Talk:The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon

WGN carried the last hour of the Telethon on a "taped delay." The Telethon appeared to end at 6 PM CDT on my local CBS affiliate (KGAN) but ended at 7 PM CDT on WGN America in Chicago. I got to watch the "ending" twice! No mention on this delay was made on WGN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.20.243.177 (talk) 01:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Please note that idic15 is a rare chromosome disorder

Possible Re-Format of the History section on the telethon?
I would be happy to help move the telethon's decade by decade history to it's own sub page that is linked to the main entry for the telethon, so that people interested in the decade by decade facts / trivia about the show can be better organized and not an overwhelming, long-winded explanation. Perhaps a bullet pointed timeline of changes would also help, with regards to the sections on Trivia, Don Francisco, Ed McMahon, etc. Just my two cents.

UPDATE - DECEMBER 2023: I would also like to include a seperate subpage (Wikipedia article) that could verify, both from MDA directly as well as searches on Google and Newspapers.com exactly which stations carried the telethon in local markets. Making that in itself its own Wikipedia entry will take significant time, but not only am I happy to compile & cite the network affiliates, it would also shorten the length of this main page about the telethon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PopCultureMan (talk • contribs) 10:07, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

TOTAL AMOUNT MADE AT THE MDA SHOW OF STRENGTH?
If the following article is indeed correct, that amount is just plain disgusting. 63.3.2.130 (talk)

http://www.bellenews.com/2012/09/11/entertainment/mda-telethon-2012-kspr-raises-nearly-600000-for-mda-show-of-strength/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.2.130 (talk) 05:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

That's just for that local area, not nationwide. --67.142.130.47 (talk) 02:17, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

List of participants should be split off onto a separate page
strong agree The list of participants should be a separate page and should be arranged by year - who appeared on the show each year, since this tells you something about the show. Filceolaire 00:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry it took me SIXTEEN YEARS to see this comment, but as long as I'm able to breathe and edit this page, I'd be happy to consult both imdb and my old VHS & DVD collection of the telethon from 1976-2010 to make at least a somewhat complete list of guests from those years. MDA does have a list of performers somewhere on the internet but did not include the years each celeb / musical act appeared. Worst case scenario, as a placeholder, I will add MDA's 1966-2009 list that is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20101031152617/http://mda.org/telethon/media/pdfs/helpfulinfo/Celebrity%20Appearances.pdf PopCultureMan (talk) 10:27, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Why Labor Day
An editor has added that Labor Day was chosen because it didn't conflict with either the DNC or RNC National Conventions that year. A quick scan of the DNC conventions doesn't correlate to any date provided in this Telethon article. The article is ambiguous as to which was the first year the telethon ran in its current form on Labor Day. We need to find a citation for this information and resolve the discrepancies. 1966 appears to be the first year, but if that is true the statement about conflicting with the conventions cannot be true because they were held in 64 and 68. Theflyer 21:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed -- 1966 was not a Presidential election year; therefore, there were no partisan conventions in 1966. I have removed that discrepancy from the article. -- azumanga 19:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It likely was chosen because broadcast time would have been cheaper during that period. Fewer people would be watching television on a three day weekend. --70.100.20.148 (talk) 21:41, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce makes fun of the telethon in a show in 1961. How is it possible that the first one is in 1966? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.140.11 (talk) 01:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Bruce did not identify the telethon he was parodying by name. It was probably one of the local telethons that Lewis was involved with dating back into the 50s, and not the national one. 69.171.176.180 (talk) 01:47, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Las Vegas Locations
There was at least one year in the very late '70's/very early 80's that the telethon originated from the original Las Vegas Convention Center. This seems to invalidate the statement in the "1980s-1990s" section that the Cashman Center broadcast was the only Las Vegas non-hotel venue for the telethon.

My sister and I collected donations from our neighborhood and turned them in at the Gold Room of the LVCC, but at this time I cannot recall precisely what year this happened.

CalZephyr (talk) 10:25, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is 2010 date included when the Telethon is not concluded?
As I watch this, the Telethon is still on the air. The "final tote" for 2010 is shown indicating a lower result than last year, yet this amount is more than the current tote, and the final tote has not been revealed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.255.136.225 (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Being a day late (okay, more like a year) and a dollar short (so to speak), many local "Love Network" broadcast stations in the latter years got into the unfortunate habit of failing to end their local studio "phone bank" segments and "local MDA stories" on time, and failed to properly cut back immediately to the live national network broadcasts from Las Vegas when they resumed. Some of those then either resumed the national coverage already in progress, or else they rebroadcasted the segments of national coverage from Las Vegas with some tape delay.  Some stations, such as WGN Chicago, even paused to broadcast baseball games (due to contracts with MLB) and such, right in the middle of the telethon, and then played the national and local coverage on lengthy tape delays.  In any case, what probably happened to you is the "live" coverage from Las Vegas ended at the normal scheduled time, but your local station had it on a half-hour delay or something, even though the "final tote" was already well known by those fortunate to see the national broadcasts "live" (perhaps streaming online from the MDA web site).  Just another annoying "feature" of the telethon that grew in the latter years.  The results were also promptly announced by MDA in press releases to the media, and just in time for the local and national evening news, at least in the Eastern and Central time zones.   Anyway I imagine this is what you witnessed.  --T-dot ( Talk/ contribs ) 00:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

New name for the telethon
It appears as though that the MDA has decided that since the telethon is a three-hour primetime special now, it's more of a stretch to call it a "telethon"… so it is now called the Show of Strength. (But they're still making it clear that it is still rooted in what Jerry Lewis had hosted for decades, and at least they still haven't deleted him from the telethon history page.) Obviously the article will need to be updated, but I'm not really up to it at the moment. -- WC  Quidditch  &#9742;   &#9998;  23:45, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Should Be a Separate Page
They are going in a different direction and I think since these are different shows they should have separate articles with, of course, references to each other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.245.70.137 (talk) 22:46, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. "Show of Strength" and the telethon are two very different events. They have little in common aside from the common sponsoring organization. Further, "Show of Strength" does not YET have the name recognition to justify removing the article under the old title. Most of this article, ostensibly about "Show of Strength" is actually avout somthing completely different, albeit historically related. GodaiNoBaka (talk) 07:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Baton Rouge
I don't see Baton Rouge here. My mother told me when I was young my father was involved in this in Baton Rouge with Jerry Lewis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:E94B:5C00:B10D:2F2A:49BC:39DC (talk) 10:03, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Location
This is weird. I was told that my father was involved in this in Baton Rouge, La. I'm seeing MA and NY. NY is a recurring them. And, Sunbeam is out of Ma, too. It's either a small world or something is amiss. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:EFC0:105:199A:4B54:94D:5B71 (talk) 03:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)