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CNN Live Sunday

Ed McMahon Talks About His Annual Telethon

Aired September 02, 2001 - 17:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: This time every year, as has been the case for decades now, Ed McMahon us using his talents to benefit thousands of Americans. He has co-hosted the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual Labor Day telethon. He joins us now from Los Angeles to tell us more about this year's telethon and why it is so important in the battle against disease.

Ed McMahon, welcome, thank you for joining us.

ED MCMAHON, CO-HOST: Hi, Stephen. Thank you for the time, we appreciate it.

FRAZIER: I know you have been asked this many times, but tell us your first exposure to muscular dystrophy and why you decided to get involved?

MCMAHON: Well, first I was invited. That's the key. Jerry had hosted "The Tonight Show" for a week replacing Johnny Carson, and we got to be pals the very first night. We had dinner. We had dinner every night for the week, and finally Friday night during dinner he said, "will you come over and help me with this telethon on the weekend? Come over and help me." I said, "I'll come over."

So, I came over and I did about six hours with him that year, and at end of the thing he said, "you know, I wish you would help me more next year," so I came. You know, it was one of those things, it grew very gradually, but for the last 34 years, I have been his anchorman and it's like my biggest endeavor of the year. I went on the board recently of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, so I'm very much involved with the process.

FRAZIER: It is grueling and exhausting for you, why go through so much effort?

MCMAHON: Well, it works. We have got a thing that works. You know, it's that old -- Jerry used to use this phrase a lot, the Pennsylvania Dutch statement, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." So, it's working.

You know, last year we took in $54,600 million something, and we always try to get $1 more each year. But the fact that in 21.5 hours of good variety television, a lot of good appeals from very important people like Barbara Walters and Angela Lansbury and Dennis Franz, we manage to do it again, somehow, luckily and miraculously and wonderfully, and it's just great. So because it works, we are not going to stop it.

FRAZIER: You spoke before Congress recently and pointed out that that kind of money -- $54 million is an outrageous amount of money to raise if you think about it -- has gone to some very effective work by physicians looking still for treatments and cures.

MCMAHON: Yeah, we have 350 clinics worldwide, and they are all connected by the intercom, which is wonderful. Somebody in Oslo learns something, somebody in Sacramento has something else, and they share it, and all of a sudden it's a breakthrough.

The problem is, when you start to go to a study of one gene, to follow one gene through to conclusion takes about $20 million. So even though we have raised money in the billion-dollar range, it's still $20 million that's spent every time we go, so we have called upon the government -- and I urge everybody to write their senator and their congressman -- we want to pass a bill that will help with the NSI -- because we want to do something really special in the next year or two, where we have all this talk about, you know, the stem cells, and genes, and chromosomes.

We're isolating, we're coming in on it, and we need help from the government.

FRAZIER: You mentioned genes because it has been determined by these researchers who are helped by your financing that it is a genetic flaw that leads to each of the nine different kinds of muscular dystrophy.

MCMAHON: Yes.

FRAZIER: And you would think that would be knocking right on the door, but it's still a long away from...

MCMAHON: Well, it's still a long way, and I think we will be there in about three hours starting, and I know during the next 21.5 hours of the telethon one of our research specialists, a doctor, a scientist, will make a statement. We do it every year, and there will be another breakthrough, something else is going to happen that they will be able to announce, and it is always very exciting when that happens, because there is light at the end of the tunnel.

FRAZIER: You have lost an awful lot of people you have known to this disease over the years.

MCMAHON: Yes, yeah.

FRAZIER: And that has got to be very hard for you, as an emotional person as you have demonstrated you are.

MCMAHON: Well, it's tough. You know, you get to know these people, and, you know, it's one of those things. Your heart goes out, there is no connection why anybody gets this disease, it affects everybody. Anybody is vulnerable, I'm vulnerable as long -- as well as you are, and there is no rhyme or reason to it. And all of a sudden it is at your doorstep, and when it happens to somebody you got to know, you get friendly with, it's, you know, doubly damaging to you.

FRAZIER: So do you feel hope this year that we're right on the cusp, this -- you talked about stem cell research just a little while ago, things are happening fast in this field.

MCMAHON: Yeah, it really is, and it's because of what we have been doing, you know, for the past 36 years, because of that, the things now are tumbling into place. And the fact that we now know the genome structure, we know now about what stem cells do, we know about genes and chromosomes, we now can fix a gene in the laboratory, something you can't even see we can fix and repair.

And now we are at a point where we can make a new gene, so these are all the things that we are right on the doorstep to prove, and we do need help from the government, we need help from the people, we need help from our corporate sponsors to make this all take place.

FRAZIER: Well, you have made an awful lot of it take place, and we are grateful for your take time-out before a grueling session to talk to us about it. Good luck in this year's telethon.

MCMAHON: Thanks, Stephen. Thank you.

FRAZIER: Ed McMahon speaking to us from Los Angeles.

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