DEAR STACY: I'm so sad that "Mike & Molly" got canceled. What is Melissa McCarthy doing next? — Ashley-K1

DEAR ASHLEY-K1: A lot. The funny lady, who dropped 50 pounds in 2015 by — according to her — no longer worrying about her weight, has her fashion line and new movies keeping her busy. Her newly-launched MelissaMcCarthy.com online store has clothing to size 28. Her "The Boss" big screen comedy, due April 8, has her as the head of a company who gets imprisoned for insider trading, then has to face all the people she wronged. Kristin Bell, Peter Dinklage, Kathy Bates and Margo Martindale are also in the cast. She also stars in Paul Feig's all-female "Ghostbusters" remake with Kristin Wiig, due in July. Nevertheless, McCarthy tweeted that she was "shocked and heartbroken" over the cancelation of her sitcom. She added, "I would have shot this show for 50 more years."

DEAR STACY: Is it true that Kevin Jonas quit music? — 9amNda

DEAR 9amNda: The eldest Jonas brother has been immersed in his app-launching tech work over the past year or so (he introduced the Yood food-finding app in 2014), but has said that he leaves the door open on music; "It's a part of my soul."

DEAR STACY: What is Phil Donahue doing lately? — A Fan, Newark

DEAR FAN: At age 80, the media icon credited for blazing the trail of the modern talk show is taking life easier — but still makes occasional public appearances. He was, not surprisingly, on hand for wife Marlo Thomas' opening of the off-Broadway show "Clever Little Lies" this past October. The one-time TV power couple has been married for 35 years.

DEAR STACY: I remember growing up, we never saw ads for hard liquor on TV. Now it's everywhere. When and why did this change occur? — Charlie K., Temecula, California

DEAR CHARLIE: In 1996, the Seagram company decided to defy the liquor industry's decades-long, self-imposed ban on radio and TV advertising and began showing commercials for several of its brands in scattered markets across the country. Despite subsequent complaints by anti-alcohol groups, by November of that year, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States dropped its ban. A progression of steps toward more liberal use of alcohol ads began after that, and old rules fell away one by one. The networks loosened their restrictions on booze commercials between 2011 and 2012. (TV took in $142 million from liquor brands in 2010. By 2013, it took in $507 million from network ads alone, plus another $698 million from cable.) More recently, the arena of controversy has moved to social media — as in Jim Beam's presence on the youth-centric Snapchat. They keep minors from seeing liquor ads through age-gating via the self-reported birth dates of users, something impossible on TV.

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