Jerry Lewis Disses American Idol

Oh the irony. During the Television Critics Association, comedian Jerry Lewis compared the American Idol contestants to MacDonald employees.

“The kids who are on American Idol, they’re all McDonald’s wipeouts,” the 85-year-old comic actor observed. “They’ve all been dumped. They’ve worked there and now they’re doing that. And of course they all play a guitar, which takes the place of music.”

We recognize Jerry’s advanced age, but still, it takes a lot of chutzpah for this to be coming from someone who pulled strings to help his son, Gary, become a successful recording artist.

“The industry has destroyed itself,” Jerry said. “We don’t have the soul in our industry that we had when I was working. And the soul has been desperately deteriorated, only because you got a guy that’s running a network whose aunt died and left him some stock.”

Don’t get us wrong, we love some of Gary Lewis & The Playboy songs, we even featured him on July 31st birthdays –

Gary Lewis Sings “Everybody Loves a Clown” (1965)

But we really doubt that Gary Lewis would have got past the door in a singing talent show, never mind getting a “golden ticket,” if he was just a kid from Anytown USA hoping for a shot in the music industry.

Jerry Lewis did seem to be a fan of Law & Order, saying he wanted television (he doesn’t allow it to be called TV) “to be like I ran home and I made sure to be there before Law & Order went on.”

Not that tall of an order Jerry, since some version of “Law & Order” is usually on some channel all the time.

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Tags: american idol, gary, jerry, L&O