The Gong Show
The Gong Show | |
---|---|
CBS Television City Hollywood, California (1988–89) Sony Pictures Studios Culver City, California (2017-18) | |
Running time | 18 minutes (early NBC episodes) 23 minutes 42 minutes |
Production companies | Chuck Barris Productions (1976–80) Chris Bearde Productions (1976–78, 1988–89) Barris Productions (1988–89) Barris Industries (1988–89) Den of Thieves (2017–2018) Sony Pictures Television (2017–2018) |
Original release | |
Network | NBC (1976–1978) Syndicated (1976–77, 1977–80, 1988–89) |
Release | June 14, 1976 September 15, 1989 | –
Network | ABC |
Release | June 22, 2017 August 30, 2018 | –
The Gong Show is an American amateur talent contest franchised by Sony Pictures Television to many countries. It was broadcast on NBC's daytime schedule from June 14, 1976, through July 21, 1978, and in first-run syndication from 1976 to 1980 and 1988 to 1989, and was revived in 2017 for broadcast on ABC. The show was created and originally produced by Chuck Barris, who also served as host for the NBC run and from 1977 to 1980 in syndication. Its most recent version was executive-produced by Will Arnett and hosted by Tommy Maitland, a fictional character performed by Mike Myers (uncredited in Season 1). The Gong Show is known for its absurdist humor and style, with the actual competition secondary to the often outlandish acts presented; a small cash prize has typically been awarded to each show's winner.
Format
Each show presented a competition of amateur performers of often dubious talent, with a panel of three celebrity judges. The original program's regular judges included
Any act that survived without being gonged was given a score by each of the three judges on a scale of 0 to 10, for a maximum possible score of 30. On the NBC series, the contestant who achieved the highest combined score won the grand prize: a check for $516.32 (a "highly unusual amount", in Barris's words; reportedly the Screen Actors Guild's minimum pay for a day's work at the time) and a "Golden Gong" trophy. In the show's opening monologue, Barris would describe the amount as "five hundred and sixteen big ones, and thirty-two little ones". The syndicated series' top prize was originally $712.05 (the first episode was $996.83) and later increased to $716.32.[3] In the event of a tie, three different tiebreakers were used at various times during the show's run. Originally the studio audience determined the winner by applause, but this was later changed to a decision by the producers, and later by the celebrity judges. On a few, rare occasions, both winning acts each received a check and a trophy. No prize was awarded if all of the acts on a particular episode were gonged, which occurred at least twice. Runners-up received various prizes; Maureen Orth, on her February 24, 1977, appearance, reported receiving a clothes iron valued at $33.95 for her second-place finish.[4]
When Barris announced the final score, little person actor Jerry Maren (a former Munchkin) ran onstage in top hat and tails, throwing confetti while balloons dropped from overhead.
The daily Gong Show also gave out a "Worst Act of the Week" award (later changed to the "Most Outrageous Act of the Week"), selected by the producers and each week's judges. The winner of this award was announced following the trophy presentation on the Friday show, and the performer received a dirty
Legitimate talent
The two biggest Gong Show-related showbiz successes were
Among the other true talents that appeared on the show were country singer
Personnel
Barris as emcee
An established game show producer (The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game), Barris was originally creator and co-producer of The Gong Show and had no intention of hosting the show himself. He was an emergency replacement for original host John Barbour, who had objected to the show's satirical concept and tried to adopt more of a traditional amateur-hour format. Barbour would eventually serve as producer and co-host of the hit NBC Reality TV series, Real People (1979–84) Barris initially appeared somewhat ill at ease as host, but before long he was working so loosely on camera that many viewers assumed that he was intoxicated from alcohol or other drugs. In a later interview with the
Producer Chris Bearde, formerly of
Musical direction
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
Hostesses
Hostesses included Siv Åberg (a
Broadcast history
NBC
NBC first broadcast the show 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-TV did not run the series, allowing local UHF independent outlet WSBK-TV to broadcast it.
Gong's time slot was given to a new soap opera, Lovers and Friends, on January 3, 1977, and the show replaced the cancelled Another World spinoff Somerset at 4:00 p.m. The time change allowed Gong to expand to a full half-hour.
