“According to my imagination, which of these two characters [are] not circumcised? Predator, Marvin the Martian, Yoda, Alf or Steve Buscemi?”
That was the first question actor and comedian Seth Rogen asked celebrity contestants during an 80s-themed virtual game show on November 10 called “Head to Head.” The event raised funds for HFC (Hilarity for Charity), a non-profit organization he and his wife, Lauren Miller Rogen, co-founded in 2011 to support families affected by Alzheimer’s and to educate about brain health.
After deliberation, Rogen finally revealed his answer: “Yoda was voiced by a Jew. Martin the Martian is from an advanced culture, in my opinion. Alf is Semitic, highly Semitic. No matter what, Alf is Jewish. I know that for sure.” That left Predator and Buscemi as the only non-Jews.
The game show, which was sponsored by Biogen, raised $475,000 and connected 2,000 people in support of what Miller Rogen called “a disease that lives in the darkness.” Virtual audience members from around the country were able to live chat with messages of support, and Charlize Theron, Ike Barinholtz, Jillian Bell, Yvette Nicole Brown and Martin Starr served as team captains. HFC held its first “Head to Head” virtual game show in 2020 as part of an annual signature series the organization has been hosting since 2012.
“I didn’t quite understand it when I was younger, and watching how it affected my mom completely opened my eyes to how cruel the disease can be.” – Lauren Miller Rogen
“Since Alzheimer’s affected my grandparents before it affected my mom, it’s something that has been a part of my life for a very long time,” Miller Rogen told the Journal. “I didn’t quite understand it when I was younger, and watching how it affected my mom completely opened my eyes to how cruel the disease can be.”
Her mother, Adele, was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s at age 55, when Miller Rogen was 25. She died in 2020, after a 15-year battle with the disease.
Alzheimer’s affects 5.8 million Americans and is the most expensive disease in the country, costing over $250 billion each year. By 2030, nearly 40% of Americans living with Alzheimer’s will be Black or Latino. The disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States.
“Dementia and Alzheimer’s are unwieldy. Sometimes humor is the only thing that gets me through as a caregiver,” said Brown, who quit her role on the hit primetime sitcom, “Community,” in 2014 to become a full-time caregiver for her father, Omar. “HFC and the education and laughter it brings are a gift.”
HFC partners with Home Instead to provide three to six months of free, professional, in-home care for those with Alzheimer’s. To date, the program, which helps those in the U.S. and Canada, has awarded over 350,000 hours of respite-relief for non-professional caregivers (grants are not in the form of cash, but respite hours). It also offers virtual support groups.
During the virtual game show, several caregivers who have benefited from those respite hours described the critical importance of having had access to time for themselves.
“You slowly lose parts of who you are,” a caregiver named Jacqueline said during the program, describing the long hours and emotional toll of being a caregiver for someone suffering from Alzheimer’s. The grant program allotted Jacqueline a much-needed vacation, which gave her “a piece of who I was prior to caring for my mom.” Another caregiver named Sofia added, “You never have time for yourself.” HFC prides itself on caring for those whom Miller Rogen called “the too-soon caregivers, the too-young caregivers.”
The game show offered non-stop laughter from Rogen and team captains as they joked and deliberated for nearly two hours. There were also bouts of profanity, courtesy of Academy Award-winning actress Theron. The program was a testament to the name, Hilarity for Charity.
But not all questions were funny or outrageous. Rogen also asked contestants how long Alzheimer’s can develop in the brain before symptoms are shown. Tragically, the disease can begin decades before symptoms appear, but one out of every three cases may be preventable. To that end, HFC brain education through various programs, which can be found on its website.
This year, HFC will celebrate its tenth anniversary. “It’s pretty wild,” said Co-Founder and Board Member Matthew Bass. “It was originally supposed to be a one-off event, but then we just tapped into something special. Hopefully, the next 10 years are fruitful both in terms of money and progress for science.”
For Miller Rogen, the effects of Alzheimer’s on her mother and grandparents strengthened her purpose and compassionate empathy.
“I feel extraordinarily lucky to have founded HFC, to have built a community of people and to have helped people struggling with Alzheimer’s,” she said. “Had I not felt how scary and lonely it could be to have a loved one with the disease, I wouldn’t have understood the needs of caregivers. As someone who has spent time in the darkness, I know how important it is to find the light within it.”
For more information about HFC, visit https://wearehfc.org
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