The Gong Show Movie

The Gong Show Movie (1980)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Chuck Barris (RIP)

Starring: Chuck Barris, his girlfriend at the time (Robin Altman), various random people, including failed acts from The Gong Show

From: Universal, amazingly

I figured that with Chuck Barris just passing away, it was time for me to watch and review this. While I think this is a pretty bad film, it doesn't mean I have any problem with Barris as a human being. I talk about this at length below:

Believe it or not, I have actually seen this movie one before-many years ago-as in “before it officially came out on disc” (nevermind how I saw it). I got the Shout Factory Blu last year, but it wasn't until last night that I actually watched it. Honestly, I remembered the movie as not being too good. Regrettably, it was the death of Chuck Barris on Tuesday that finally inspired me to watch the Blu and see this for the first time in what may be around 10 years. Even though the star/director isn't even buried in the ground yet, I have to be honest here and say that I still think this is not too good. In fact, it was even worse than I remembered. I have no problem with Barris as a human being and I know he led an interesting life-I am not counting his alleged claims of his CIA days, either-so I won't let a bad film ruin my opinion of him.

Basically, this is Chuck Barris doing his version of 8 ½, only he is rather far from Fellini, to utter the understatement of the week. You follow him for a week as he doesn't enjoy his job due to hassles from network executives, people harassing him, people wanting to audition for the show anywhere, and other problems. I don't know about you guys, but for me it's not exactly easy to have sympathy for the problems of a successful producer and host of a popular show (even if the show was seen as “trash” by a lot of people) who the public only knew as a TV host of a weird and satirical program filled with bizarre human beings. You see that he has a statuesque and pretty girlfriend-Robin Altman, who he married around this time and almost 20 years later they divorced-and really, who cares about his problems, no matter how much of what you saw here was legit and how much of it was just made up in a (failed) attempt to be amusing.

I understand that he actually DID have various stresses going on at the time he made the movie (an odd moment of art imitating life) due to a controversial show he did called 3's A Crowd that was like The Newlywed Game, except that it was a man, his wife, and his secretary... even then that was seen as being gross to women so that caused a crapstorm. I imagine part of the reason this did not turn out well was that he had real life problems to deal with as he starred, directed, produced, and wrote this at least somewhat fictionalized look at his life... oh, and even contributed a few songs for the soundtrack to boot. Heck, I think The Gong Show may have gone off the air around the time that this was released and died a quick death at the box office. A major studio (Universal) released this, which is still amazing to me. Maybe it made sense at the time...

For a movie that was co-written by underground legend Robert Downey Sr., this was-except for a few chuckles-painfully bad and rarely funny, and more annoying than anything else. Also annoying to me was how this obviously was an excuse to see vulgar moments from The Gong Show (a few of those moments somehow made the air; the rest were edited out and never broadcast) and various bad auditions. I am not quite sure why the movie was even made. I mean, you can view various people that became famous later on (Rip Taylor, Danny Devito, Phil Hartman, Ed Marinaro, and even Vincent Schiavelli) but that's not enough of a reason for me to recommend this by any means.

Admittedly, I am too young to have seen the original Gong Show when it was on the air in the latter half of the 1970's. I have seen episodes of various revivals, and much to my surprise they are thinking of another revival for this summer. I don't think it'll work, as the original show was an absurdist product of its time and was best for the wacky 1970's. That's not even taking into account how you can't swing a dead cat around on the Internet without hitting upon strange human beings doing strange things. Look at YouTube... which I say is the best way to see clips of The Gong Show; it's preferable to watching this.

Anyway, even if I think this movie is quite the boondoggle, I am still saddened that Barris passed away. He lived to 87 and he got to do such things as write a popular song you still hear on the oldies stations (Palisades Park), created a cult hit in The Gong Show, and also created legendary game shows in both The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. RIP to him.