GONG: The Chuck Barris Story

Summary

Podcast Summary: "GONG: The Chuck Barris Story"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Stuff You Should Know
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Episode: GONG: The Chuck Barris Story
• Release Date: January 7, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Josh and Chuck delve into the intriguing life and career of Chuck Barris, the enigmatic creator behind iconic game shows like The Dating Game and The Gong Show. The conversation intertwines Barris's groundbreaking contributions to television with the controversial claims he made about his secret life as a CIA assassin.

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Early Beginnings of Chuck Barris

Chuck Barris was born in Philadelphia in the early 20th century and attended the Drexel Institute of Technology in the 1950s with aspirations of becoming a Tin Pan Alley songwriter. His early career saw a pivot to television after an unsuccessful stint at NBC in 1955. His entry into TV was somewhat serendipitous, ultimately leading him to become a page at ABC, where he was initially tasked with overseeing Dick Clark on American Bandstand to prevent corruption scandals.

Josh [07:03]: "While this was going on, he was a secret assassin for the CIA."

This seemingly innocuous role would inadvertently catapult Barris into the television spotlight, especially after his meticulous record-keeping helped Dick Clark navigate the payola scandals, earning Barris a full-time position at ABC.

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Creation of Iconic Game Shows

Barris's entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish Chuck Barris Productions in 1965, funded by a $20,000 loan from his stepfather. This venture birthed The Dating Game, a pioneering show that deviated from traditional quiz formats by introducing a matchmaking element.

Chuck [10:41]: "The Dating Game was huge. I mean, I watched a lot of Dating Game as a kid."

The Dating Game quickly became a smash hit, featuring rising stars like Sally Field, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tom Selleck before they became household names. Following its success, Barris introduced The Newlywed Game, which explored the dynamics of newly married couples through a series of revealing questions.

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The Gong Show: Concept and Execution

In 1976, at the height of his career, Chuck Barris took a bold step by becoming the host of The Gong Show, a decision that would cement his legacy in television history. Initially envisioned as a talent show akin to today's America's Got Talent, Barris found the actual talent pool lacking, leading to a unique blend of demented variety and amateur acts.

Chuck [09:28]: "The Gong Show was really, really funny because the talent was bad."

The show featured a celebrity panel who could strike a gong to halt poor performances, adding an element of unpredictability and humor. Despite its unconventional format, The Gong Show became a cult classic, launching the careers of performers like Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman) and Cheryl Lynn, known for the disco hit "Got To Be Real."

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Impact and Legacy of the Gong Show

The Gong Show was groundbreaking for its time, blending humor with entertainment in ways that had never been attempted before. It provided a platform for aspiring artists to showcase their talents, regardless of their initial skill levels, fostering a unique environment where creativity and spontaneity thrived.

Josh [21:24]: "Part talent show, (most contestants conspicuously lacked talent) part demented variety show."

The show's legacy is marked by its influence on future talent-based programs and its role in democratizing entertainment, allowing ordinary people to participate in television in unprecedented ways.

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Controversies and Downfall

Despite its popularity, The Gong Show and Barris's other productions were not without controversy. Shows like The $98 Beauty Show and the ill-fated Three's a Crowd faced backlash for their blatant misogyny and questionable formats. These controversies culminated in significant criticism from organizations like the National Organization for Women and the United Auto Workers, leading to Barris's retreat from the television industry.

Chuck [28:27]: "The United Auto Workers also came out against it really hard."

Additionally, Barris's venture into autobiographical writing with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind introduced a shocking narrative where he confessed to being a CIA assassin responsible for 33 murders. This claim was met with skepticism and denials from the CIA, further complicating his public persona.

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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Its Reception

In 1984, Barris published Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, an autobiography that blurred the lines between fact and fiction. The book's assertion that he was a secret CIA assassin captured public imagination but was largely dismissed by critics and the government.

Chuck [33:43]: "The CIA just loved it."

The memoir was adapted into a film directed by George Clooney, which chose to present the narrative at face value rather than exploring the metaphorical aspects, leading to mixed reviews.

Josh [34:02]: "It was a weird movie and it was a weird book."

Barris's claims remained a topic of debate, with some viewing them as a metaphor for his struggles in the television industry, while others dismissed them outright.

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Final Years and Legacy

Chuck Barris continued to write, publishing Bad Grass Never Dies in 2004, which did not mention his CIA activities, suggesting a possible distancing from his earlier claims. Despite his attempts to rebrand himself as a novelist, Barris remains predominantly remembered as the "King of Schlock" in television.

Chuck [42:22]: "A real visionary in a lot of ways. And just a kind of a kooky guy."

Barris passed away in 2017 at the age of 87, leaving behind a complex legacy woven with both innovative television contributions and enigmatic personal narratives.

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Notable Quotes

• Chuck Barris on The Gong Show's Impact:

  Chuck [09:28]: "The Gong Show was really, really funny because the talent was bad."

• Josh on Barris's Vision:

  Josh [22:08]: "He is probably the weirdest TV show host in TV show history."

• Chuck on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind:

  Chuck [35:23]: "The CIA just loved it."

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Conclusion

The episode "GONG: The Chuck Barris Story" offers a comprehensive exploration of Chuck Barris's multifaceted life—from his innovative strides in game show creation to the mysterious claims of his involvement with the CIA. Through engaging dialogue and critical analysis, Josh and Chuck paint a portrait of a man who was as controversial as he was creative, leaving listeners with a deeper understanding of his enduring impact on American television.

