Comedy Central exits Germany

The media firm's MTV Networks Germany unit is shutting down a local version of Comedy Central just two years after its launch. Comedy Central Germany will be folded together with kids channel NICK, starting next year.

Hit Nickelodeon shows including "Dora the Explorer" and "SpongeBob SquarePants" will be shown during the day, with more mature programing including "Futurama" and "Dharma and Greg" as well as Comedy Central's own "The Daily Show" and "South Park" filling up the evening slots.

Comedy Central has been struggling in Germany since its much-ballyhooed debut in 2006. Instead of branding itself as cutting edge, the German channel aired reruns of decidedly mainstream sitcoms like "The Golden Girls."

The channel also killed the jokes, in the opinion of many local TV critics, by dubbing such cult shows "Seinfeld" as "The Sarah Silverman Program" into German.

Jerry Lewis on retirement

These days, the King of Comedy is graying at the temples and sometimes a little wobbly on his feet. But don't ask him about retirement.

"A break? No, why? You got something better to do?" Jerry Lewis told a reporter Friday who asked if the 82-year-old entertainer was contemplating leaving the stage after more than 50 years of performing. "Show me somewhere better than this and I'll consider it."

Lewis was fronting a news conference in Sydney to promote his latest stage show, a retrospective of his career that includes show tunes with a 24-piece band, excerpts from his scores of movies and television shows, and his trademark slapstick comedy.

As he walked onto a small stage at a luxury hotel for Friday's news conference, Lewis lost his balance on the stairs and ended up stumbling slightly toward a reporter on the floor. Without missing a beat, and true to ad-libbing form, Lewis grabbed the reporter's hand and started pumping it, saying, "How do you do?"

"Don't you understand that when you croak, it's for a ve-e-e-e-ry long time," Lewis said later when asked about retirement. "So you want to get in as much activity as you can before you go."

Another topic the entertainer doesn't give much time to? The U.S. presidential election.

"Everybody talks about politicians — I don't do it because I do comedy already," he said, declining to comment on either Barack Obama or John McCain. "There's nothing fun about it."