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 Bacon plays the Lewis character in the 2005 film "Where The Truth Lies," based on a fictionalized version of Martin and Lewis. In the satiric novel, "Funny Men", about singer/wild comic double act, the character Sigmund "Ziggy" Blissman, is based on Lewis. John Saleeby, writer for "National Lampoon" has a humor piece "Ten Things You Should Know About Jerry Lewis". In the animated cartoon "Popeye's 20th Anniversary", Martin and Lewis are portrayed on the dais. The animated series "Animaniacs" satirized Lewis in several episodes. In 1998, The MTV animated show "Celebrity Deathmatch" had a clay-animated fight to the death between