With the upfronts in full swing in New York, it’s easy to forget there’s plenty of news that doesn’t break inside hotel ballrooms. A roundup:
– Jerry Lewis said today that he will retire as host of the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s annual Labor Day Telethon, which he has hosted since 1966. He will make his final appearance during this year’s show Sept. 4 to perform his signature song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Lewis will continue as national chairman of the MDA, a position he’s held since the early 1950s.
– TV Land’s original scripted series Hot In Cleveland is returning for 12 new episodes beginning June 15 at 10 PM, the network announced. It will be followed by the new Fran Drescher sitcom Happily Divorced, which began production today.
– Tribune Broadcasting is partnering with ITV Studios America to produce The Bill Cunningham Show, which will air on Tribune stations nationwide beginning in the fall. The hourlong talk show from the attorney/radio host will be topically driven; Kim Brechka (The Montel Williams Show) is executive producer.


who is going to take Jerry’s place with Muscular Dystrophy.
Whether you like him or not he has done a great job raising money for Muscular Dystrophy and I thank him.
Someone has to figure out how to repackage and re-present the work of people like Jerry Lewish, Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, etc.
I think the problem is that they’re in a media netherworld in which someone owns the rights to the work, and the rights are expensive and hard to get, but the sorts of people who could bring all that work into the new era aren’t enthusiastic enough to wrestle with the rights issues. The rights owners have to put some of the content into the public domain to preserve the value of the rest of the content; if they don’t, content will go the way of a lot of 1930s and 1940s suspese novels that one has talked about in 50 years.
Where did my comment go, Deadline?
I’ll keep it short and sweet with no bile:
Where has all the money gone over the years that Jerry Lewis raised to fight this disease? We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, right?
Did Jerry *really* leave voluntarily or was he shoved aside? Inquiring minds want to know…
I WILL MISS HIM DEAR TO MY HEART