Saturday, May 6, 2006

From the E-Mailbag...

My longtime pal, the great Disney historian Jim Korkis, writes...

I was on The Gong Show with my brother as "The Quasimodo Belairs" (singing, dancing hunchbacks) and we won. Also as a member of AFTRA, I got paid scale which is why I went on in the first place. What made Chuck Barris amazing is that he would come into the green room waiting area before taping and talk to each contestant telling them sincerely how great they were and making them feel like stars. I think that is one of the reasons people went on and were willing to behave as idiots. I later did The Dating Game with my two brothers and Camouflage. I have fond memories of Barris.

Most of the folks I've met who worked for Chuck Barris felt he was a wee bit too eager to wring every possible dollar from every show even to the point of harming the product...but they also thought he was a nice, sincere guy who was good to people in every non-monetary way. And The Gong Show, for all its inanity, did help an awful lot of performers (young and old) get their S.A.G. cards or keep their health insurance current. I'm surprised the folks who own the show now — Sony, I think — haven't edited some DVDs of the better acts that appeared on the program. There were more than people recall, and some of those folks went on to have real careers. (Though come to think of it, a DVD of the worst acts would probably sell better.)

Does everyone know the story of how Barris came to host The Gong Show? The original host of the daytime version was John Barbour, who later gained fame on Real People. Barbour was then a rather acerbic movie critic on the local NBC news in L.A. and they taped the entire first week of Gong Shows with him as master of ceremonies. He and Barris did not get along. As I understand it, the Barris version is that Barbour didn't "get" the premise and thought it was going to be a real talent show with him discovering The Stars of Tomorrow. The Barbour version was that he was bringing some order to the chaos because Barris didn't know what the hell he was doing.

After the first taping, Barris went to NBC and said he wanted to junk the shows and start over with a different host. As he later told the tale, NBC agreed on the condition that since it was his concept and he'd shown a flair for it while running the run-throughs, he would be the host. Barris said he reluctantly agreed...though some suggested that was his idea all along. Either way, the Barbour shows never aired, Barris took over and the show was a modest hit for a while. Gary Owens hosted the first season of the prime-time syndicated version but then Chuckie took that over, too.

There have been a couple of attempts to revive the show but they haven't worked...I think because the format wasn't the star. It was the chemistry of Barris and the kind of panelists he selected. They created the context that the real bad acts were there to be enjoyed on whatever level one could enjoy them...and of course, the bad acts made the good acts look better.

There was one segment I'd love to see again. One day, I got a call from a performer friend of mine, Charlie Brill, who sometimes appeared on the show as a judge. Charlie said, "Are you watching The Gong Show?" I said no. He said, "Turn it on." I said, "Why?" He said, "Don't ask why. Just turn it on. You'll see."

So I did what Charlie said, just in time to see Barris introduce a number by the show's director, John Dorsey. You heard Dorsey's voice say, "Camera three, pan right to the door...ready three, take three..." and the image on the screen cut to the door out of the booth from which Dorsey directed the show. You saw Dorsey tap dance out of the booth, tap his way onto stage, do an entire number (not bad) and tap his way back to the booth, all the time calling out camera directions and shots. He was saying, "Camera two, two-shot on Charlie and Mitzi...ready three, take three...camera one, pan left, waist-shot of Chuck..." Throughout, his routine was perfectly covered with rapid-fire cutting right on the beats. There's a skill to directing a show like that and even people who loathed the content of The Gong Show admired the way Dorsey was able to cover it and do a live camera-cut...which means that camera shots were chosen as on a live show with no after-the-fact selection of shots. And it was even more impressive that he was able to do it while tap-dancing.

• Posted at 6:21 PM · LINK

Beddy-Bye BBQ

A number of folks have written me about the narcotic effects of one restaurant's barbecued beef, many of them mentioning the words, "Monosodium glutamate." I don't think it was that particular additive but I'm betting it was something in that vein.

I called the restaurant and asked if they put MSG in their food. They don't put anything of the sort on the meat but the sauce is "mixed by the owner who won't tell anyone, even us, what's in it."

I asked, "Will he at least tell a customer if there's MSG in there?"