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References:

• Transcript excerpts with timestamps provided by the user.
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind by Chuck Barris.
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (Film) directed by George Clooney.

Transcript

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[Chuck]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And this is stuff you should know. And if this were the Gong show, we would have been gong a very long time ago, I believe.

[Chuck]

I think you mean Chucky baby.

[Josh]

Yeah, that's right. Nice catch, because we're talking about Chucky Baby. The original one, not you. The Chucky baby.

[Chuck]

I got called that, though, back then because of this.

[Josh]

Oh, really?

[Chuck]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh]

Boy, you've been alive for a long time.

[Chuck]

I get. Well, I was about to say, man, this was right in my cultural wheelhouse from like 7 to 10. But that makes it a little young for you or a little old for you, I guess.

[Josh]

Yeah. I was a baby when it started. I think I might have not been born quite yet when it started, but, yeah, it was something I watched as a toddler.

[Chuck]

Okay. So did you. Did you watch any Gong show ever? Like, was it reruns or something?

[Josh]

Yeah, I saw some reruns. I was never. I mean, I can understand. The Gong show is a cult classic.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And I totally get why it just never got me in that way. You know what I mean?

[Chuck]

Hey, when you're seven, it's pretty great.

[Josh]

How bad you're like, come on, boobs.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

So we're not talking specifically just about the Gong Show. We're talking about the guy who is routinely wrongly attributed for creat creating the Gong Show. And the reason why is because he was a legendary game show producer and he hosted the Gong show, and his name was Chuck Barris. But just to kind of clear the air right out of the gate, the Gong show was actually created by Chris Beard, who would go on to become a legendary creator of another cult classic called Sherman oaks in the 90s. I never watched that.

[Chuck]

I've never heard of that.

[Josh]

I feel like I had heard of it, but I really don't think I ever saw it. There's a lot of the 90s I probably don't remember. But, you know, I don't think I watched Sherman oates.

[Chuck]

Yeah, the 90s were our 70s.

[Josh]

Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like our 70s and our 60s combined.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And the reason we're talking about Chuck Barris. Is not just the fact that he was way ahead of his time in a lot of ways. As far as what kind of content he was putting on television. Like a real visionary. If you look back at what we're seeing today, you know, and what he was doing at the time. But the reason we're talking about Chuck Barris is because he did that. And also, as we will learn in Act 3. Well, we'll learn it now, but we'll get into it in Act 3. Chuck Barris also wrote a book in 1984. After his TV career was pretty much over. Wherein he said, basically that while this was going on. He was a secret assassin for the CIA. And carried out at least 33 murders on behalf of the American government. And that was a book called Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Also made into a film of that same name. Which makes this sort of an obvious pick for something for us to go over.

[Josh]

I thought you were gonna say, like, something new came up about him or something like that recently. So how did you think of Chuck Barris? Like, are you always just walking around with Chuck Barris in the back of your mind?

[Chuck]

I don't. It popped up somehow, and I was like. Because I saw that movie, and I was like, oh, yeah. That's so weird that Chuck Barris wrote a memoir. In which he said that he was a CIA assassin. Like, what was up? Because I never even did any research. To see how untrue that may or may not have been. So that was really kind of it.

[Josh]

Yeah. In the movie. I think that was George Clooney's directorial debut. They treat it like. Yeah, it's part of his life narrative. Which is an interesting choice. But also it kind of gets you out of, like, really getting caught in the weeds. Of trying to explore if it was true and if it's not why he did that. I think it was a good move, actually.

[Chuck]

Yeah. So here we go on the Baron of Bad Taste. The King of Dynamite Television.

[Josh]

I've got one.

[Chuck]

The King of Schlock and drumroll.

[Josh]

The Ayatollah of Trashola. Isn't that great?

[Chuck]

And very. Of the time. That fits. Yeah.

[Josh]

The Ayatollah was On people's minds in the mid to late 70s.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Yeah. So, yeah, this guy was born in 1929. Apparently when you read about interviews that he's given, like, he was born in 29, 30, 31, 32. He is not huge on keeping up with consistent details. And I still don't know whether that was intentional. Like, was he toying with people all this time or did he just not pay attention to that kind of thing because he had bigger stuff going on.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Like killing people. Uh, who knows? But he is a guy from Philly. Went to, at the time, Drexel Institute of Technology, now Drexel university, in the 50s. Wanted to be a songwriter for Tin Pan Alley for a little while. Ultimately would write a song, which we'll get to, and then decided he wanted to get into television and became a page at NBC in 1955, which went nowhere because the daytime sales department he was a page for at the time was eliminated. But that gave him the TV bug.

[Josh]

Yeah, that was what he wanted to do, was crack into tv. He even went so far as to marry the niece of the founder of cbs.

[Chuck]

Not a bad man.

[Josh]

A woman named Lynn Levy. No. But yeah, in the context of his ambitions, you're like, like, what's that? Like, you know, deliberate kind of thing. Who knows? I guess it doesn't really matter.

[Chuck]

Although, yeah, he was married to her for 19 years. I will point that out. You know, so it seems like a real marriage.

