Information AboutThe Gong Show |
''The Gong Show'' was a television Variety Show spoof broadcast on NBC 's daytime schedule from June 14 , 1976 through July 21 , 1978 and in First-run Syndication in the U.S. from 1976 to 1980. The NBC incarnation and the later years of the syndicated version were emceed by Chuck Barris , who also produced them. Gary Owens hosted the first syndicated season. SHOW FORMAT Each show presented a contest between amateur performers of often dubious talent, with a panel of three celebrity judges. The program's frequent judges included Jaye P. Morgan , Arte Johnson , Rip Taylor , Jamie Farr , and Anson Williams . If any one of the judges considered an act to be particularly bad, he or she could strike a large Gong , thus forcing the performer to stop. Most of the performers took the gong with sheepish good grace, but there were exceptions. Originally, panelists had to wait 20 seconds before they could gong an act; this was later extended to 30, and finally 45. Knowing this, some savvy contestants deliberately stopped performing just before the 45-second rule kicked in, but Barris would overrule this gambit and disqualify them. On other occasions, an act would be gonged before its minimum time was up; Barris would overrule the gong, and the hapless act would be obliged to continue with the full knowledge that their fate was sealed. When an act was on the verge of being gonged, the laughter and anticipation built as the judges patiently waited to deliver the coup de grace: they would stand up slowly and heft their mallets deliberately, like baseball players in the on-deck circle, letting everyone (including the contestant) know what was coming. Sometimes, pantomimed disputes would erupt between judges, as one celebrity would attempt to physically obstruct another celebrity from gonging the act. The camera would cut back and forth between the performers onstage, and the mock struggle over their fate. If the act survived without being gonged, he/she/they were given a score by each of the three judges on a scale of 1-10, for a maximum score of 30. On the NBC run, the contestant with the highest combined score won the grand prize of $516.32 (reportedly the Screen Actors Guild 's minimum pay for a day's work) and a "Golden Gong" trophy. On the subsequent syndicated run, the prize was $712.05. In the event of a tie, three different tiebreakers were used in at various times during the show's run; at first, the studio audience decided the winner by their applause; later, the producers chose the winner; later still, the celebrities chose the winner. When Barris announced the final score, a Dwarf in formal wear (former Munchkin Jerry Maren ) would run onstage, throwing confetti while balloons dropped from overhead. On one memorable occasion, ''all'' the acts were so bad that ''everybody'' got gonged. When the time came to announce the winner, the curtains opened on an empty stage -- but Barris still made his usual triumphant curtain speech, exulting, "We just saved $516.32!" Originally, the show was advertised as having each day's winning contestants come back after a few weeks (this is also mentioned in the pilot episode) to compete in a "tournament of champions", with the winner being given the chance to appear in an unspecified nightclub act. However, only one of these tournaments was ever held. The winners on the NBC version became eligible to appear on the syndicated version for a chance to earn that show's prize. Hostesses included Siv Aberg, a Swedish -born model who appeared on Barris's syndicated '' New Treasure Hunt ,'' and Barris's then-teenaged daughter Della. Johnny Jacobs and, on occasion, Jack Clark served as announcers. 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 " White Christmas .") The annual Christmas episode also featured a major rule change; for one day, in honor of the holiday spirit, judges were not permitted to gong contestants. Predictably, Christmas shows were heavily loaded with the most unappealing or talentless acts available. BARRIS AS EMCEE Chuck Barris , an established Game Show producer ('' The Dating Game '', '' The Newlywed Game '') was not the original host; he was an emergency replacement for John Barbour. Barbour, who later hosted '' Real People '' for NBC, objected to the satirical concept and tried to steer the show toward a traditional amateur-hour format. (The very earliest episodes had the celebrity judges earnestly giving helpful advice to the amateur performers.) An NBC executive who had watched Barris rehearse the show suggested that Barris replace Barbour. Only when the executive threatened not to take the show at all did the reluctant Barris agree to put on the host's tuxedo himself. Barris was ill at ease before the camera, but his determination to make a success of the show was obvious to the viewer, and his awkwardness was curiously endearing. He had a nervous habit of clapping his hands together and pointing to the camera while talking. He did this so often that, by the show's second year, it had become a Running Gag : the 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 sucker the audience (who were unable to stop their clap). Barris wore a variety of unfashionable hats on camera, and frequently changed them during the show. A hat rack could be seen at stage right, next to the house band, Milton DeLugg and His Band with a Thug (a play on venerable maestro Les Brown and His Band of Renown). Producer Chris Bearde, formerly of '' Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In '', clashed with Chuck 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 in full charge of the show. Before long Barris was working so loosely that some viewers assumed he was drunk (or worse). He would pull his hat down over his eyes, totally obscuring them. His monologues, never exactly crisp or slick, occasionally rambled. Barris later recounted in an interview that he was never drunk, and that he would not allow drugs in his production company. If Barris enjoyed an act, it was obvious: he would stand there beaming. For the losers, no matter how untalented, Barris was unfailingly positive about their performances, often consoling them after being gonged with supposedly comforting words like "I don't know why they did that! I loved your act. But then again, I also like getting a tick bath." Or, "But then again, I love cramps." 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. Frequently, Barris would lead into commercial breaks with the vague promise, "We'll be right back, with more... ''stuff''!" BANDLEADER MILTON DELUGG DeLugg, a popular musician and bandleader of the 1940s, 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 Thanksgiving Day parade). Barris originally regarded Milton DeLugg as "an anachronism", but he soon found that DeLugg was very much attuned to the crazy tone of the show, and his band kept the show's energy level high. The band even led into station breaks, with Barris's enthusiastic "Take me into the commercial, Milt!" cueing the musicians. DeLugg also participated in NBC's prime-time spinoff, ''The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show'' (see "Spinoffs" below for notes). RECURRING BITS The show had many running gags, and characters who appeared as regular performers.
