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
Gary Lewis (actor) took some three years to complete. By that time, both actors had appeared in "Shallow Grave" (1994). Lewis went on to act in Mullan's subsequent shorts "Good Day for the Bad Guys" (1995) and the award-winning "Fridge" (1996). Lewis joined director Kenneth Loach's unofficial stock company lending support to his two mentors in separate films: with Carlyle, he co-starred in "Carla's Song" (1996), while he played a recovering alcoholic alongside Mullan in "My Name Is Joe" (1998). In between, Mullan cast him as the over-righteous, somewhat dimwitted elder sibling Thomas in "Orphans" (1998), an examination of a dysfunctional family. He