[Josh]

Talk about keeping up appearances.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

So, yeah, he started out like Kenneth from 30 Rock. Didn't last. And then I don't know how it happened, but he ended up getting an assignment from abc. So he started at NBC, moved to abc, and his sole job was to go babysit Dick Clark to make sure that he wasn't accepting bribes or being a corrupt host of American Bandstand. That was his job in his 20s. Yeah. And it was supposed to last just a couple of weeks. It ended up lasting a year. And then, very interestingly, he kept copious notes. Every day he would write up like a minute detailed account of everything that happened on set that day. And he would also include jokes and, like, parts of his philosophy and stuff like that. And it turned into like a 700 page document that ended up bailing Dick Clark out.

[Chuck]

Yeah. In the end, when Dick Clark testified in front of the U.S. house subcommittee, it was about, you know, payola scandals of, you know, pay for play, basically for music, which was illegal. It actually got him out, like you said. And Dick Clark was like, hey, buddy, I Wonder what you were scribbling on all those that whole year. But you helped me out inadvertently. And now you got a full time job in our daytime TV department here at abc.

[Josh]

Yeah. He also said, hey, by the way, have you ever thought about getting into songwriting? And in fact, Dick Clark set him up with Freddie Boom Boom Cannon. A top recording artist at the time and a friend of Dick Clark's. And he recorded a song, Palisades park, that Chuck Barris wrote. And it made it to like number three on the Billboard charts.

[Chuck]

Oh, yeah, I know it's.

[Josh]

And I think in 1962, I think it was.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And the Beach Boys ended up covering it. So that alone probably made him quite successful right out. Right off the bat.

[Chuck]

Yeah, for sure. Even though his songwriting career. I mean, that was kind of it for songwriting. Because his TV career was taking off. He, by all appearances, was a very hard worker. And, you know, I don't want to come across as we're just, you know, singing Chuck Barris praises constantly here. He changed the game in a lot of ways in TV. But as we'll see, because it was the 70s. There was a lot of misogyny tied into stuff he was doing on tv. Which we'll get to. Just wanted to sort of level set on that.

[Josh]

Yeah, I think that was good.

[Chuck]

But when he was working for abc, he became. Worked his way up to director of daytime programs. And initially got on the map with them by making a pilot about. It was called People Poker. And it was sort of the first sign that he wanted to do a different kind of game show. Like sort of a. What would become like a Jerry Springer type thing with a game show component. As far as People Poker goes was people were on the show to guess the professions of different other people. In this pilot, which is, I believe, as far as it went, he had all women on the show. He had brain surgeons, police officers and sex workers. And it ended up that the cops and the sex workers got into a literal fight. And the show obviously didn't go anywhere. And he left ABC not too long after.

[Josh]

Yeah. So that was huge. That he struck out on his own. And in fact, shortly after that, he founded Chuck Barris productions. That was 1965. So probably as the door was still swinging behind him at abc. Which, by the way, you said he was the director of daytime programs. Apparently he didn't like that title. So he changed his official title to Duke of Daytime. That's the kind of guy he was. This guy's working his way up. And that's One of the things he does. Right. So it does make sense that he goes off and founds his own production company with a $20,000 loan from his stepdad. And that ended up paying off because in 1965, he developed the Dating Game, turned around and sold it to his former employer, abc. And it was basically off the bat, a smash hit. In that it was innovative. It was a pioneering game show up to this point. Like you said, this was all new. People answered questions on quiz shows or there were puzzles or something like that. No one was doing this kind of thing. And Chuck Barris literally came up with it. Sorry. He genuinely, sincerely came up with it. And it put him on the map and just kind of showed everybody what he could do for better or worse, like you were saying.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And the Dating Game was huge. I mean, I watched a lot of Dating Game as a kid. Jim Lang was the original host back then. Eventually, Chuck Woolery would take over. He'll be back in two and two, as we all know.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Chuck]

And if you've never seen the Dating Game, the format was there are three potential dates hidden on the other side of a screen. And a woman interviews these three men and then supposedly goes on a date with one of them. But what it became known for eventually was people coming on early in their career who were underemployed or unemployed actors. So Sally Field, Schwarzenegger, Tom Selleck, John Hamm, Andy Kaufman as Lotka. Like, workshopping a character as a contestant on the Dating Game, as an eligible.

[Josh]

Bachelor on the Dating Game as Latke.

[Chuck]

Oh, yeah. It was a big deal. It was a huge show. And I want to quickly plug this new movie from Anna Kendrick, Woman of the Hour on Netflix. Have you heard of it?

[Josh]

Yeah, I haven't seen it yet, though.

[Chuck]

It's good, man. Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, she Knocked it Out of the Park. I think it's a really effective movie about the true story of a Dating Game bachelor. Rodney Alcala, who was a serial killer. And he was on the Game after he had been a serial, while he was a serial killer, won the Dating Game. And the woman who was the bachelorette refused to go on the date with him because he was such a creepy weirdo. But it's a really effective movie. Like, she nails the threat that a woman feels generally from men more effectively than maybe I've seen anyone ever do it. Like crawling out of your skin just by this guy being in a parking lot with her at night, that kind of thing.

[Josh]

Yeah. And plus also at that time, too that was fully socially supported. Men could be total creeps and put their hands on women. And it was pretty much like, yeah, that's just the way things are at the time, too.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Good movie, though.

[Josh]

So he followed up the Dating Game with the Newlywed Game.

[Chuck]

Huge.

