Here are some classic Jerry Lewis quotes to get us all in the mood for this year's MDA Labor Day Telethon:  

This quote is from a May 20, 2001 interview on CBS News Sunday Morning.

"If it's pity we'll get some money. I'm just giving you the facts. Pity ... if you don't want to be pitied for being a cripple in a wheelchair, don't come out of the house."

The following quotes, archived on Cripcommentary.com, come from Leslie Bennetts' article, "Jerry v. the Kids," Vanity Fair, September 1993:

About activists who criticize him for using pity to raise money:

"It just kills me to think about these people getting publicity. These people are leeches. They all glommed on to being Jerry-bashers. What did they have before that? They're disabled people who are so bitter at the bad hand they've been dealt that they have to take down somebody who's doing good. There's 19 of them, but these people can hurt what I have built for 45 years. There's a million and a half people who depend on what I do! I've raised one billion three hundred million dollars.

These 19 people don't want me to do that. They want me to stop now? [censored] them. Do it in caps. [censored] THEM."

About Mike Ervin, New Mobility writer and co-founder of Jerry's Orphans:

"This one kid in Chicago would have passed through this life and never had the opportunity to be acknowledged by anybody, but he found out that by being a dissident he gets picked up in a limo by a television station."

About reporters who investigate how MDA uses telethon funds:

"If you do anything to hurt my kids, I'll have you killed. You understand? I'll have you killed."

During the 1991 MDA Telethon, Lewis said that if a person is diagnosed with the disability called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis:

"You might as well put a gun in your mouth."

During the 1992 MDA Telethon, Lewis said:

"My kids cannot go into the workplace. There's nothing they can do. They've been attacked by a vicious killer. I'm begging for their survival."

These quotes, also archived on Cripcommentary.com, are from Jerry Lewis’ article, "If I Had Muscular Dystrophy," Parade magazine, September 2, 1990:

"... I decided, after 41 years of battling this curse that attacks children of all ages and does it with 40 different ways to make its point (there are 40 different neuromuscular diseases), I would put myself in that chair ... that steel imprisonment that long has been deemed the dystrophic child's plight. ...

"... what about those who have no real use of their hands. For them there's additional indignities of being dressed, being fed, being everything they wouldn't have to be if only they had use of their hands. ...

"... I realize my life is half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a person..."

Snipped from IMDB.com, in the February 14, 2000, Studio Briefing, Lewis had this to say about women comedians:

Jerry Lewis proved himself dumbfoundingly politically incorrect on Saturday during an appearance at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO. As reported by the Associated Press, Lewis was asked which female comics he admires. "I don't like any female comedians," he recalled. When Martin Short, who was moderating the panel reminded him of Lucille Ball and remarked, "You must have loved her, " Lewis replied "No, " then added, "A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me but sets me back a bit. ... I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world."

And here is Lewis’ Sept. 5, 2000 “recant” of the above quote in WENN, also snipped from IMDB.com.

Jerry Lewis has recanted his comment made earlier this year that he didn't like female comedians. On Friday, he recanted. Sort of. He told CNN's Larry King that he admires such comedians as Whoopi Goldberg and the late Lucille Ball. But he also said some of them make him uncomfortable. "Why? Because I'm old fashioned, " said Lewis, 74. "I still open doors for ladies, I still move a seat under for a lady, and my wife gets the kind of glorious attention that a lady is entitled to... I have a difficult time seeing her do this on stage, " he added, making a pumping motion under his armpit.

Hi -- I wanted to make sure you knew about the latest that is happening with Jerry and his, yes, humanitarian award: Jerry Lewis, the man who runs the annual Telethon to raise money for people with muscular dystrophy in the US is about to receive a humanitarian award. Many people in the disability community is protesting this award because they feel that Jerry perpetuates and entrenches negative, harmful stereotypes toward people with disabilities. More about the petition campaign at: http://www.petitiononline.com/jlno2009/petition.html There is also a Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40538392681

As I commented on Mark Smith's blog: Every year on Labor Day weekend the Jerry Lewis Telethon is broadcast for 72 hours. AND every year on Labor Day weekend thousands of people go out onto the highways and kill themselves in motor vehicle wrecks. Coincidence? I wish I had thought of this great and insightful humor--I believe it comes from the quick witted, funny, caustic comic, Bobby Slayton.

The old line "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I envision Jerry Lewis spending eternity in a chair, constantly having his head patted, weepy do-gooders telling him how courageous he is for going on--how they would probably kill themselves. An endless line of complete strangers asking him every detail about how he ended up in a chair. "PC" do-gooders telling him how "inspirational" he is, and telling him he is not handicapped, they see him as "handicappable", and then pin him into a corner and spend endless time and detail describing how they once spent "4 days in a chair" with a twisted ankle and they they know exactly how he feels...