CONTROVERSIAL ACTS ''The Gong Show'' was infamous for a few especially controversial acts. The most memorable of all of them was an act called "Have You Got a Nickel?" (also known as "The Popsicle Twins"), which consisted of two 17-year-old girls, sitting on stage and provocatively sucking Popsicle s, all with no musical accompaniment. Jaye P. Morgan would not allow either of the other judges to hit the gong on the non-act. '' The Gong Show Movie '' includes 10 seconds of footage from the Popsicle Twins. Years later, Barris told an interviewer that the censors would regularly reject acts that he thought were safe enough to air. So, he made it a point to submit acts to the censors that were totally over the line, in the hope that some of the less questionable ones would slip through. The Popsicle Twins' act was, in Barris's mind, far too suggestive, and he'd submitted it as a Stalking Horse . In a May 2007 interview with Minneapolis deejay Dan Barriero, Barris corrected the commonly-held belief that the women were merely ''portraying'' minors, revealing that the girls ''were'' just 17 years old at the time. He said that the usually diligent censors were asleep at the wheel during pre-screening and the act was allowed to go on in the Eastern and Central time zones before they realized what was going on, but the network did censor the telecast for the Mountain and Pacific time zones. Some insiders have claimed that it was this act that led to ''The Gong Show'' being canceled. As performers, the Popsicle Twins' act did not go over very well at all with the celebrity judges, who awarded it a combined score of only 12 points (though they did receive a perfect 10 from Jaye P. Morgan, who quipped, "That's how ''I'' got started!"). Another impromptu moment came in early 1978, when Jaye P. Morgan ripped off her top and exposed her breasts while Gene Gene was dancing; this "flashing" incident was the last straw for NBC, who promptly dropped her from the show for the remainder of its daytime run (though she would continue to appear as a regular on the nighttime syndicated version). The ribald Morgan often inserted risque material into the programs, such as during a performance by Chuck D'Imperio, "The Shower Singer". D'Imperio sang "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" while naked in a shower, inspiring judges Morgan, Jamie Farr and Arte Johnson to do a rousing dance around the shower stall at center stage. Jaye P. poked her head inside the shower, and later commented, "I didn't care too much for his singing, but I'll certainly give him a big ''10'' for what I saw in the shower!" She later on made an appearance on the NBC finale, dancing along with Chuck and the others. The young David Letterman guested as a ''Gong Show'' panelist when he was unknown to most of the national public. After he gonged one act, the outraged performer glared at Letterman and shouted, "Who ''are'' you?" LEGITIMATE TALENT The two biggest ''Gong Show''-related show-biz 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 appearance and recorded the top-20 disco hit "Got To Be Real." Among the other true talents that appeared on the show were:
::Later famous as Pee Wee Herman )
::The musical theater group that would evolve into the new wave band Oingo Boingo )
::Billed as "the world's worst band"
::Singing under the pseudonym "Sharon Shamus"
::He later appeared in the '' Police Academy '' film series.
::He would go on to be WGN's second '' Bozo The Clown '' from 1984 to 2001). He appeared more than once as "Professor Flamo" -- holding his hand directly over lighted candles, the Professor would "sing" in pained tones as he moved from "low-note" to "high-note" candles.
