Jerry Lewis Telethon and the Start of CKND 1975

The star in the middle is supposed to represent Winnipeg for the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

It was 44 years ago this week (August 31, 1975 to be exact) that CKND went on the air. A half hour program called Introducing CKND aired at 9 PM and then at 9:30 PM the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon came on the air. At 10 years old I had never really seen a Jerry Lewis film before. We had only gotten cable four years earlier after starting the decade in 1970 with a black and white TV and only two English channels CBWT and CKY.

We got cable in fall of 1971 which brought KTHI, WDAZ and KXJB from Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota. Suddenly a flood of new television programming was flooding in from five English networks and one French network. In 1975 they were joined by two more channels Prairie Public Television and CKND.

CKND was anagram for KCND which broadcast into Winnipeg from Pembina, North Dakota from 1959 to 1975. Izzy Asper and partners bought all the equipment from the station, set up in an old supermarket on St. Mary's, hired 17 of the former owner's staff and on Labour Day weekend went on the air. The 21 1/2 hour MDA Telethon would dominate the airwaves that weekend. There was a lot of excitement and the live performances by so many stars would captivate people the city in a major way.

Our family was home that weekend after camping for a month to Florida. Like most people in the city, we tuned into the new channel. I went to bed after midnight and was up at the crack of dawn fascinated that the same program was soldiering on. And on. The cutaways to local call ins for Winnipeg would not start till a year later so the program pretty much was non-stop Jerry Lewis.

The telethon would be the first time I ever saw Frank Sinatra perform live. I was actually more familiar with Nancy Sinatra (picture below) as her song These Boots Were Made For Walking was played on Winnipeg radio stations and on the Cliffords department store ads. Watching Sinatra perform though with his orchestra was a command performance.

The year 1975, as mentioned, was also the year Prairie Public Television came to Winnipeg. Its starts was less glitzy but together with CKND brought older movies to the screen that the rest of the networks did not. History films like Where Eagles Dare with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton would air on PBS. CKND, on the other hand, would broadcast The Bowery Boys and all the Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin movies.

By the time 1976 came along, many young people were up to speed up on Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and a host of others. The 1st anniversary of CKND would bring another WDA Jerry Lewis Telethon and at the behest of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin would go on the Labour Day show. It would be the first time since 1956 that Lewis and Martin would re-unite.

The 1976 telethon would be the most watched of all the Jerry Lewis broadcasts ever and include the most stations. Families in Winnipeg watched together because many kids by this point were as familiar with the stars as their parents were. CKND featured cutaways to their call center and local celebrities were on and MDA took in the most donations in their new history at the time.

Despite seeing so many Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin movies in the first year of CKND's broadcast, I had felt that Dean Martin was the bigger celebrity and movie star. Although, I was really too young to see it, I was aware of the Dean Martin Show on NBC. To be honest, as a kid I was more happy with the Saturday morning cartoons of the U.S. major networks and Space: 1999 on CBC. As as family we were more likely to watch the Sonny and Cher or Carol Burnett shows.

However, on NBC in 1973, the movie Airport was shown on TV and had the highest ratings ever since Love Story broadcast by ABC the previous year. Our whole family watched Airport which had been released theatrically in 1970. I was probably too young to see it as I was scared about flying after. In my mind though, Dean Martin was a star.

It is no surprise then that when Dean Martin appeared with Jerry Lewis and Frank Sinatra on stage at the 1976 MDA Telethon that it was a huge moment in TV history. It was also a fairly amazing 1st anniversary for CKND as well.

The 1970s was really when cable exploded in Winnipeg. TV might have been around since the mid 1950s but for many families like ours, it was no longer just two channels and black and white.