Chuck Barris

Chuck Barris (born Charles Hirsch Barris on June 3, 1929) produced American game shows during the 1960s and 1970s.

Early career

Born to a Nigro/African American family [1] in Oakland, New Jersey, he attended Drexel University, where he was a columnist at the student newspaper, The Triangle and graduated in 1953.

Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York, 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. His most successful venture in this area was the writing of Freddy Cannon's 1962 top ten rock n' roll hit, Palisades Park. In addition to this, Barris eventually wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows (see Discography below for more information).

Barris was promoted to daytime programming at ABC in Los Angeles and was put in charge of deciding which game shows ABC would air. Barris admitted to his bosses that the producers' pitches of game show concepts were worse than Barris's own ideas. They suggested that Barris quit his ABC programming job and become a producer himself.

Barris first became successful during 1965 with his first game-show creation, The Dating Game on ABC, hosted by Jim Lange, in which three bachelors or bachelorettes competed for the favor of a contestant blocked from their view. The contestants' racy banter and its "flower power" set was a revolution for the game-show genre. The show would air for 18 years.

The next year, for the same network, Barris produced The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and Roger Muir. The combination of the newlywed couples' humorous candor and host Bob Eubanks' exuberant, sly questioning made the show another hit for Barris—and to date, the longest-lasting of any developed by his company. It ran for 19 total years on first-run TV, both on network and syndicated television.

"Chuckie Baby"

The engaging but somewhat shy Barris rarely appeared on camera, though he once dashed onto the set of The New Treasure Hunt to sock emcee Geoff Edwards with a pie. But Barris became a public figure in a big way in 1976, when he produced and served as the host of the talent contest The Gong Show, which he packaged in partnership with TV producer Chris Bearde. The show's cult stature far outstripped the two years it spent on NBC (1976-78) and the four years it ran in syndication (1976-80).

The planned host of the NBC show was John Barbour who didn't understand the show's concept and considered it a straight talent show as opposed to Barris's parody concept. An NBC executive suggested that Barris host the show himself.

Barris's jokey, bumbling personality, his accentuated hand-clapping between sentences (which eventually had the studio audience joining in with him), and his catch-phrases (he'd usually go into commercial break with, "We'll be right back with more STUFF...", and "This is me saying 'bye'" was one of his favorite closing lines) was the antithesis of the smooth TV host (such as Gary Owens, who hosted the syndicated version in its first season). Dubbed "Chuckie Baby" by his fans, Barris was a perfect fit with the show's goofy, sometimes wild amateur performers and its panel of three judges (including regulars Jamie Farr, Jaye P. Morgan and Arte Johnson). In addition, there was a growing "cast of characters" including an NBC electrician who played "Father Ed," a priest who'd get flustered when his cue cards were deliberately turned upside-down; Canadian comedian Murray Langston, who as "The Unknown Comic" wore a paper bag over his head (with cut-outs for his eyes, mouth, and even a box of Kleenex) and dressed in a tacky polyester jacket and open-buttoned shirt, told deliberately awful jokes (example: "Did you hear about the missionary who got barfed up when cannibals tried to eat him? Just goes to show you can't keep a good man down!!"), and "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine" (Gene Patton), arguably the most popular member of the "cast," another NBC stage hand who would show up and dance whenever the band played the song, "Jumpin' at the Woodside." Siv Aberg, a one-time Miss Sweden, was also on hand, acting more or less as the show's "hostess."

One Gong Show episode consisted of every act appearing singing the song "Feelings", which was popular at the time. One of its most infamous incidents came on the NBC version in 1978, when he presented an onstage act consisting of two young women slowly and suggestively sucking Popsicles. Another incident resulted in Jaye P. Morgan's firing from NBC broadcasts of the show, when she exposed her breasts on-camera while Gene Gene was performing.

Comeback kid

The Dating and Newlywed games went off the air in the mid-1970s, leaving Barris with only one show, the 1973-77 revival of Treasure Hunt, titled The New Treasure Hunt. But the success of The Gong Show in 1976 allowed 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 prime-time variety hour for NBC from February to April 1978, called The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show.

The empire crumbled again amid the burnout of another of his creations, the 1979-80 Three's A Crowd (in which three sets of wives and secretaries competed to see who knew more about their husband/boss). At the same time, Newlywed lost the sponsorships of Ford and Procter & Gamble and earned the resentment of Jackie Autry, whose husband and business partner Gene Autry owned the show's Los Angeles outlet and production base, KTLA. During the winter of 1980, he brought back another game show that was not an original of his, Camouflage, in which contestants answered questions for the chance to locate a "hidden object" (such as a toaster) concealed within a cartoon-type drawing. It lasted only a short time in syndication, and by September 1980 all the Barris games were off the air.