[Josh]

Very similar, except, well, not that similar. I mean, the format was different enough that. That it's not the exact same game. But he took married couples. We've talked about this before, I think, on our game shows episode. And he would separate the husbands and keep the wives back. And ask them questions about what their husband would answer, say to some question. Then he'd bring the husbands out, and they'd go through and see if their answers matched. And then invariably, like, they would get it wrong. And some wives would get mad if they got it right. Some couples would kiss. It was, like, very cute. They were newlyweds. Right. But the content of both the Dating Game and the Newlywed Game were so raunchy that in a lot of cases, there were segments of the Dating Game that Chuck Barris is like. Well, can't use that because the guy mentioned his. His junk in, like, a really vulgar term. Yeah, like, like, like junk. Yeah, exactly. He said. He said even he was surprised at first. That's not what he was going for. But when it. It started to. When he could get enough of the innuendo and everything out as produced shows that were aired and the popularity that they were met with, he's like, well, I guess this is the direction I'm going.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And so for the first time on tv, you had people airing parts of their personal lives on television. And you had people that Chuck Barris even acknowledged, like, the prize money wasn't good on these shows. Like, they were doing these shows to be on tv.

[Josh]

Yeah. That was also partially deliberate on his. His. His part. Because I. I read an interview with him. And he said that, like, a wife will bonk her husband over the head with, like, the. The card that she has the answer written on if he gets a question wrong when there's a toaster at stake. But if you have, like, a yacht at stake, it completely changes the dynamic of the game and takes away all the fun. Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck]

We could have won a yacht.

[Josh]

Exactly. But at the same time, he also said that, like, the Newlywed Game was also famous for couples just going totally gaga over pretty mundane prizes.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And the other couples would be upset or they look kind of upset that they didn't win. And he said that he would do pre interviews with people and ask what their dream prize was. And then he would put together three couples that all had the same dream prize. So it would hurt that much more when they didn't get it. So I don't know which one's true or maybe both are true. But that's another. Another example of him speaking out of both sides of his mouth, which he did a lot.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And the data shows that 80% of newlywed couples in the 70s, their dream prize was an all expense paid trip to Acapulco.

[Josh]

Yeah, well, that's what they got, whether they liked it or not. The most exotic place in the world at the time.

[Chuck]

Oh, man. Acapulco was so big back then, I didn't even know anything about Acapulco. Is it still around?

[Josh]

I believe it's still around. I don't think it's fallen into the ocean yet.

[Chuck]

All right, so Barris is killing it with Dating Game and Newlywed Game. He started just producing show after show after show. The only one I will mention is the only one from this list that I really watched, which was the $98 beauty show hosted by the late, great Rip Taylor.

[Josh]

Yeah, I'm glad that was the one you chose. I was like, what is that? And I researched it, and I was like, you have to be.

[Chuck]

It was so good. The prize was $1.98. And Rip Taylor's just a legend and, you know, sort of an American gay icon in the 70s.

[Josh]

Yeah. The guy who wore a really bad toupee and would throw confetti all the time.

[Chuck]

He's great.

[Josh]

Yeah, he was great. So, yeah, that show was one of the ones that Chuck Barris really took a lot of heat for. It was described by him as a spoof of pageants. Right. So they were making fun of actual pageants, but the way that they made fun of it was to humiliate and embarrass women who normally wouldn't have participated in a traditional beauty contest.

[Chuck]

That's right.

[Josh]

Rather than celebrating them, they pointed out all the reasons why they couldn't have made it on a real beauty contest. It was just some of the quotes I read were really, really mean. And yet it was a hit show at the time. I think it was just on for a couple of years. But that was. Seems to be about how long his shows lasted. But they were like huge flashes in the pan sometimes, not all the time. He had some flops, but he would. You know, a show like that would be on for a few years, and then it'd just be gone.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And just to stick up for myself a little bit. The eight year old Chuck didn't realize he was being fed blatant misogyny at the time.

[Josh]

Yeah, again, I mean, that's how things were. It's really, like changed for the better in so many ways. Because. Yeah, I'm sure grown men were just laughing so hard at those insults. It's just crazy.

[Chuck]

Yeah, I was probably like, my dad's laughing, so let me bond with him.

[Josh]

Exactly.

[Chuck]

Or try to, at least, so. Oh, no, no, no. Do your laugh from the. That's not quite a laugh from the Halloween episode.

[Josh]

I can't redo it. It'll just be a disappointment.

[Chuck]

Oh, man. All right, before we break, we should mention that he got into book writing in 1974. He would, like you said, go on to write many books. And I believe at the end of his life, even kind of hoped he would be remembered as an author rather than the king of schlock. But in 74, he published you and Me, Babe. You and Me, Babe, A fictionalized account of his marriage. Which ended a couple of years after the book came out. But he gamed the system like we talked about gaming the system for the New York Times bestseller list in that shorty episode. Landed on that New York Times bestseller list. But, you know, that's. That's how he started his book writing career.

[Josh]

Yeah. And at the time, this is 1974. This is like you pretty much were in the TV industry to know. To have heard really of Chuck Barris and know what he was doing. He was not a cultural icon yet. So that was. There was a chance at the time that he could have been remembered for an author. But he made a huge fateful decision in 1976. And we'll talk about that fateful decision right after this.

