Robin, Whoopi and Billy got together for Comic Relief 8

Web posted on: Monday, June 15, 1998 4:21:05 PM

From Correspondent Bill Tush

(CNN) -- It was a threat Robin Williams actually has the clout to carry out: "We've been doing Comic Relief now since 1986, and this is my 5,000th request for money, so now I'm gonna get serious," he said. "Unless you start writing checks right now, we're going to put on the John Tesh CD -- or Yanni."

Yet -- likely to the great relief of the audience for Comic Relief 8 -- there was neither Tesh nor Yanni to be heard, as Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal brought their comedic benefit for the homeless back to Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night.

HBO aired the show, the eighth live telethon in Comic Relief's 12-year history.

"We thought in the first year we were going to be able to get everybody off the streets," Goldberg told reporters backstage during the show.

Milton Berle almost stole the show when he celebrated an early 90th birthday. And plenty of others wisecracked for the cause during the 3 1/2-hour show.

"I've always wondered, what am I going to do that's important with these stupid jokes that I tell," said Ray Romano, stand-up comedian and the central figure in the TV sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond." "I can't get all this money that they're paying me without doing something good."

The jokes were mostly political, and often presidential -- with jabs at the Clinton sex scandal ranging from Caroline Rhea to Chris Rock to Dennis Miller. (Rhea: "I performed for President Clinton ... stand-up, just stand-up." Miller: "Hillary hears the words 'I'm sorry' more frequently than Pauly Shore on Celebrity Jeopardy.")

But when the New York crowd went home, the pledge phones kept ringing to the tune of $5.2 million for Comic Relief's homeless health care programs -- and there's nothing funny about that.