"It should have been a chance for him to say goodbye to everybody, to thank them and to bow out gracefully. It's not right."
Jerry's final finale, from last year's telethon:
"He seemed very happy. I don't know why they'd let him go."
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22 comments:
If this turns out to involve sexting, I will lose my lunch.
I thought he died a few years ago.
He died every Labor Day weekend on stage. I was always drawn to the kitchy telethon like a moth to a flame. I loved the steroid bloated years.
Obviously Jerry touched a nerve with his criticism of American Idol contestants as a bunch of "McDonald's wipeouts." This is his Happy Meal.
The same thing was done to Emmit Smith. Time and again he gave up money from his contract to give Dallas more space under the salary cap.
How did they reward him? By making him play out his remaining days wearing an Arizona Cardinal uniform.
The first three posts are just about perfect.
Has anyone ever seen where all this telethon money goes??
Maybe if you come out of a different culture Jerry Lewis can be funny to you, but if you come out of the same culture, as I do, his angst is unbearable.
The advice of agents to their celebrity clients has always been to go on charity events, talk shows for free as much as possible.
Mainly on the notion of no publicity is bad publicity - that it can generate new client money from new projects, new commercial endorsements to follow, or significantly boost income from residuals for keeping the celeb name in the public eye. Plus, the free appeances can be managed to showcase what marketer's focus groups believe will be appealing IMAGE ASPECTS - things the public doesn't "know about the celeb" but will make them drawn to the celeb more.
Even confer nobility by showing how much the celeb "cares" about their favorite cause.
Or keep the fame thing going long after the athlete, politician, once commercially viable singer or comedian is washed up. (Think Jerry Lewis Telethon, Jimmy Carter and the Habitat for Humanity, 40 years removed from making fresh music Sir Elton JOhn with his AIDs projects)
With Lewis now involuntarly retired...can washed up comedian Arsenio Hall, Chevy Chase, Jim Carrey or Andrew Dice Clay or Margeret Cho take over?
Think
Clyde said...
Obviously Jerry touched a nerve with his criticism of American Idol contestants as a bunch of "McDonald's wipeouts." This is his Happy Meal.
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Great comment.
Many of the young performers on Idol have not only singing talent, but many are good-looking and charismatic and come from inspiring or hardscrabble lives.
Sort of like Dean Martin.
No wonder Lewis got jealous.
Martin had half the brains of Lewis, but came with being twice the man as Jerry, with twice the talent, and some higher multiples on attractiveness and charisma.
I blame the French.
One further thought: The MDA should have found a younger, hipper spokesperson a long time ago. Jerry is 85. That's the age group that doesn't buy any green bananas. He's a relic from another era.
For that matter, so is the MDA Telethon. Back in the day, before cable television, when there were three network TV stations to choose from, plus PBS and your local independent station or two, there was a pretty good chance that a large portion of the population would tune in to check out the various entertainers doing the show. Nowadays, with hundreds of channels to choose from, plus the ready availability of far more entertainment on DVD/Blu-Ray and the computer, well, the MDA Telethon is very much a niche audience. It would take someone with major box office mojo to draw a big audience, and Jerry Lewis no longer fits that description.
The MDA should have found some way of incorporating Jerry's retirement into their fund raising....Jerry's schtick is now as grotesquely inappropriate as a minstrel show, but the fact remains that he gave many years and much effort to the MDA cause. It looks bad for a charity that trades on its sensitivity and compassion to treat Jerry Lewis in such a way. That's not to say that is doesn't also look bad for a charity that trades on sensitivity and compassion to have Jerry Lewis as a spokesman.
What will we call "Jerry's Kids" now?
"Jerry's great-great-grandkids".
I never knew the MDA telethon was run by the Friers Club -- always assumed it was Jerry's gig.
I don't get the green bananas comment, Clyde. What's the magic something in green bananas that the alter cockers are missing out on?
C4, you ain't dogshit on Jerry Lewis' shoe. Or are you?
Just sayin'
ricpic - you buy green bananas in the expectation that they'll turn yellow eventually and be edible. The joke is these people are not expecting to live to see them turn yellow.
I loved Jerry Lewis in "Funny Bones." Anyone who can poke fun at themselves is ok with me.
I have Muscluar Dystrophy and I am outraged at their dropping of Lewis like this. The man has given a voice to those of us with MD and helped raise billions of dollars for research into a cure, to pay for neurologist visits for those people who otherwise couldn't afford it, and to provide yearly summer camps where the person with MD is the "normal" person there. I attended a summer camp in southern Louisiana from 5-21 and they are easily some of the best times I have ever had. Why the organization he has done so much for couldn't let him finish out this last year is beyond me.
Wow! That is really a disgusting thing to do. So much for those "nice" people who work for the non-profits.
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