[Chuck]

Slick. All right, we're back. Josh left quite a cliffhanger with the word that Chuck Barris made a very faithful decision. And that faithful decision was to be the actual host of what would be the thing he was most known for. The Gong show, which ran for but two years in daytime. Then a couple of more years in syndication until 1980. And, you know, Barris said initially, like, I thought this would be basically what we see now with like America's Got Talent. Like a real talent show with real amateur talent. But he got a lot of bad people in there and decided to go a different route. And the show ended up being very bad talent. That was. I mean, the premise of the show was they performed in front of celebrity. A celebrity panel. And if it Was so bad, the celebrity panel, one of them could, or all of them sometimes could get up and hit the gong, which would end their performance. If they managed to make it through without the gong, they would rate them on a scale of 0 to 10.

[Josh]

Yeah, but the celebrity pan. And we're talking like celebrities of 20 years before panel.

[Chuck]

Right.

[Josh]

Or if they were active celebrities, like, say, Jamie Farr, they were like B list, maybe. Maybe.

[Chuck]

Yeah. They were game show celebrities. Kind of like match match game level stuff.

[Josh]

Right, Right. But they. The celebrity judges on the panel had to wait 45 seconds.

[Chuck]

Right.

[Josh]

He couldn't bang the gong 45 seconds. So you'll see some gong shows where Jamie Farr just standing there at the gong, waiting for that 40, 46 second so he can hit it. And then if they made it 90 seconds, that's when they would judge and potentially win.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And it was just. So I found a description of it. This is Encyclopedia Britannica. It was, quote, part talent show, parentheses. Most contestants conspicuously lacked talent.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Part demented variety show. That's Encyclopedia Britannica describing this.

[Chuck]

Yeah. I mean, it was really, really funny because the talent was bad. And you could laugh at that. The panelists really yucked it up. And sometimes one would have the gong hammer. Whatever you call the thing you hit the gong with is the mallet, I guess. And other celebrity. The panelists would be trying to rip it out of their hands and like, no, no, no, Let it go. They're all hamming it up. And Chuck Barris as host was. He's probably the weirdest TV show host in TV show history. And just how he hosted a show and how he behaved, the weird things he did, it was just very awkward and strange.

[Josh]

Yeah. Like, he would hide his face by pulling hats, like, big old hats that he would wear down over his eyes. And he'd be talking to the audience, like, continuing on the show. But he clearly wanted to crawl into that hat and hide. He was beyond awkward. So when you put all this stuff together, like bad talent acts that aren't trying to be bad in some cases, a really weird, awkward host that's clearly uncomfortable hosting a game show. And then, you know, these, like, you said, celebrity judges on the panel hamming it up like you have a cult classic today. But at the time, there was nothing even remotely like this that anyone had ever done, ever. It was totally groundbreaking. I was two, but even I knew that at the time that that was a groundbreaking show.

[Chuck]

You said mama. Groundbreaking.

[Josh]

That's right. Yes, dear, that's exactly what she said, too.

[Chuck]

So I don't think we said that if you won, you get a little Gong trophy and you get a check for $516.32, which was the SAG minimum daily rate at that time. And what the Gong show, again, in retrospect, became known for in some ways was the fact that some real talented people sometimes got their break there, sometimes didn't necessarily get their break, but it was the first time they'd ever done anything, you know, on television before. Country singer, songwriter Boxcar Willie was on the band Oingo Boingo when they were the mystic knights of the Oingo Boingo.

[Josh]

Yeah, they would go on to. Their biggest hit was Weird Science.

[Chuck]

Much other. I mean, Oingo Boingo's great.

[Josh]

Yeah. But I mean, their big hit was that. And then the other one was Dead Man's Party, which I think they played at a party and back to school, probably.

[Chuck]

And they're probably best known now for the fact that their lead singer and songwriter was Danny Elfman.

[Josh]

Yeah. So Danny Elfman, he was a huge composer, especially in the late 80s, early 90s. I mean, he did some really high profile stuff. One of which was the Simpsons theme.

[Chuck]

Oh, yeah, Batman.

[Josh]

Yeah. He also. A lot of Tim Burton stuff, too. He also did the theme. He composed the theme to Pee Wee Herman. Pee Wee Herman's. I don't know if it was Pee Wee's Playhouse, but certainly Pee Wee's Big Adventure he composed. And that's interesting because they actually could have potentially crossed paths on the Gong show because Oingo Boingo wasn't the only one on there. Paul Reubens was as he was kind of trying to start to develop his Pee Wee Herman character.

[Chuck]

Yeah, he was on the Dating Game a few times as sort of the proto Pee Wee Herman character. The Gong Show 14 times.

[Josh]

And.

[Chuck]

And he later in his career credited Chuck Barris. He was like, if it hadn't been for me getting just the SAG minimum payment to be on that show, that made me able to focus on my career and my work with the Groundlings improv group and not have to get another job. And the fact that I got to workshop this character, it got me in the public eye. He really kind of credited Chuck Barris with not only helping him, but all kinds of struggling artists besides Oingo Boingo and boxcar Willie. Andrea McArdle was a 12 year old who performed on the Gong show. And she would get cast as the Broadway lead in Annie because she was discovered on that show. So things like that were happening. Another singer named. Did you mention Cheryl Lynn?

[Josh]

I didn't, no.

[Chuck]

Yeah, she got a recording contract. Another singer. Because of her appearance on the Gong Show. So she was the one.