The voice on the phone replied, "I don't think so." I'll bet there's some law that says they have to divulge that information...but since I won't be going back there no matter what the answer is, I don't think I'll be pursuing it. Though I'm almost tempted to go down there, buy one container of their sauce and bring it home to freeze it. Just in case there's some night when I can't fall asleep.

• Posted at 3:49 PM · LINK

Probable Cause for Concern

You may remember news clips from last January when a reporter got into a debate over the Fourth Amendment with General Michael Hayden, our nation's Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Basically, the reporter kept saying that the amendment called for a standard of "probable cause" for search and seizure...and General Hayden kept arguing as if it didn't say "probable cause" in the amendment, as of course it does.

Hayden is the guy they're now saying will replace Porter Goss as the head of the C.I.A.

• Posted at 2:57 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

In 1976, a very odd program appeared on NBC's daytime schedule...and also in prime-time syndication. It was called The Gong Show, and I was never able to dislike it quite as much as my critical faculties told me I should. There was plenty to make one cringe, and I sometimes did...but I still tuned in from time to time with ambiguous feelings I never had with the other shows produced by the Chuck Barris Company. I thought the others — The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, The New Treasure Hunt, et al — showed an underlying contempt for anyone willing to appear on them...and maybe even anyone who tuned in to watch. At times, that seemed true of The Gong Show, as well. But not always, which I guess is what was so intriguing: The occasional joyous moments in the midst of such a shoddy program.

There was a bizarre feeling of fun about the original Gong Show especially since Barris, functioning as host, was willing to be part of the chaos. On Truth or Consequences, which had gone off not long before, contestants were dressed in funny costumes and hit with pies...but Bob Barker, who was the emcee, was always perfectly dressed and coiffed and it was understood that his dignity was not to be punctured in any way. I thought that was tackier than what Barris did on The Gong Show and The Gong Show could get pretty danged tacky.

Still, one time, I accepted an invitation from Gong Show director, John Dorsey, to hang around on tape day. I watched one episode from the booth, marvelling at John's ability to call shots faster and more skillfully than any other director I've ever seen. Then I went down to the floor to watch the next episode being taped...and something happened during it which I still remember with a tiny tingle. It was a regular bit they did involving a stagehand named Gene Patton who'd come on and dance under the name, "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine."

The minute they started playing his music — "Jumpin' at the Woodside," I think the tune's called — the studio positively erupted. Barris started dancing and the panelists jumped up and started dancing...and you could feel how much Gene Gene enjoyed what he was doing. Okay, fine, they're performers. It's part of the act. But the crew also started dancing — people not on screen. The guy operating Camera 1 was operating Camera 1 and dancing at the same time. Grips were dancing, lighting guys were dancing, the members of the band were dancing as much as they could and still play their instruments. And of course, the audience — an odd mix of younger Gong Show fans intermingled with old ladies who couldn't get in to the Hollywood Squares taping down the hall — simply had to leap up and boogie. Some of the show's performers and staffers were a little (shall we say) under the influence of something...but the crew wasn't and the audience wasn't. It was just an honest "high" of excitement.

I've been on many TV stages in my life. I've seen big stars, huge stars — Johnny, Frank, Sammy, Dino, Bob, you name 'em. I've seen great acts and great joy, and if you asked me to name the most thrilling moment I've witnessed in person, I might just opt for the Gong Show electrifying Stage 3 for all of 120 seconds. Maybe it was because it came so totally out of nowhere that it stunned me but everyone, including the stone-cold sober people, was suddenly just so...happy. There was something very, very invigorating and enjoyable about being in the midst of all that sudden happiness, however frivolous it may have been.

Here's a clip from The Gong Show showing Gene Gene doing his dance on another episode. The thing I find funny in it is that you can see everyone getting into the spirit of the moment — Barris, two of the three celebrity panelists (Arte Johnson and Jaye P. Morgan), the band...everyone except the third panelist, a new comic named David Letterman. You can see him decidedly not getting into it...though you can't see much of him because Dorsey seems to have tried to cut around him. I'll bet you the crew and audience were dancing, too...but Dave's just standing there, clapping along to not look like a bad sport, probably wondering how long it would be before he got his own show and didn't have to put himself in any situation he couldn't control. Watch.

• Posted at 11:52 AM · LINK