The Gong Show

Legitimate talent

The two biggest Gong Show-related showbiz successes were Andrea McArdle and Cheryl Lynn. Twelve-year-old McArdle appeared on an early show in 1976, shortly before winning the lead role in the hit Broadway musical Annie. Lynn was signed to a recording contract as a result of her performance, and recorded the Top 40 disco hit "Got To Be Real".

Among the other true talents that appeared on the show were singer Boxcar Willie; comics and actors Paul Reubens and John Paragon (best known as Pee Wee Herman and Jambi the Genie); Joey D'Auria ("Professor Flamo", later WGN's second Bozo the Clown); impressionist/comic Michael Winslow; novelty rock band Green Jelly,^[2] and a band called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo which evolved into Oingo Boingo, led by future film and television score composer Danny Elfman. Crip founder, and executed murderer, Stanley Tookie Williams appeared on the show in 1979 as a bodybuilder. In 1976, future Academy Award nominated actress Mare Winningham sang the Beatles song "Here, There, and Everywhere". Future Super Bowl XXXV winning head coach Brian Billick also made an appearance, performing a routine known as the "spider monkey". Dancer Danny Lockin, who had played Barnaby in the film Hello Dolly!, was murdered hours after winning the show taped August 21, 1977.^[3]

Recurring bits

The show had many running gags and characters who appeared as regular performers.

• The Unknown Comic (Murray Langston, formerly of the Sonny and Cher TV stock company) was a stand-up comedian who told intentionally corny jokes while wearing a paper bag over his head. ("You've heard of a boxer?" asked Langston. "This is a bagger!") Eventually, Langston would beckon to "Chuckie" and tell insulting jokes at his expense ("Have you ever made love to your wife in the shower?" "No." "Well, you should, she loves it!"). Barris would then feign anger and eject Langston from the show. Langston (as The Unknown Comic) later made appearances as a judge on the show.
• Gene Gene the Dancing Machine (Gene Patton) was a heavy-set, middle-aged black man wearing a warm-up suit and flat hat. Gene-Gene's arrival would always be treated as though it were a glorious surprise to everyone on the show, especially Barris. Upon hearing the opening notes to his theme music (an arrangement of "Jumpin' at the Woodside", a popular Count Basie song), Barris's face would light up and he would stop the show, yielding the stage to Gene-Gene. Members of the crew would toss random objects from the wings, littering the stage while Gene-Gene danced on, oblivious to the activity around him. Barris and the panelists would enthusiastically mimic Gene-Gene's dance moves, which consisted primarily of a slow-footed chug-chug motion, punctuated by an occasional, exultant fist pointed skyward. Typically, the dance break would be interrupted by a commercial or by the show's promotional announcements. In reality, Patton was an NBC stagehand whose backstage dancing caught the attention of Barris, who moved him out in front of the curtain when time ran short during an episode. He added membership in AFTRA to his existing IATSE membership. Occasionally, Gene-Gene filled in as one of the three mallet-wielding judges. Patton's popularity was such that his retirement from NBC made the national news wires in 1997, unique attention for a stagehand. In a bitter irony, Patton's legs were amputated in the early 2000s due to complications from diabetes. He died in 2015.
• Scarlett and Rhett were Chuck's dresser Jefferson Beeker and Costume Designer Peter Mins dressed as Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind. Their act always began with Rhett bellowing, "I don't give a damn!" and the shocked Scarlett gasping, "You can't say that on television!" Rhett would respond by asking, "Well, can I say this, Scarlett?" and launch into a vulgar riddle along the lines of "Why are pool tables green?" Scarlett would answer, "Why, Rhett?" "Because if someone was--" and the off-color punchline would invariably be bleeped out. After two or three jokes, and the same number of shocked reactions, Barris would stop the act and close the curtain.
• Larry, The Evil Villain, played by the show's writer Larry Spencer, wore an old-fashioned black cape and top hat; the audience was encouraged to hiss at him as if he were a villain from 19th century melodrama.
• "Larry And His Magic _____", an alleged musician (also portrayed by Spencer) whose various appearances featured a series of different instruments. His call-and-response act featured him proclaiming, "I'm gonna play my (trumpet, trombone, xylophone, kettle drum, accordion, Moog synthesizer, etc.)" and the audience shouting back, "Whatcha gonna do?" This exchange would be repeated twice, after which he would announce, "I'm gonna play my (instrument) nowwww!" Instead of playing, though, he would merely repeat his audience-punctuated declaration. After a few verses of this, the skit would inevitably end with Spencer failing to play his instrument. Either time would run out, the instrument would malfunction or be booby-trapped, or he would manage to produce a few inept notes before being permanently interrupted by Barris.
• Chuckie's Fables, featuring "The Mighty Gong Show Players", an alleged acting troupe (in actuality, members of the production and stage crews). Barris would flop into a rocking chair and read a narrative from an oversized storybook, while the Players, in whimsical costumes by Peter Mins, would pantomime the action behind him, including mouthing words of the dialogue that Barris would be reading. These stories always ended with a convoluted moral. The name was a takeoff on the "Mighty Carson Art Players" from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which in turn was a copy of Fred Allen's "Mighty Allen Art Players".
• The Worm, a supposed "dance craze" consisting of three men who flung themselves to the floor and wriggled on the ground. At the end of each of their performances, Barris would come out and say "One – More – Time!" The Worm would often be performed four or five times in succession before the commercial break interrupted the men's performance.
• The Whispers, a female trio who "whispered" popular songs. (An actual male R&B group also performs under this name, and is completely unrelated.)
• BORK, a/k/a Johann Sebastian Bork, a performance artist who was dressed in 17th Century wig and suit, holding an unlit cigar, and carrying an upside-down children's book which he would place on the music rack of a piano and start playing.
• The show's air of spontaneity was abetted by various comic appearances by supporting staff, technical/stage crew and house band members.
• Holidays — The show celebrated many holidays such as Christmas, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, but invariably did so by singing the Irving Berlin standard, "Easter Parade". (When Easter was feted, the cast and crew would sing Berlin's "White Christmas".) The annual Christmas episode also featured a major rule change – in honor of the holiday spirit, judges were not permitted to gong contestants. Predictably, Christmas shows were heavily loaded with the most unappealing acts available.
• Albert - On the ABC version, before the final act of the show performs, Tommy Maitland invites the audience and judges to a singalong, which is led by Albert. He always performs the same song, entitled "Shaving Cream".
• Mitzi - Another character exclusive to the ABC version. After each performance, Maitland asks Mitzi to "bring them a nice cup of tea", along with an additional random object.
• "Sethward the _____", an absurdist comedian exclusive to the ABC version. Sethward dressed up in homemade animal costumes and pretended to do a "trick." Most bits were met with confusion and judges quickly gonged. In the first season Sethward was a snake who Chelsea Handler said he "looked more like a walrus" in the second season he came back as a walrus.

