For a lot of us, Labor Day weekend wasn’t complete without the Jerry Lewis Telethon. You could turn it on Sunday night, go to bed, wake up Monday morning, and somehow Jerry was still there — surrounded by ringing phones, celebrities, Ed McMahon and that famous tote board.
The Labor Day telethon began in 1966 and eventually became a huge national television event. Over the years, stars including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Cash, Cher, Michael Jackson, Johnny Carson and Robin Williams stopped by. John Lennon and Yoko Ono even appeared in 1972, with Lennon performing “Imagine.”
But the moment almost everyone remembers came in 1976. Frank Sinatra surprised Jerry by bringing Dean Martin onto the stage. The former comedy partners had gone their separate ways 20 years earlier, and Jerry clearly had no idea Dean was coming out. Watching his face when Dean walks onto that stage is still one of those great live-TV moments.
And if you watched all the way to the end, you knew what was coming — an exhausted and emotional Jerry singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
For me, that song always seemed to signal that Labor Day was ending… and so was another summer.
Do you remember watching the Jerry Lewis Telethon? Who do you remember seeing on it?