[Josh]

She recorded that disco hit, Got To Be Real.

[Chuck]

I don't know that song.

[Josh]

It's Got To Be Real. Su, su, su. I gotta have it, baby. You know that song?

[Chuck]

I don't. I don't know.

[Josh]

Please don't make me continue.

[Chuck]

It's okay.

[Josh]

I'll look it up. So, yes, she. She released a disco hit, among other things, from what I know. But there's one more thing I wanted to. To mention about Paul Rubens. He didn't always do Pee Wee. One of the things he did. And I could not find a video of it, but I saw it written of. He impersonated a dripping faucet as one of his acts.

[Chuck]

That's pretty good.

[Josh]

Yeah. I thought that was very creative.

[Chuck]

It was. I mean, he was a groundling. He's a very funny guy. He was. I mean, he was known most for Pee Wee, obviously. And I think he at times felt like he was sort of stuck in that character. It became so big, he couldn't do anything else. But he was also very in love and appreciative with that character, you know?

[Josh]

Yeah, we saw his. You mean. I went to Los Angeles and saw his Live Pee Wee. Pee Wee's Playhouse show. It was really good. And, yes, he was trapped in Pee Wee Herman for the most part. But he did a great turn in Mystery Men as the Spleen, remember? Yeah. Good God.

[Chuck]

He didn't get enough of those chances, unfortunately. But I think we should do a Pee Wee episode at some point.

[Josh]

You bet. Let's do a Pee Wee 3 parter.

[Chuck]

All right. So the end would come for Chuck Barris. As far as his TV work goes. At his peak. This is staggering. And this is, you know, mind you, a time when there were three main television networks. It was even pre Fox, as far as programming goes. He was supplying 27 hours a week of programming of TV game shows. Which is. I mean, I don't know what percentage of that overall. You know, of their overall programming that was. But 27 hours a week is. You're King Daddy TV if you're doing that.

[Josh]

Yeah. You literally can fill more than a full day of programming. Every week of new stuff. That's crazy.

[Chuck]

Oh, totally. And in 1980, sort of at the peak, I guess. It was starting to wane a little bit. He shut it down, sold his TV company for supposedly 100 million bucks. Did a little TV here and there. But basically that was it for him. And one of the reasons, and there are many, you know, tastes change. And people were sort of moving away from that kind of thing a little bit, I think. But the show called Three's a Crowd. That he pitched in the 60s. And then would later do a pilot for in the 70s. Had a lot to do with his downfall.

[Josh]

My goodness. So the original version was one of the most abhorrent ideas anyone's ever come up with for a game show. It was. You were gonna have a man and his wife. And then the man's mistress and the mistress and the wife would compete, answering questions like on the Newlywed Game to see who knew him better.

[Chuck]

Unbelievable.

[Josh]

Imagine. And apparently they made a pilot.

[Chuck]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh]

I can't, like, think about how ruined those people's lives were. Like, even if it sounded like a lark at the time, like, just to. Just to go through that in actuality had to be totally different from the idea of it. So he revamped it a little bit. And then replaced the mistress with the secretary. And it was still the same format. And even that alone proved to be extremely awkward and uncomfortable to watch.

[Chuck]

Yeah, Thinly Veiled Mistress is what they should have called it.

[Josh]

Sure, sure. So that didn't last very long. And that one seemed to really draw the most ire. He got the Grand Gobbler Award that year from the National Organization for Women, which dubbed him the year's largest living turkey. And this. He'd been doing this for decades already. But that's how bad that show was. That, like, they gave him that. And they said that this was from his. His lifetime body of work. But that's how bad Three's a Crowd was received. And apparently the United Auto Workers also came out against it. Because they represented a lot of women workers back then. So the UAW and now came out against it really hard. And he ended up just saying, like, you know what? Forget it. I'm done. Not just. I'm going to, like, fade in the background and keep producing shows. He, I think, sold Chuck Barris Productions and just retreated.

[Chuck]

Yeah, he retreated, but not before he made one final mistake. Which was in 1980. The Gong show movie. Pretty much universally known as one of the worst movies ever made. It was. Robert Downey Sr. Was gonna write and direct it as a slapstick comedy. Chuck Barris didn't like that direction. So he took over as director, turned it to a more serious thing about him. And, you know, Chuck Barris Story of. And how difficult it was to be sort of known as the King of Schlock. And it was just a mess. Yeah, I didn't see it. But I remember when it came out. And I even remember at the time it being a massive failure.

[Josh]

Yeah, it was a flop right out of the Gates. Not just with critics, but with audiences, too. And I watched a couple trailers for it. And, I mean, he didn't seem to have really gotten rid of the slapstick element. So he tried to combine a serious, sympathetic look at his life with slapstick. And, yeah, it did not work at all. Have you ever seen Ringmaster, the Jerry Springer movie?

[Chuck]

Oh, no. Is it a documentary or.

[Josh]

No, it's a slightly fictionalized version where he plays himself kind of like our TV show. But it is interesting. Like, there's no way Jerry Springer didn't watch the Gong show movie and say, like, I want to remake that. Which is basically what he did.

[Chuck]

You know, I think the lesson we can learn here from our TV show. From that one and from the Gong show movie. Is it slightly fictionalized versions of a real job don't go over too well.

[Josh]

They don't work. Don't try.

[Chuck]

Don't even do it.

[Josh]

You want to take a break and come back for the rest of this?

