Is Cutting the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon to 6 Hours a Good Thing?

Another part of TV history is changing.

The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, which just had its 45th annual show last month, has announced that starting next year the show will no longer be 21 hours long. Instead, the show will change to a six-hour primetime special format.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

It's hard to say how we should feel about this. On one hand, the telethon is a unique kind of television that they don't anymore, an annual show that runs over two days and is live and has both a strong national and local focus. On the other hand, they don't do telethons like this for other causes, and it seems like this is a relic of a TV era that has gone by (for better or worse).

When I was a kid, the telethon was still a big deal. I remember my sister telling me that she used to stay up all night to watch the show every single year. That was many years ago, and I'm not sure if too many people do that anymore -- if they ever did -- but I'm sure you'll tell me in the comments below if I'm mistaken.

Even if you didn't watch the show straight through, it was nice that there was this annual tradition where Jerry and millions of other people would get together and help people, and you could dip into it at any point from 9PM the day before Labor Day to around 6PM on Labor Day night and see what was happening on the show.

One reason why it's sad that the old format is going away is that it's yet another sign that the older stars are going away too, and everything is changing. Yes, change is good, but at the same time it's a reminder that we're all getting older.

No word on why they're changing the format. Officials say that this change could attract more money and more popular performers. That could very well be true, since everything will be focused on the six hours and it will be in primetime. We likely won't see the big money on the board that we see every year, but maybe they could have a big lead-up to the show and announce a lot of donations that they've already received when the show starts. Perhaps it could be more like those star-studded telethons we've seen in recent years for flood or earthquake victims, and George Clooney and Julia Roberts can man the phones for part of the six hours.

Lewis' age might have something to do with the change. Who knows if this show would even continue when Lewis can't do it anymore? We've seen some major health problems the past few years and he is 84. As Tom Shales detailed in his review of the telethon last month, Lewis seemed to concentrate as much on his own mortality as he was on raising money for his kids.

So maybe this new format is something that's better suited to what he can do now. Besides, six hours is still a long time for one show. You don't see many events like that on television, unless it's a big sporting event.

All I ask is this: when the day comes that Lewis can no longer do the show, don't replace him with Dane Cook or the host of some reality show (oh, and keep Lewis' name in the title - the guy is an icon and this is his telethon).

Here's a video sampling from some of the shows Lewis has done over the years, starting with this clip from 1962, Lewis singing "You'll Never Walk Alone":



In 1974, The Jackson 5 performed:



In 1976, Frank Sinatra brought a special friend with him who wanted to talk to Lewis:



And here's the finale from last month's show:





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