for him. Negotiations ensued. The bosses saw wisdom — i.e., donations — in giving him a big, splashy last hurrah as the star and then he'll transition to his reduced role. Jerry agreed to settle for that. (This is actually a bit more than a guess…it's based on what I'm hearing…)
I'm thinking they'll get a helluva tune-in, especially for the last hour. I'm also wondering which of two routes they'll take. One would be to invite every big star they can get to come in and be a part of this event. An awful lot of them would turn out. The other would be for Jerry to remain loyal to the less-than-stellar-but-often-quite-entertaining-friends who've turned out every year to fill his stage — the Max Alexanders of the world, the Tony Orlandos, etc. Reportedly, he's considered them an integral part of the telethon all these years and has objected when the producers suggested eliminating any of them. Six hours, which is all he has this year, is not a lot of time to shine the spotlight on those performers, on all the celebs who might want in on his final year, the clips they'll want to show (memorable past moments like Dean's walk-on, the annual tribute to Ed McMahon, a new one for Charlie Callas, etc.)…and, oh yeah, they'll want to talk about Muscular Dystrophy and the fine works the MDA has done and could do in the future if the tote board goes high enough.
Plus there's the annual pitch for Jerry's Nutty Professor musical which has been about to open at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego before going to Broadway for about the last five years. Have they even talked to the Old Globe yet about this? And they have to give Jerry time to reminisce and talk about what all the past telethons have meant to him. He could probably fill the old, all-night length with that.
They'll probably try to cram it all in but once you subtract the 20 minutes per hour they take for local cutaways, it's not nearly enough. And I guess I'm curious as to what Jerry would like to see happen…