Last October, I wrote that the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Labor Day telethon, usually a 21.5-hour stretch of programming, is cutting back to six hours for 2011. Now, according to an item on the L.A. Times Show Tracker blog, something else has been trimmed from the telethon: Jerry Lewis. He'll no longer be hosting the telethon, though he'll turn up to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" and will remain the MDA's national chairman.
It's hard to imagine the Jerry Lewis Telethon without Jerry Lewis, though disability advocates having long tried to get rid of him, accusing him of pity-mongering and disrespect toward adults with disabilities. Sharing hosting duties this time around will be Nigel Lythgoe of American Idol, Alison Sweeney of The Biggest Loser, and Nancy O'Dell and Jann Carl of Entertainment Tonight. The MDA is hoping that changes in the show will help it attract more big-name performers. Does Lewis's lessened presence make your more or less likely to watch?
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Lewis is just one more older person being booted because of age. Organizations and corporations drool all over themselves trying to appeal to younger audiences and employees. Advertisers and companies forget that there is a huge generation of elderly who are active and have money. In fact, they probably more money than the youth behind them due to the fact that they have pensions (corporations have done away with these) and houses paid off etc. I vote with my purse when I see this kind of pandering to youth. I find the replacements rather underwhelming too.
i loved jerry lewis and i did not like the way how they only had it for 6 hours last year it cost a lot of money too have machines . or a wheelchair and also sending them too summer camp costs them 4 hundred dollars just for one. kid. and if you guys do it just for 6 hours. then that is not enough. money for these. kids to do something like this. so please contunie too have it for the whole day. sunday night until labor day. from lms