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The Game Show King: A Confession
The former host of "The Gong Show" discusses his creation of "The Newlywed Game," "The Dating Game," and other televvision programs, his fall from grace, and life in his adopted France
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
301 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1993
3 people are currently reading
54 people want to read
About the author
Chuck Barris
15 books21 followersCharles Hirsch "Chuck" Barris was an American game show creator, producer, and host. He is best known for hosting The Gong Show and creating The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. He is also a songwriter, who wrote the hit "Palisades Park", and the author of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a story about himself that became a film directed by George Clooney.
Barris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Drexel Institute of Technology where he was a columnist for the student newspaper, The Triangle. He graduated in 1953.
Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York City, and eventually worked backstage at the TV music show American Bandstand, originally as a standards-and-practices person for ABC. Barris soon became a music industry figure. He produced pop music on records and TV, but his most successful venture was writing "Palisades Park". Barris also wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows.
Barris was promoted to the daytime programming division at ABC in Los Angeles and was put in charge of deciding which game shows ABC would air. Barris told his bosses that the pitches of game show concepts were worse than Barris' own ideas. They suggested that he quit his ABC programming job and become a producer.
Barris formed his production company Chuck Barris Productions on June 14, 1965. Barris first became successful during 1965 with his first game show creation, The Dating Game, on ABC. The show would air for eleven of the next fifteen years and be revived twice in the 1980s and 1990s.
The next year Barris began The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The combination of the newlywed couples' humorous candor and host Bob Eubanks's sly questioning made the show another hit for Barris. The show is the longest lasting of any developed by his company, running for a total of 19 full years on 'first run' TV, network and syndicated.
Barris created several other short-lived game shows for ABC in the 1960s and for syndication in the 1970s, all of which revolved around a common theme. Barris also made several attempts through the years at non-game formats, such as ABC's Operation Entertainment; a CBS revival of Your Hit Parade; and The Bobby Vinton Show. The latter was his most successful program other than a game show.
Barris became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and served as the host of the talent contest spoof The Gong Show. The show's cult status far outstripped the two years it spent on NBC (1976–78) and the four years it ran in syndication (1976–80).
Barris continued strongly until the mid-1970s, when ABC cancelled the Dating and Newlywed games. This left Barris with only one show, his weekly syndicated effort The New Treasure Hunt. But the success of The Gong Show in 1976 encouraged him to revive the Dating and Newlywed games, as well as adding the $1.98 Beauty Show to his syndication empire. He also hosted a short lived primetime variety hour for NBC from February to April 1978, called The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, essentially a noncompetitive knock-off of Gong.
In Barris's biography, he claims to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an assassin in the 1960s and the 1970s. A 2002 feature film version, directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell, depicts Barris as killing 33 people. Barris wrote a sequel, Bad Grass Never Dies, in 2004.
Barris published Della: A Memoir of My Daughter in 2010 about the death of his only child, who died in 1998 after a long struggle with drug addiction.
Barris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Drexel Institute of Technology where he was a columnist for the student newspaper, The Triangle. He graduated in 1953.
Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York City, and eventually worked backstage at the TV music show American Bandstand, originally as a standards-and-practices person for ABC. Barris soon became a music industry figure. He produced pop music on records and TV, but his most successful venture was writing "Palisades Park". Barris also wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows.
Barris was promoted to the daytime programming division at ABC in Los Angeles and was put in charge of deciding which game shows ABC would air. Barris told his bosses that the pitches of game show concepts were worse than Barris' own ideas. They suggested that he quit his ABC programming job and become a producer.
Barris formed his production company Chuck Barris Productions on June 14, 1965. Barris first became successful during 1965 with his first game show creation, The Dating Game, on ABC. The show would air for eleven of the next fifteen years and be revived twice in the 1980s and 1990s.
The next year Barris began The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The combination of the newlywed couples' humorous candor and host Bob Eubanks's sly questioning made the show another hit for Barris. The show is the longest lasting of any developed by his company, running for a total of 19 full years on 'first run' TV, network and syndicated.
Barris created several other short-lived game shows for ABC in the 1960s and for syndication in the 1970s, all of which revolved around a common theme. Barris also made several attempts through the years at non-game formats, such as ABC's Operation Entertainment; a CBS revival of Your Hit Parade; and The Bobby Vinton Show. The latter was his most successful program other than a game show.
Barris became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and served as the host of the talent contest spoof The Gong Show. The show's cult status far outstripped the two years it spent on NBC (1976–78) and the four years it ran in syndication (1976–80).
Barris continued strongly until the mid-1970s, when ABC cancelled the Dating and Newlywed games. This left Barris with only one show, his weekly syndicated effort The New Treasure Hunt. But the success of The Gong Show in 1976 encouraged him to revive the Dating and Newlywed games, as well as adding the $1.98 Beauty Show to his syndication empire. He also hosted a short lived primetime variety hour for NBC from February to April 1978, called The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, essentially a noncompetitive knock-off of Gong.
In Barris's biography, he claims to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an assassin in the 1960s and the 1970s. A 2002 feature film version, directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell, depicts Barris as killing 33 people. Barris wrote a sequel, Bad Grass Never Dies, in 2004.
Barris published Della: A Memoir of My Daughter in 2010 about the death of his only child, who died in 1998 after a long struggle with drug addiction.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 12, 2021
This insufferable braggart has a home in Saint-Tropez in the South of France. I feel that this is one of the three main reasons the French hate Americans.
August 21, 2020
Despite or because of having nothing in it about the CIA, this straight autobiography is much better than "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and "Confession's" sequel, "Bad Grass Never Dies." Yes, I'm a Barris completist. If I was compiling a reading list for the "Gong Show"-curious youth of today, I'd include this and the novels "The Big Question" and "You and Me, Babe." The latter, by the way, is a thinly disguised memoir about his marriage to William Paley's niece and includes a scene where, to spare himself the embarrassment of admitting he was just fired from a job selling TelePrompTers, he tells a fellow Greenwich, Conn., party guest that he's a CIA agent.
March 22, 2009
This book was great. I didn't know much about Chuck Barris before this book other than being the host of The Gong Show. He was the creator of many game shows including The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. The insight behind what goes on backstage as well as pitching his game show ideas to TV executives was really interesting. He is also a really funny writer. Can't wait to try his other books.
April 27, 2013
Extraordinarily funny book. Chuck Barris tells great stories about his game shows, dating Mama Cass, and puting dog food on his zipper to get a funny reaction from a dog on "The Gong Show", just to mention a few. Do not confuse this book with Barris' Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. This book is pretty much a straight bio, with no interludes as a CIA assassin.
July 26, 2008
Big fan of Chuck Barris' laid-back, somewhat twisted humor.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews