The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon individual stations, airing on ABC on Sunday, September 1, 2013, and running two hours. The final edition aired on ABC on August 31, 2014, again as a two-hour special, beginning at 9PM ET/PT. It was announced on May 1, 2015 that the MDA would be discontinuing the annual event for good. Jerry Lewis began hosting telethons to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America (MDAA) in 1952 after a plea from a staff member who worked with Lewis and Dean Martin on "The Colgate Comedy Hour". Lewis had previously taken part in what has been described as the very first
The Jerry Lewis Show to renovate the theater so to be used for several ABC television shows. The renovation took place of the whole theater. The cost to renovate the facility was $400,000. The same year of the renovation, ABC decided to promote Elton Rule to head of the network. Rule had previously worked as general manager of programming for ABC's Los Angeles affiliate KABC. Rule and other executives at ABC hired comedian Jerry Lewis to do a show for the network and videotape it at the newly renovated theater. The first version of "The Jerry Lewis Show" premiered on Saturday September 21, 1963