He revived Treasure Hunt again in 1981 in partnership with the original 1950s version's producer, Budd Granoff, who had become his business partner (the show itself was created by its original host, Jan Murray). Unlike the 1970s version of Treasure Hunt, Barris did not have direct involvement with the production of the show itself. This revival lasted only one year.

Barris came back again in the mid-1980s. After a week-long trial of The Newlywed Game on ABC in 1984 (with Dating Game emcee Jim Lange), Barris produced a daily Newlywed Game (titled The New Newlywed Game) in syndication from 1985 to 1989, with old host Eubanks (and in 1989, comedian Paul Rodriguez). The Dating Game returned to syndication the next year for a three-year run hosted by Elaine Joyce. The Gong Show would also return for one season in 1988, now hosted by "True" Don Bleu.

After the shows' runs ended, Barris sold his TV holdings to what is now Sony Pictures Television, which revived Dating and Newlywed from 1996 to 1999. Sony also revived Gong in 1998, this time as Extreme Gong, a Game Show Network original production. Another Barris show, 3's a Crowd, would be revived as All New 3's a Crowd, which, like Extreme Gong, was a GSN original. A few years after Extreme Gong ended, Sony planned to revive the show again under its classic name and format for The WB Television Network, but this version never made it to air.

One more attempt at reviving an old game show that was not his own originally resulted in an unsold pilot of the 1950s-era game Dollar A Second, hosted by Bob Eubanks. It had at least one showing on GSN, and has since become part of the collector/trader's circuit. Another unsold pilot was called Comedy Courtroom.

Chuck Barris, "hit man"

In his "autobiography" Confessions of a Dangerous Mind originally published in 1982, Barris claimed to have also worked as a CIA hitman, with over 100 kills (the movie suggested only 33 kills). In interviews, when asked about whether he was really a CIA operative, he tends to respond, "I can't really confirm or deny it". In 1969, the book was made into a film, adapted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by George Clooney, with Sam Rockwell starring as Barris. Barris has also written a sequel entitled The Optometrist With 4 Arms.

Trivia

• Survived lung cancer.

• Nephew of singer/songwriter/actor Harry Barris. Barris's uncle was a member of the early 1930s musical trio "the Rhythm Boys," comprised of Barris, Al Rinker, and Bing Crosby. Pianist Barris was also a songwriter who composed Mississippi Mud, I Surrender, Dear, and Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams, among many others.

• Married 3 times: Lyn Levy, "Red" Robin Altman, and Mary Barris.

• Has an apartment in Paris, France on the "Left Bank".

His family

Barris married Lyn Levy, one of the founders of CBS, which caused her family to disinherit her. Their daughter Della Barris, who often appeared on The Gong Show, died of a drug overdose in 1998 at age 35.

Other shows hosted or created by Chuck Barris

• $1.98 Beauty Show
• The Bobby Vinton Show
• The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show
• Cop-Out (unsold pilot)
• Dream Girl of '67
• Family Game
• Game Game
• How's Your Mother-In-Law
• Operation Entertainment
• The Parent Game
• People Pickers (unsold pilot)
• Rah Rah Show

Discography

Barris composed music and released them on the following 45 rpm records. Songs with an asterisk (*) are songs not composed by Barris, yet featured on the recordings:

• Too Rich / I Know A Child (Capital Records)
• Baja California / *Donnie (Dot Records)
• Why Me Oh Lord / Sometimes It Just Doesn't Pay To Get Up (MCA Records)

Barris also composed the following songs (with performer, who performed the music first, listed on each). The first two songs were released on "Swan" 45rpm records, and the third released on a "Decca" LP record:

• Summertime Guy (Eddie Rambeau)
• Palisades Park (Freddy Cannon)
• Love Sickness (Milton Delugg)

Barris also released an LP of television game show music called "Chuck Barris Presents Themes From TV Game Shows" (Friends Records). All tracks are instrumentals and are arranged by Tom Scott, Mike Barone, and Dale Oehler. The tracks for the LP are:

File:Cblp1.JPG

Side 1

• Dating Game Theme (January/CBP Music, Inc. BMI Chuck Barris/David Mook)
• Dating Game Closing Theme (Little Rosie)
• Newlywed Game Theme
• Treasure Hunt Theme
• True Grit - Winners Theme (Bernstein) Famous Music ASCAP
• Treasure Hunt Losers Theme
• People Pickers Theme (Pretty Maidens)

Side 2

• Operation Entertainment Theme (Road Of Love)
• Family Game Theme (Too Rich)
• Cop-Out Theme (Little Russian Song)
• Mother-In-Law Theme (Mother Trucker)
• Parent Game Theme (Baja California)
• Dream Girl Theme (Hunk Of Love)

External links

• Chuck Barris at IMDb
• http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030207.html
• Chuck Barris Bio at GTN Speakers Bureau