[Chuck]

Yeah, I mean, I think everyone knows what's hanging out there. Coming up, in Act 3. Did Chuck Barris assassinate people for a living while he was a TV producer? Write it for this.

[Josh]

Okay, Chuck, like you said, in 1984, Chuck Barris released a. An autobiography called Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. The subtitle was An Unauthorized Autobiography. Which is pretty funny.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And in it, he recounts. Apparently, as far as the critics were concerned, like, pretty masterfully. He recounts his life as a game show producer. As a hated destroyer of civility and taste, you know, across American culture. And just how he dealt with that. But some of the other parts were also part of his life at the time. Mixed in. Where he was going abroad as a CIA hitman. And carrying out contract killings for the CIA. 33 of them, by his count. And he would describe these in graphic detail. Apparently. There was one where he writes about having broken some guy's front teeth. Because he jammed the gun with the silencer in there. And it's really graphic stuff. Stuff. And he's writing about this totally matter of factly and seemingly totally unironic. As if he's revealing to the world that he was both this producer, this legendary producer. And secretly, at the same time, a hitman.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And the idea Was that it was the perfect cover. Because nobody would suspect Chuck Barris, TV producer, King of schlock, of doing something like this. So the CIA just loved it. Did you see the movie?

[Josh]

Yeah, I thought it was. If I remember correctly, I thought it was pretty good.

[Chuck]

Yeah, it was pretty good. It wasn't great, but it was pretty good. It was a weird movie and it was a weird book. There were some critics, I believe Jeff Simon from Buffalo News said that Chuck Barris is alive and well and living in schizophrenia. Other reviewers tried to suggest that it was a metaphor and that it's really about a guy that's struggling so much with his life as an outsider that it was, you know, it was all just metaphor.

[Josh]

Wait, wait. You got to finish the rest. Like, this Ed Gorman guy really missed the mark, if you ask me.

[Chuck]

All right. Suggesting with this conceit is that he spent his life as an outsider, an assassin of sorts, dealing with a species that frightens and baffles him.

[Josh]

Yeah, that's like, terribly, terribly terrible.

[Chuck]

I think that's a lot of leeway there for what Barris was intending. And I don't know what he was intending, and no one really does. The only interview with any clear sort of indication that it was all a put on was one he gave to Regis and Cindy Garvey on the morning show when the book was released. When he very, you know, in a very straightforward way, said, I was not in CIA, I wanted to be. Got an FBI background check, but then got my job working in television, which is what I wanted to do. And that the version of me in this book is just a character. But he did say, a character crucified by the critics for entertaining the public. So there was maybe a little bit of metaphor to it.

[Josh]

After all, what's weird to me is it doesn't seem that anyone just took it as face value. Is not even a metaphor. Just an interesting thing that he did in his autobiography, Punch It Up. Everybody seems to just be totally perplexed by it. The best explanation I saw, apparently he hinted in some interviews that he used it as a device to point out that all of those critics and people in, like, government who criticized him so openly and so meanly in a lot of cases, too, would also have totally praised him for killing on behalf of the American government. That seems like a stretch as well. But it's better than Ed Gorman's interpretation, I think.

[Chuck]

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of that. And, you know, I do agree with this. The American way, as far as entertainment goes, which Is boo sex and yay, violence. But, you know, there's a difference between, you know, he wasn't filming, like, tasteful love scenes. It was some pretty blatant misogyny happening.

[Josh]

Yeah. I mean, through and through, over and over again, even. So, like. Like I was saying a couple of times at the time, this is just how things were. So it really goes to show just how much over the line he went that he was roundly criticized and made fun of and mocked by people for the level of misogyny his shows displayed. That's how misogynistic his shows were in a lot of cases.

[Chuck]

Yeah. For sure. The CIA, for. For their. As far as they go, they were like, of course, in 2002, a spokesman named Tom Crispel for the CIA said, It's absurd. It sounds like he's been standing a little too close to the gong all those years. Which, of course, Chuck Barris said. Yeah, of course that's what they're going to say. Have you ever heard the CIA acknowledge someone was an assassin?

[Josh]

Right. It's a good point.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And it's seemingly a good way to sell books, even though it didn't turn out that way, right?

[Josh]

No. It languished in obscurity for 20 years before his friend Andrew Lazar, producer, picked it up. Apparently, he sold less than a thousand copies, which was about 1% of the run the first. And I guess, well, the first run, they later re released it when the movie came out. But, yeah, one of his friends was like, you know, I've always thought this was a pretty cool book. Let's see what Charlie Kaufman can do to it. So they had Charlie Kaufman write a screenplay based on the book. And no one's ever seen that, as far as I know. Well, I don't know that no one's ever seen it. There's a script out there that he wrote, but it never got made because George Clooney came along and, like I said, made the decision of, nope, we're gonna present all this as face value. We're not gonna do anything weird with it. We're just gonna basically shoot the movie version of his book.

[Chuck]

Yeah. I mean, an interesting choice, and it was a pretty good movie. Like, Sam Rockwell was great as Chuck Barris, like, the perfect casting. But, man, Charlie Kaufman is so unique in his take and spin on things. I would have really loved to seen what that movie would have been.

[Josh]

Yeah. I wonder if the script is out there. Surely somebody had the wherewithal to be like, this needs to be out there.

