The Gong Show

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The Gong Show

The Gong Show titlecard
Format Game show
Created by Chuck Barris
Starring Chuck Barris (1976-1980);
John Barbour (1976);
Gary Owens (1976-1977);
Don Bleu (1988-1989) Announcer: Johnny Jacobs (1976-1980) ;
Charlie O'Donnell (1988-1989)
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
Production
Running time 30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel Syndication
Original run 1976 – 1989


The Gong Show was a television variety show spoof broadcast on NBC's daytime schedule from June 14, 1976 through July 21, 1978 and in first-run syndication in the U.S. from 1976 to 1980, and from 1988-1989. The NBC incarnation and the later years of the syndicated version were emceed by Chuck Barris, who also produced them. Gary Owens hosted the first syndicated season.

Contents

[edit] Show format

Each show presented a contest between amateur performers of often dubious talent, with a panel of three celebrity judges. The program's frequent judges included Jaye P. Morgan, Arte Johnson, Rip Taylor, Jamie Farr, and Anson Williams. Rex Reed was notorious for being the harshest critic, often giving acts a 9 when they received perfect 10s from the other judges. If any one of the judges considered an act to be particularly bad, he or she could strike a large gong, thus forcing the performer to stop. Most of the performers took the gong with sheepish good grace, but there were exceptions.

Originally, panelists had to wait 20 seconds before they could gong an act; this was later extended to 30, and finally 45. Knowing this, some savvy contestants deliberately stopped performing just before the 45-second rule kicked in, but Barris would overrule this gambit and disqualify them. On other occasions, an act would be gonged before its minimum time was up; Barris would overrule the gong, and the hapless act would be obliged to continue with the full knowledge that their fate was already sealed.

When an act was on the verge of being gonged, the laughter and anticipation built as the judges patiently waited to deliver the coup de grace: They would stand up slowly and heft their mallets deliberately, like baseball players in the on-deck circle, letting everyone (including the contestants) know what was coming. Sometimes, pantomimed disputes would erupt between judges, as one celebrity would attempt to physically obstruct another from gonging the act. The camera would cut back and forth between the performers onstage, and the mock struggle over their fate.

If the act survived without being gonged, he/she/they were given a score by each of the three judges on a scale of zero to ten, for a maximum possible score of 30. On the NBC run, the contestant who achieved the highest combined score won the grand prize of what Chuck Barris referred to as the "highly unusual amount of" $516.32 (reportedly the Screen Actors Guild's minimum pay for a day's work) and a "Golden Gong" trophy. On the subsequent syndicated run, the prize was $712.05. In the event of a tie, three different tiebreakers were used in at various times during the show's run; at first, the studio audience decided the winner by their applause; later, the producers chose the winner; later still, the celebrities chose the winner. When Barris announced the final score, a dwarf in formal wear (former Munchkin Jerry Maren) would run onstage, throwing confetti while balloons dropped from overhead.

On one memorable occasion, all the acts were so bad that everybody had been gonged. When the time came to announce the winner, the curtains opened on an empty stage -- but Barris still made his usual triumphant curtain speech, exulting, "We just saved $516.32!"

Originally, the show was advertised as having each day's winning contestants come back after a few weeks (this is also mentioned in the pilot episode) to compete in a "tournament of champions", with the winner being given the chance to appear in an unspecified nightclub act. However, only one of these tournaments was ever held. The winners on the NBC version became eligible to appear on the syndicated version for a chance to earn that show's prize.

Hostesses included Siv Aberg, a Swedish-born model who appeared on Barris's syndicated New Treasure Hunt, and Barris's then-teenaged daughter Della. Johnny Jacobs and, on occasion, Jack Clark served as announcers.

The show celebrated many holidays such as Christmas, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, but invariably did so by singing the Irving Berlin standard, "Easter Parade." (When Easter was feted, the cast and crew would sing "White Christmas.") The annual Christmas episode also featured a major rule change; for one day, in honor of the holiday spirit, judges were not permitted to gong contestants. Predictably, Christmas shows were heavily loaded with the most unappealing acts available.

[edit] Barris as emcee

Chuck Barris, an established game show producer (The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game) was not the original host; he was an emergency replacement for John Barbour. Barbour, who later hosted Real People for NBC, objected to the satirical concept and tried to steer the show toward a traditional amateur-hour format. (The very earliest episodes had the celebrity judges earnestly giving helpful advice to the amateur performers.) An NBC executive who had watched Barris rehearse the show suggested that Barris replace Barbour. Barris accepted but resisted the requirement that he wear a tuxedo. Only when the executive threatened not to take the show at all did the reluctant Barris agree to put on the host's tuxedo himself. (Eventually, tuxedos would give way to — in many episodes — much more casual attire.)

Barris was ill at ease before the camera, but his determination to make a success of the show was obvious to the viewer, and his awkwardness was curiously endearing. He had a nervous habit of clapping his hands together and pointing to the camera while talking. He did this so often that, by the show's second year, it had become a running gag. Audience members began clapping their hands in unison with Barris whenever they saw him doing it. Barris caught on, and would sometimes pretend to clap, deliberately stopping short to sucker the audience (who were unable to stop their clap).