Barris as emcee

Chuck Barris in 1977

An established game show producer (The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game), after years of writing and producing popular hit records, Barris was originally the show's co-producer but not its host. He was an emergency replacement host for eventual Real People host John Barbour, who had objected to the show's satirical concept and tried to steer it toward a traditional amateur-hour format. An NBC executive who had watched Barris rehearse the show suggested that Barris replace Barbour. Barris accepted but resisted the requirement that he wear a tuxedo, only caving when NBC threatened to drop the series altogether. Even then, Barris usually ended an episode with undone bowtie, shirt untucked and disheveled tails. In time, mandatory tuxedos gave way to more casual attire; later episodes had Barris in casual clothes such as blue jeans, very unusual for a television host. Barris began wearing a variety of silly-looking hats on stage, which were later seen hanging on a rack at stage right. He would frequently change hats during a show.

Barris was initially ill at ease in front of the camera and was noticeably nervous in the show's first episodes. His nervous habit of clapping his hands together and pointing to the camera while talking became a staple of the show; by the show's second year, it had become a running gag. Audience members began clapping their hands in unison with Barris whenever they saw him doing it. Barris caught on, and would sometimes pretend to clap, deliberately stopping short to fool the audience.

Producer Chris Bearde, formerly of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, clashed with Barris over the show's content, favoring scripted comedy over chaotic nonsense. (Bearde's "new talent" segments on Laugh-In had featured oddball performers, the most famous being Tiny Tim.) Bearde eventually withdrew from The Gong Show, leaving Barris fully in charge of the show. Before long, Barris was working so loosely that some viewers assumed he was intoxicated from alcohol or other drugs. For example, he sometimes pulled his hat down over his eyes, totally obscuring them, and his mumbled dialogue was sometimes difficult to understand. Barris' words were often unclear and appeared to be nothing more than unscripted ramblings. Barris later recounted, in an interview with the Archive of American Television,^[4] that he was never drunk, and that he would not allow drugs in his production company.

If Barris enjoyed an act, it was obvious, as he would watch the act while beaming, clapping his hands or even dancing. After acts were gonged, Barris would often console the performers with sarcastic words of encouragement like "I really liked your act. But then again, I like rancid milk." The celebrity who had gonged the performer was typically asked "Why'd you do that?" and was expected to provide an explanation, joke or further insult. Typically, Barris would lead into commercial breaks with the cryptic promise "We'll be back, with mor-re ssstuff – right after this message!"