::Juggler, comedienne and comedy writer. "Queen of the Oddballs"
::Actor. Removed a leaf from a tree, put it up to his mouth, and "played" the leaf. He was "gonged". RATINGS/SCHEDULING At the time of its debut, ''The Gong Show'' was an unlikely choice to find a slot on a daytime schedule. But NBC decided to take the chance on Barris's talent show to fix a scheduling problem at 12:30 p.m. Eastern/11:30 a.m. Central, where no fewer than seven shows had aired in the past two-and-a-half years. This was NBC's ''least'' important time slot, running only 25 minutes (leaving room for a five-minute newscast anchored by Edwin Newman ), so the actual program content was less than 20 minutes. Many NBC affiliates in larger eastern-time-zone 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 picked up the program from the NBC affiliate that had rejected it, as occurred in Boston ). NBC hoped the show would attract different audiences than those watching the soap operas on ABC and CBS . CBS' regularly scheduled soap, '' Search For Tomorrow ,'' had run for 25 years. According to the A. C. Nielsen company, the demographics for ''Gong'' showed very low viewership (well behind the competing soaps) among the section of the viewing audience that made up the largest percentage of the total viewing audience for the time block from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET: women, ages 30-65, married and/or widowed, and primarily employed only as homemakers with two to five children. The same demographic data showed, however, that ''Gong'' managed to bring in viewers from target markets that traditionally were not TV viewers during the daytime hours--males, ages 16-30, single or married, fully employed--more than any other daytime show for the two years the show broadcast on the network. This meant that ''Gong'' had not stolen away audience share from the other networks; rather, it had attracted a new one. After the New Year, ''Gong'' found itself at 4 p.m./3 Central (and expanded to a full 30 minutes), succeeding the cancelled soap '' Somerset ''. However, numerous NBC affiliates had been pre-empting the slot for years, meaning that ''Gong'' ran at a disadvantage against CBS's '' Tattletales '' and ABC's '' The Edge Of Night .'' By early December, the network decided to return ''Gong'' to 12:30/11:30; at the start of the year, NBC had discontinued the five-minute newscast, meaning the program could remain at a full 30 minutes. Despite fairly respectable ratings for a non-soap-opera midday show, NBC cancelled ''Gong'', with its final episode to air on July 21 , 1978 . Much speculation occurred as to the network's true motivations for dumping the show. Barris himself has commented that the official reason he heard was that NBC acted in response to both "lower than expected ratings" and a desire by the network to "re-tailor the morning shows to fit the standard morning demographics." ''America Alive,'' a magazine-style variety program hosted by Art Linkletter 's son Jack, replaced ''Gong.'' Following the cancellation, many critics and industry analysts--including Gene Shalit and Rona Barrett --reported having heard comments from within NBC's programming department from "sources preferring anonymity" that the true reason behind the cancellation was Barris's refusal to tone down the racy nature of the show. According to the sources, after the "Popsicle Twins" incident and Morgan's "breast baring", Barris had been given an ultimatum by NBC's Standards and Practices department to deliver cleaner shows, with a particular eye to the potential children and youth watching the show. Barris, however, continued to deliver shows with the same amount of supposedly questionable content, apparently in an effort to call the network's bluff. CANCELLATION, AND THE FINAL EPISODE NBC allowed Barris to continue the show for the rest of the contract, and Barris made no perceptible change in preparation for the end. On the final episode, Murray Langston appeared in his real persona to host the show, after Chuck started the show doing a "Chuck's Fables" sketch. The rest of the show was done in sort of a way to explain the life of the show, and its cancellation. Barris managed to have the last word on the cancellation: he appeared as a contestant himself. Playing in a Country Music band called "The Hollywood Cowboys", Barris sang Johnny Paycheck 's '' Take This Job And Shove It ,'' and even gave the camera a "middle finger salute" (obscene gesture) to accentuate his point. The network, of course, censored the offending digit in the same way it handled offensive celebrity score cards: the word "OOPS!" superimposed over a still shot of the set. He was gonged by Jamie Farr. Gene Gene the Dancing Machine then came out after a few more skits, and did his famous dance. The rest of the cast, including staff members, people who participated, and even Jaye P. Morgan, all joined in at the end to dance with him. ''Gong'' continued in syndication for two years after NBC's daytime dismissal, often airing on weekends. Not surprisingly, with censors largely out of the picture, this evening version pushed the envelope even further, with the choice by local stations to determine the show's suitability for local mores and taste. This version is chiefly responsible for the show's cult following, since it usually reached a far larger audience than had been possible on daytime. LATER INCARNATIONS
FILM ADAPTATION
FOREIGN VERSIONS
SPINOFFS At the height of the show's popularity, NBC gave Barris a prime-time variety hour, ''The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show''. This was played somewhat more seriously than the zany '' Gong Show '', with Jaye P. Morgan singing straight pop songs as in her nightclub and recording days, and bygone headliners like Slim Gaillard reprising their old hits for an enthusiastic studio audience. EPISODE STATUS All episodes of ''The Gong Show'' are presumed to exist and have been seen on GSN (except the Gary Owens version). An episode of John Barbour's week has been aired by GSN , and an episode of the Owens version is on the trading circuit. LEGACY During its run, many critics excoriated ''The Gong Show'' as one of the worst shows in TV history. Today, ''The Gong Show'' is seen as an inspiration for much of the modern-day genre of Reality Television . ''The Gong Show'' was part of a long continuum of nonprofessional talent shows such as the '' Major Bowes Amateur Hour '', a very popular radio broadcast of the 1930s and '40s. Using a gong or boxing bell, Edward Bowes would chime performers off the stage who he considered to be "dying" onstage. Although many televised talent shows had preceded it, ''The Gong Show'''s Sardonic Outlook continues to influence many unsympathetic talent and Celebreality shows including '' American Idol '', '' America's Got Talent '', and especially '' Pants-Off Dance-Off '', where the often out-of shape Ecdysiast contestants are frequent objects of derision. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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