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
Jerry Lewis a film so radical that it makes comedy out of the situation of a comedian who isn't funny." The final scene of "The Patsy" is famous for revealing to the audience the movie as a movie, and Lewis as actor/director. Lewis wrote in "The Total Filmmaker", his belief in breaking the fourth wall, actors looking directly into the camera, despite industry norms. More contemporary comedies such as "The Larry Sanders Show", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and "The Office" continue this method. Robert DeNiro and Sandra Bernhard (both of whom starred with Lewis in "The King of Comedy") reflected on his death,