Musical direction

Milton DeLugg, the show's musical director, was a popular musician and bandleader during the 1940s, and got the Gong Show job by default. As musical director for the network, he was responsible for any NBC project that required special music (like the annual telecasts of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade). Barris initially regarded DeLugg as "an anachronism", but he soon found that DeLugg was very much attuned to the crazy tone of the show; his band, which Barris introduced as "Milton DeLugg and the Band With a Thug", included top jazz players like Bob Findley, Joe Howard and Lanny Morgan, and kept the show's energy level high. The band even led into station breaks, with Barris's enthusiastic "Take me into the commercial, Milt!" Barris often joined the band on guitar when a good singer was performing. DeLugg remained associated with Barris for many years after Gong ended.

Veteran composer Joey Carbone provided musical arrangements for the late 1980s revival with his own lineup of studio musicians, known as "The Gong Show Guys".

Announcers

Johnny Jacobs was the main announcer from 1976 to 1980. When Jacobs was sidelined with an extended illness, Jack Clark substituted from October 3, 1977 through December 23, 1977. Charlie O'Donnell served as announcer for the late-1980s revival.

In 1976, Carol Burnett (who did a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show in which her character Eunice Higgins, of the recurring The Family sketch, performed – and got gonged – on the show) introduced Barris: "And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce a man with the charm of Cary Grant, good looks of Robert Redford and the acting skills of Laurence Olivier. I'd like to meet that man, but until then, I'm stuck with Chuck Barris." That same year, actor Dick Van Dyke also introduced Barris; later in that episode, Barris promoted Van Dyke's short-lived NBC series Van Dyke and Company.

Hostesses

Hostesses included Siv Åberg (a Swedish-born model who appeared on Barris's syndicated New Treasure Hunt), actress Marlena Clark, porn actress Carol Connors and Barris's teenage daughter Della.

NBC

NBC decided to take a chance on the show to fix a scheduling problem at 12:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. Central). This was the network's least important time slot, as programs running at that time had to share the half-hour with a five-minute NBC newscast anchored by Edwin Newman. As a result, the first six-plus months of The Gong Show featured approximately twenty minutes of program content in a twenty-five-minute episode.

Many NBC affiliates in some larger markets opted not to run network programming during the noon hour at all, preferring to broadcast local news and talk shows instead. Thus Gong made its debut mainly on medium-market and smaller stations or on large-market rival stations that had picked up the program from the NBC affiliate that had rejected it. For example, in Boston, then-NBC affiliate WBZ did not run the series, allowing local UHF independent outlet WSBK-TV to air it.

Gong's time slot was given to a new soap opera, Lovers and Friends, on January 3, 1977, and the show was relocated to replace the cancelled Another World spinoff Somerset at 4:00 p.m. The time change allowed Gong to expand to a half-hour. However, Gong moved from one problem time to another, as the 4:00 p.m. network slot was also prone to preemptions (in fact, NBC was not far away from handing the slot back to its affiliates). This left Gong unable to gain a ratings advantage over CBS' hit game show Tattletales and ABC's struggling but still popular soap opera The Edge of Night, as well as some popular syndicated programming on other stations. By early December, the network decided to return Gong to 12:30/11:30, but this time the show was able to run for a half-hour, as NBC ended their 12:55 five minute news broadcast.

NBC broadcast a one-hour prime-time Gong Show special on April 26, 1977, featuring in-studio special guests Tony Randall, Alice Cooper and Harry James and His Orchestra. The winning act on this special was The Bait Brothers, and the panelists were Jaye P. Morgan, Jamie Farr and Arte Johnson.^[5]

Syndicated (1976–80)

The Gong Show continued in syndication for two years after its daytime counterpart's cancellation, often airing on weekends and at night. The entire syndicated run from 1976 to 1980 was distributed by Firestone Program Services. While the series eventually met its demise in syndication as it had on NBC, according to Barris, the problem did not lie with any outrageous acts, but instead the controversy and public outcry over another series he had produced.

In September 1979, Barris launched the game show Three's a Crowd, which was a spin-off of The Newlywed Game. Instead of recently married couples trying to match answers, the wives and secretaries of married men would compete to show who knew the men better. Religious activists and feminist groups protested against Three's a Crowd and its ratings eventually forced the show's cancellation during the middle of the season.