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.[8]
"Popsicle Twins" incident
During The Gong Show's run, Barris became well known for his clashes with the network censors, intentionally bringing in risque acts as a diversion to allow some of the less racy acts to slip by. In 1977, one of these bait acts, called "Have You Got a Nickel?", made it onto the show. The act consisted of two teenage girls, both wearing shorts, sitting cross-legged on the stage floor and silently eating popsicles in a manner that suggested they were performing fellatio on the frozen treats. The nature of their act led to the two girls being referred to as the "Popsicle Twins".
While the girls were able to complete their act without being gonged, they were given low scores by two of the judges. Phyllis Diller gave them a zero, while Jamie Farr followed with a marginally better 2. Jaye P. Morgan awarded them a 10, quipping, "Do you know that's the way I started (in show business)?" and proceeded to eat one of the girls' popsicles.[9]
Surprisingly, the girls' act was approved by the NBC censors, who apparently did not see anything wrong with it during the rehearsals. However, after the episode was shown in the Eastern Time Zone, NBC cut the act from the later tape delay broadcast for western time zones.
Cancellation
Despite its popularity and respectable ratings for a non-soap-opera midday show, NBC cancelled The Gong Show, with its final episode broadcast on July 21, 1978. At the time, there was much speculation as to the network's true motivations for dumping the popular show. Barris has commented that he heard that NBC's official reason was because of both "lower than expected ratings" and a desire by the network to "re-tailor the morning shows to fit the standard morning demographics" (the move coincided with the arrival of new NBC president Fred Silverman, who was well known for such programming overhauls and was reported to have disliked The Gong Show). America Alive!, a magazine-style variety program hosted by Art Linkletter's son Jack, replaced Gong.[11]
Following the cancellation, many critics and industry analysts – including
Finale
NBC allowed Barris to continue the show for the rest of his contract, and Barris made no perceptible change in preparation for the finale. In the finale, staff member Larry Gotterer appeared as "Fenwick Gotterer" to host the show after Barris started the show doing a "Chuckie's Fables" sketch. The rest of the final episode tried to explain the life of the show and its cancellation. Barris managed to have the last word on the show's demise, appearing as a contestant. Playing in a country music band called "The Hollywood Cowboys" with the house band's rhythm section, Barris sang a slightly modified version of
The group "Lobster Repair" (who performed
Syndicated (1976–80)
After NBC canceled The Gong Show, Barris was evicted from NBC's Burbank studios and production of the nighttime syndicated version moved to the studios of
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's 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. The trauma from the Three's a Crowd's backlash was so severe, in the last several weeks of the Gong Show, Barris reportedly had "a small nervous breakdown" on-air, because he was "bored to death" with broadcasting.
Reruns of the NBC shows 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 broadcast because of musical performance clearance issues. No episodes from the first syndicated season (hosted by Gary Owens) 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 from September 12, 1988, to May 26, 1989, with reruns airing through September 15. Each winner was paid $701. The last show of the Don Bleu's revival is dedicated for a long-week tribute to France.
Extreme Gong, a later incarnation of The Gong Show on the
Comedy Central debuted a new incarnation called The Gong Show with Dave Attell, which lasted for eight weeks in the summer of 2008.[14] 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.[15] 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.[16]
2017 revival
On October 3, 2016, ABC and Sony Pictures announced a 10-episode summer 2017 revival of The Gong Show executive produced by Will Arnett.[17][18]
The broadcast of the 2017 revival premiered on ABC on June 22, 2017,[19] hosted by previously unknown "British comedian" Tommy Maitland. Maitland was, in fact, a character portrayed by Mike Myers, although neither ABC nor Myers confirmed this and ABC officially credited Maitland as host and executive producer.[20] Maitland's catchphrase was "Who's a cheeky monkey?"[21] He also periodically used Barris's "back with more stuff" catchphrase to lead into commercials.
Celebrity guest judges for the 2017 revival included Arnett,
The winner of each show received a gong trophy and an oversized check in the amount of US$2,000.17, later increased by a penny the following year.[23] The final episode of the first season featured a memorial to Barris, who died prior to the series' premiere in 2017.
On January 8, 2018, ABC announced that the revival would be picked up for a second season, officially confirmed Myers as the portrayer of Maitland and crediting Myers as an executive producer by name.
