![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Jerry-Lewis-MDA-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Jerry-Lewis-MDA\\"")
2015 marks the end of an era with the canceling the much-beloved, long held telethon to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association,<\/p>\n2015 marks the end of an era with the canceling the much-beloved, long held telethon to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association,<\/p>\n
As television critics have pointed out, the MDA Telethon was relic of a time when television was king, and that it was all but inevitable that the telethon grow along with the digital age.<\/p>\n
And so it has, with plans to drastically cut production costs by moving all fund-raising efforts online.<\/p>\n
2015 would have marked the milestone publicly televised 50th annual Labor Day telethon.<\/p>\n
For decades, the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon was must-see TV watching during the Labor Day\u00a0weekend when the organization staged a live televised telethon to raise funds to battle the disease.<\/p>\n
The Labor Day weekend tradition featured the much-loved actor and comedian\u00a0Jerry Lewis<\/a>\u00a0for many years, rallying public support in the battle to combat\u00a0muscular dystrophy<\/a>, a crippling disease which remains with no known cure.<\/p>\n But in a major announcement in 2011 it was revealed that after more than four decades the 85-year-old Lewis would be stepping down as the major host for the show. The epic 20-hour “all night” money raiser was also cut back to 6 hours, and then in 2012 to only a 2-hour broadcast featuring both taped and live performances.<\/p>\n In its final year in 2014, another MDA tradition came to an end as the telethon moved from its usual “Love Network” of local stations to a major network, ABC, as it aired in primetime for the first time on a single network in its its entirety nationwide.<\/p>\n Throughout its run, the MDA Telethon featured live performances by big name entertainment stars which later evolved into pre-taped performances. In its final year, groups and solo acts lending support included\u00a0Rascal Flatts, LeAnn Rimes, Fall Out Boy, Aloe Blacc, Jordin Sparks, Jason Derulo, and a host of other celebrities.<\/p>\n Nationwide, the telethon created an outpouring of donations from a big-hearted American public who gave generously to help fight the disease. In its final year, the telethon helped raise $56.9 million in pledges and contributions that went toward both service and research programs of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2015 marks the end of an era with the canceling the much-beloved, long held telethon to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, As television critics have pointed out, the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}