In Barris' autobiography The Game Show King, he wrote that "the public backlash from Three's a Crowd not only caused the program to be canceled, but it took three other TV shows of mine with it. I went to my house in Malibu and stayed there for a year." Gong was one of those shows to be canceled, and Barris never hosted another series. Such was the trauma from the Three's a Crowd's backlash that, in the last several weeks of Gong, Barris had "a small nervous breakdown" on-air, "bored to death" with broadcasting.^[8] His next two series, revivals of the 1960s game show Camouflage (the replacement for Three's a Crowd) and his 1973-77 series Treasure Hunt (toward which Barris had little or no input, according to host Geoff Edwards), both failed to find audiences and Barris went further into his self-imposed exile from television. Barris would not have another hit series until the 1985 syndication revival of The Newlywed Game.

Reruns of the NBC airings (with filler material inserted to pad out the 25-minute episodes) began in syndication in Fall 1979. The NBC and syndicated episodes were rerun on the USA Network and Game Show Network, although by the time GSN picked up the series, many episodes could not be aired because of performance clearance issues. No episodes from the first syndicated season were rerun.

Later incarnations

A syndicated weekday revival of The Gong Show, hosted by San Francisco disc jockey Don Bleu, ran during the 1988–89 season, but lasted only one year. Each winner was paid $701.

Extreme Gong, a later incarnation of The Gong Show on the Game Show Network had viewers vote on its acts by telephone. It was hosted by George Gray and ran from October 1, 1998 to October 1999, with reruns continuing for another year. Winners received $317.69. This version was well known for two known incidents: one episode featuring "Cody the Talking Dog" for which he tried to say things like "I love you" and "ice cream" but did not succeed in talking, and another featuring a Village People parody as The Village Little People where they sang a cover of "YMCA", taking the "Young Man" literally. Orange County comedy punk band The Radioactive Chicken Heads (then called Joe & the Chicken Heads) made their national television debut on Extreme Gong, though they were gonged midway through their performance. Near the end of the show's run, an hour-long "Tournament of Talent" special was aired in August 1999, with contestants competing for a payoff of $10,000.

A few years after the cancellation of Extreme Gong, Sony Pictures Television decided to revive the game (under its original title and format) for The WB, and was to be hosted by South Florida radio and TV personality Phillip Benfield. Two pilots were made, but it was never picked up.

Comedy Central debuted a new incarnation called The Gong Show with Dave Attell, which lasted for 8 weeks in the summer of 2008.^[9] The show's format was similar to the original, but its scoring was based on a scale of 0 to 500, and winning acts received $600. The $600 was shown as paid in cash on the spot, rather than being paid by check as in earlier versions, but in reality (because of contestant eligibility regulations by Sony) was paid as a check from Sony Pictures. In place of a typical trophy, winners were awarded a belt in the style of boxing championship belts.

A live stage version of The Gong Show took place at B.B. King's Blues Club, in the Times Square district of New York City on August 12, 2010.^[10] It was produced by The Radio Chick, and is the Sony authorized stage production. This production went into development in 2011–12 and now runs regularly in New York City, with engagements in other U.S. cities.^[11]

Film

In 1980, The Gong Show Movie was released by Universal Pictures to scathing reviews and was quickly withdrawn from theatrical release. Advertising proclaimed it as "The Gong Show That Got Gonged by the Censor". It is seen periodically on cable TV, but was not released on home video ^[21][22] until March 29, 2016, when the film was released on Blu-ray by Shout! Factory.^[23]

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a film directed by George Clooney and written by Charlie Kaufman, was based on the semi-fictional autobiography of the same name by Chuck Barris. Part of the film chronicles the making of The Gong Show, and features several clips from the original series.

Following the success of the print and screen versions of Confessions, GSN produced a documentary called The Chuck Barris Story: My Life on the Edge, which included rare footage from the Gary Owens pilot.

International versions

Country	Local name	Host	Network	Year aired
Australia	The Gong Show	Tim Evans	Network Ten	1976 (lasted for three weeks)
Germany	Die Gong-Show	Paul Kuhn Götz Alsmann Marco Ströhlein	NDR RTL Sat.1	1981 1992–93 2003
India	Sabse Badhkar Gong		Sony TV	mid-1990s
Indonesia	Gong Show	Arie Untung & Fenita Arie	Trans TV	2006–2012
Poland	TBA	TBA	Polsat	2018
United Kingdom	The Gong Show	Frankie Howerd	Channel 4	December 1985 (pilot)
United States	The Gong Show	Chuck Barris	NBC	1976–78
		Gary Owens Chuck Barris Don Bleu	Syndication	1976–77 1977–80 1988–89
	Extreme Gong	George Gray	GSN	1998–99
	The Gong Show with Dave Attell	Dave Attell	Comedy Central	July 17, 2008 – September 4, 2008
	The Gong Show	Tommy Maitland (Mike Myers)	ABC	June 22, 2017 – present