Film
In 1980,
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 |
Chile | ¿Y usted qué hace? (Segment on Sábados Gigantes) | Don Francisco | Canal 13 | 1983 |
Germany[29] | 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[30] | Gong Show | Arie Untung and Fenita Arie | Trans TV | 2006–12 |
Gong Show Indonesia | Gracia Indri | RCTI | 2019–20 | |
New Zealand[31] | The Gong Show | Jeremy Corbett and Nigel Corbett | TV2 | August 9, 1997 – February 28, 1998 |
Thailand | ก็องโชว์ | Shahkrit Yamnam | iTV | 2003 |
United Kingdom | The Gong Show | Frankie Howerd | Southern Television Channel 4 |
1977 (pilot) December 9, 1985 (pilot) |
United States (original format)[32][33] | 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 – August 30, 2018 |
Spinoffs
At the height of the Gong 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 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 a studio audience. Other spinoffs include The $1.98 Beauty Show hosted by Rip Taylor and The Gong Show Movie.
See also
- Minutes to Fame, a similar Hong Kong talent show
References
- ^ Slate as seen at the start of the master copy of the finale, recorded on June 24, 1978.
- ^ Jamie Farr. "The Gong Show" Foundation Interviews. Emmy TV Legends.
- ^ "The Gong Show". TVparty. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ a b Orth, Maureen (February 24, 2019). "Gong Show contestant". Retrieved February 24, 2019.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Green Jello on the Gong Show". greenjello333. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
- ^ "Danny's Death: A Travesty of Justice". Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ "Chuck Barris Interview". Archive of American Television. Retrieved July 22, 2017.
- IMDb
- ^ a b "A popsicle act gets Gong Show in trouble". The Independent-Record. Helena, Montana. Chicago Sun-Times. September 21, 1977. p. 33. Retrieved July 1, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Salon.
- ^ "TV: 'America Alive' Makes Debut on NBC". The New York Times. 25 July 1978.
- ^ "Chuck Barris, Wacky Host and Creator of 'The Gong Show,' Dies at 87". 22 March 2017.
- ^ "Going... Going... GONG!, Las Vegas Sun talks about Extreme Gong's cancellation, August 26th 1999". 27 August 1999.
- ^ "New 'Gong Show' Coming to Comedy Central". TV Week. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ Dollar, Steve. "Flocking to Meet (and Avoid) the Gong". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ "The Gong Show Live". Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ O'Neill, Natalie. "ABC bringing back oddball game show 'The Gong Show'". The New York Post. Retrieved 2016-12-09.
- ^ "Will Arnett and ABC are reviving the '70s quasi-talent show 'The Gong Show'". Los Angeles Times. 3 October 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
- ^ Gettell, Oliver (June 7, 2017). "Mike Myers gets cheeky in The Gong Show trailer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2017-06-12.
- ^ Romano, Nick (May 3, 2017). "Mike Myers debuts new character, Gong Show host Tommy Maitland". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2017-06-12.
- ^ Furdyk, Brent (2017-06-07). "Mike Myers Is A 'Cheeky Monkey' In First Look At 'Gong Show' Reboot". ET Canada. Archived from the original on 2017-08-16. Retrieved 2017-08-15.
- ^ Rose, Lacey (April 28, 2017). "ABC's 'Gong Show' Reboot Taps One Very Interesting Host". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2017-06-12.
- ^ Ali, Lorraine (22 June 2017). "'The Gong Show' reboots and 'Boy Band' dances to distract in a new era of tumult". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "ABC Renews The Gong Show for a Second Season". 8 January 2018.
- ^ a b "The Gong Show: Season Two; Mike Myers Game Show Return Set by ABC – canceled TV shows – TV Series Finale". canceled TV shows – TV Series Finale. 2018-04-19. Retrieved 2018-08-22.
- ^ Sandra Brennan (2007). "The Gong Show Movie (1980)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 14 December 2007. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ "The Gong Show Movie (1980)". Shock Cinema. Retrieved 6 July 2015.
- ^ "The Gong Show Movie bangs Blu-ray in March – Inside Pulse". 9 March 2016.
- ^ "Die Gong Show - KOMPLETTE FOLGE mit Marco Ströhlein, Guido Cantz, Hugo Egon Balder & Co. (2003) - video Dailymotion". 13 February 2015.
- ^ "OFFICIAL ACOUNT GONG SHOW ID (@gongshowindonesia) • Instagram photos and videos".
- ^ "The Gong Show - the Gong Show Series 1 Programme 1".
- ^ The Futon Critic
- ^ TV Squad: "The Gong Show" announces celebrity judges