[Chuck]

In the World, maybe we can get our hands on it. I remember years ago, my friend Stacy, who still works in the film business, would give me screenplays at the time when she would get them from her jobs just to. I was trying to learn how to write scripts. And so it's always good to read scripts. And she gave me one called the Orchid Thief by Charlie Kaufman. And I read it, and I read it in a night and called her the next day. And I was like, stacey, I've never read anything like this before in my life. This is the craziest movie and narrative I've ever heard of. And that would become Adaptation.

[Josh]

Such a good movie.

[Chuck]

And that's the first time I had heard of Charlie Kaufman was reading that script, like, before they even made the movie. This is in pre production.

[Josh]

Yeah. And then he followed that up with Being John Malkovich or vice versa, I can't remember. No, no, he's so.

[Chuck]

No, that was first.

[Josh]

Yeah. Because John Cusack plays a cameo in Adaptation.

[Chuck]

Right.

[Josh]

Yeah. I would like to read that script, too. The movie itself. Did you notice? I don't know if this is just my interpretation, but in the early 2000s, about the first decade, movies were, like, overly polished, overly tight. The Bob Crane movie, what was that one?

[Chuck]

Oh, at one point, your favorite movie. Autofocus.

[Josh]

Autofocus, right. Yes. It was just. Everything is just too polished, too perfect. And I think that was Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was another good example. Catch Me if youf Can, I think, is the pinnacle example of this, where these movies are so refined and so polished and so clearly done by Hollywood people who've been doing it for so long that they've kind of lost the. Not edge, but just the. The heart to what they're doing. That it's not actually particularly entertaining for me.

[Chuck]

Yeah, I mean, with Catch Me if youf can, it makes sense. Cause it's Spielberg. But Autofocus was Paul Schrader, so that's. I mean, he's not known for being slick in Hollywood. So that is. I just remember early on when you and I were getting to be friends at work, you talked a lot about Autofocus.

[Josh]

I loved that movie at first.

[Chuck]

Yeah, I did, too.

[Josh]

I haven't seen it for a while.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Good movie.

[Josh]

Yeah. Greg Near. What kind of casting was that? I know, it's just nuts.

[Chuck]

Yeah. He was good, though.

[Josh]

So spoiler alert. Chuck Barris died. He died in 2017 at the ripe old age of 87. Although it's not entirely clear if he was 87, 88, 86. But that's what they put down in his obituary at 87. He also wrote some other books over the years. He did a follow up to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind called. What was it called? Bad Grass Never Dies, I think that he released in 2004. And he doesn't mention. He talks about a lot of the same scenes. Does not mention any of the CIA stuff in that one.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Which is just.

[Chuck]

Yeah, it's almost like a two over.

[Josh]

Yeah. And I think he was toying with people. I'm not sure, but that's my take. And he said that he wanted to be remembered, I think, as a novelist. I think you said. And that's just not how he's remembered. But apparently he was a good enough author that he's also remembered in part as a. As a novelist.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Chuck Barris.

[Josh]

There's one other thing. He invented syndication, Chuck.

[Chuck]

Oh, really?

[Josh]

Yeah. He created a game called Parent game. And in 1972, ABC was like, no, we don't actually want to do this. So he bought the rights to the game back from them and went directly to stations and sold it to stations. Hence creating the entire concept of syndication.

[Chuck]

Oh, wow, man. I mean, a real visionary in a lot of ways. And just a kind of a kooky guy.

[Josh]

Yeah, well, Chuck said he was kind of a kooky guy. And as anyone who's ever listened to stuff you should know before knows that Chuck just unlocked listener mail.

[Chuck]

That's right. Quick correction on adhd, guys. And we do want to read this one because it's kind of an important thing we got wrong.

[Josh]

Oh, no.

[Chuck]

Want to point out a minor correction toward the end. It was mentioned a couple of brand name D drugs that are amphetamine based stimulants. Adderall, Vivanse and Strattera. Strattera, though, guys, is one of the non stimulant ADHD medications. It is a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor and is not a controlled substance. I couldn't help pointing it out because I'm a pharmacist. And miscategorizing a pharmaceutical could keep listeners from trying something that could help them if they're adverse to amphetamines.

[Josh]

Great point.

[Chuck]

Regardless, I have to say I've always been meaning to send in an email. Thanks for the work you've done. Avid listener for five years. And it's truly fascinating to learn about the variety of topics. And I really love the chemistry you guys have between each other.

[Josh]

Get it?

[Chuck]

And that is from Michael Ahn.

[Josh]

Thanks a lot, Michael. We really appreciate that. That was a huge miss. And thanks for following up and letting us tell everybody else that we got it wrong, because that is pretty important. And we got a lot of emails from a lot of people about the ADHD episode. So thanks to everybody who wrote in big time.

[Chuck]

It would seem like a pretty important suite to a lot of folks, and that means a lot to us.

[Josh]

Yeah, for sure. We actually got people who were like, I had no idea that I had ADHD until you. I listened to this episode and realized you were talking about me beat for beat. Like, I can't. That's just me nuts that we're running around diagnosing people with ADHD with the podcast.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And I had even several personal friends that. That knew they had HD ADHD that were like, I never knew this part of my life was due to that even. And that, you know, that's great. Makes us feel good.

[Josh]

Yeah, for sure. So if you want to make us feel good or you want to point out something we got wrong, doesn't matter. You can do it via email. Send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Chuck]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.