Opinion : Jerry Lewis and Dino and the MDA Telethon lesson of 1976

In decades of Jerry Lewis MDA Telethons, this is probably the funniest line:

"You know there were all of these rumors about us breaking up, when you weren't here when we started the show, I thought they were true."

Jerry spoke those words to Dino --Dean Martin-- when Frank Sinatra surprised him by bringing Martin to the stage. Despite their phenomenal success as a comic duo, Martin and Lewis had split up over disagreements in their show. They were apart for 20 years.

The 1976 Telethon brought them back together. Frank Sinatra came on stage, donated $5,000 and then told Jerry that he had a friend who appreciated what Jerry was doing and wanted to come see him.

There were no words, only applause, hugs and smiles for well over a minute.

I was too young to understand this at the time, but the mother of a friend told me about it. She was still moved, a day later, as she described what she had seen on the Telethon.

Jerry Lewis is not scheduled to be on the Telethon tonight. The MDA kicked him off. While there is not much official explanation, it's basically because Jerry Lewis, at age 85, is, at times, a grumpy old man who says things that are not totally politically correct. Also, his style of entertainment is not popular with the younger audience.

Grumpy old men do that, and they usually have a point. And as far as the audience, we need more people reminding us of how much more intelligent, interesting and funny entertainment and TV used to be decades ago.

After reading my short article about the Vinton firemens' "Fill the Boot" fund-raiser, a reader pointed out that despite my headline, the MDA no longer uses the phrase, "Jerry's Kids."

That's correct.

But if the MDA is smart (and this grumpy almost old man who at times utters less-than-politically correct things will tell you he does not think the MDA people are big on intelligence, based on how they treated Lewis this year), they will make the shortened MDA telethon all about Jerry Lewis, and the billion or so dollars he has raised to help families whose children face crippling disease.

American learned 35 years ago that the Telethon can be a time for the grownups to do the right thing, too. I just hope those MDA bosses were old enough in 1976 to learn the lesson that Martin and Lewis could teach them in 2011.