Labor Day Miscellaneous

I’ve always hated Labor Day. It signifies the end of summer, and don’t you find that even after you have long since graduated that Labor Day brings back those dread memories of starting another year of school?

Programming note: I will be filling in for Peter Tilden tonight on 790 KABC radio from 9-midnight PDT. You can hear it on the net here. I’ll be talking about the kind of stuff I write about here. So it’s like a podcast with traffic reports.   Call in at 800-222-5222 (800-ABC-KABC).

One more day to enter the fill-in the punchline contest with no prize for you to win.  So enter NOW. 

What can we learn from this summer’s boxoffice? Ryan Reynolds can not carry a movie.

Actual Huffington Post headline from the weekend:  "Did You Have Sex With An Alien"?

Along with this one: "Paris Hilton Signs A DJ Contract Because She's Great."

And finally: "Here's More Of Miley's Butt If You Didn't See Enough This Week"

The only thing I did like about Labor Day was the JERRY LEWIS TELETHON. Okay, I admit it. I unabashedly loved the JERRY LEWIS TELETHON. I looked forward to it every year…for both the right and wrong reasons.

It did benefit a very worthy cause, the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The videos of the kids were both heartbreaking and inspiring. Let’s hope someday there’s a cure.

But the JERRY LEWIS TELETHON was the absolute height of entertainment cheese, a time warp to a Las Vegas scene that everyone but Jerry realized had long since passed, and was the home of the most insincere sincerity that only show business could create. The treacle just oozed out of your speakers. Born in the swinging ‘60s, nurtured by Sammy Davis Jr. (combining over-concern, hipness, gross sentimentality, and jewelry), this style was perfected by Jerry Lewis who added his own special touches. No one could beg with such passion while sticking a cigarette in his ear. No one could deliver a biblical sermon, break down crying, then go into his spastic character for comic relief.

The French call him Le Roi du Crazy. They still shortchange him. Since his auteur movie days he has developed his own unique and delicious blend of condescension and humility. Every year I knew what I’m going to get and was always richly rewarded.

One year Jerry called local New York co-host, Tony Orlando: “Only the best Puerto Rican to ever come to this country.”

Now how could you NOT love that???

Nowhere did superlatives fly like the JERRY LEWIS TELETHON. In only one half hour I caught “infamously wonderful”, “exceptional talent”, “most talented”, “most amazing”, “most exciting”, “unmatched”, “extraordinary”, “a true legend”, and “a treasure in every sense of the word.”

Give the man a hand. James Lipton can’t lavish praise like that.

On to the fall!