Barris wore a variety of unfashionable hats on stage, and frequently changed them during the show. A hat rack could be seen at stage right, next to the house band, Milton DeLugg and His Band with a Thug (a play on venerable maestro Les Brown and His Band of Renown).

Producer Chris Bearde, formerly of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, clashed with Barris over the show's content, favoring scripted comedy over chaotic nonsense. (Bearde's "new talent" segments on Laugh-In had featured oddball performers, the most famous being Tiny Tim.) Bearde eventually withdrew from The Gong Show, leaving Barris in full charge of the show. Before long, Barris was working so loosely that some viewers assumed he was drunk (or worse). He would pull his hat down over his eyes, totally obscuring them. His monologues, never exactly crisp or slick, occasionally rambled. Barris later recounted in an interview that he was never drunk, and that he would not allow drugs in his production company.

If Barris enjoyed an act, it was obvious - he would stand there beaming. For the losers, no matter how untalented, Barris was unfailingly positive about their performances, often consoling them after being gonged with supposedly comforting words like "I don't know why they did that! I loved your act. But then again, I also like getting a tick bath." Or, "But then again, I love cramps." The celebrity who had gonged the performer was typically asked "Why'd you do that?" and was expected to provide an explanation, joke, or further insult.

Frequently, Barris would lead into commercial breaks with the cryptic promise, "We'll be right back, with mor-re stuff.. right after this message!"

[edit] Bandleader Milton DeLugg

DeLugg, a popular musician and bandleader during the 1940s, got the Gong Show job by default. As musical director for the network, he was responsible for any NBC project that required special music (like the annual telecasts of the Thanksgiving Day parade). Barris initially regarded Milton DeLugg as "an anachronism", but he soon found that DeLugg was very much attuned to the crazy tone of the show, and his band kept the show's energy level high. The band even led into station breaks, with Barris's enthusiastic "Take me into the commercial, Milt!". DeLugg also participated in NBC's prime-time spinoff, The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show (see "Spinoffs" below for notes).

[edit] Recurring bits

The show had many running gags and characters who appeared as regular performers.

  • The Unknown Comic (Murray Langston, formerly of the Sonny and Cher TV stock company) was a stand-up comedian who told intentionally corny jokes while wearing a paper bag over his head. On one occasion the Unknown Comic brought a dog on stage -- with a paper bag over its head. "You've heard of a boxer?", asked Langston. "This is a bagger!" Eventually, Langston would beckon to "Chuckie" and tell insulting jokes at his expense ("Have you ever made love to your wife in the shower?" "No." "Well, you should, she loves it!"). Barris would then feign anger and eject Langston from the show. Langston later made appearances as a judge on the show.
  • Gene Gene the Dancing Machine was Gene Patton, a beefy, middle-aged black man wearing a warm-up suit and flat hat. Gene-Gene's arrival would always be treated as though it were a glorious surprise to everyone on the show, especially Barris. Upon hearing the opening notes to his theme music (an arrangement of "Jumpin' at the Woodside,'" a popular Count Basie song), Barris's face would light up and he would stop the show, yielding the stage to Gene-Gene. Members of the crew would toss random objects from the wings, littering the stage while Gene-Gene danced on, seemingly unaware of the activity around him. Barris and the panelists would enthusiastically mimic Gene-Gene's dance moves, which consisted primarily of a slow-footed chug-chug motion, punctuated by an occasional, exultant fist pointed skyward. Typically, the dance break would be interrupted by a commercial or by the show's promotional announcements. In reality, Patton was an NBC stagehand whose backstage dancing caught the attention of Barris, who moved him out in front of the curtain. Occasionally, Gene-Gene filled in as one of the three mallet-wielding judges. Patton's popularity was such that his retirement from NBC made the national news wires in 1997, unique attention for a stagehand.
  • Scarlett and Rhett were wardrobe master Jefferson Becker and makeup artist Peter Mims, dressed as Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind. Their act always began with Rhett bellowing, "I don't give a damn!" and the shocked Scarlett gasping, "You can't say that on television!" Rhett would respond by asking, "Well, can I say this, Scarlett?" and launch into a vulgar riddle along the lines of "Why are pool tables green?" Scarlett would answer, "Why, Rhett?" "Because if someone was--" and the off-color punchline would invariably be bleeped out. After two or three jokes, and the same number of shocked reactions, Barris would stop the act and close the curtain.
  • Writer Larry Spencer, appearing as himself; the audience was encouraged to hiss at him as if he were a villain from a 19th century melodrama.
  • "Larry And His Magic _____", an alleged musician (also portrayed by Spencer) whose various appearances featured a series of different instruments. His call-and-response act featured him proclaiming, "I'm gonna play my (trumpet, fiddle, xylophone, kettle drum, etc.)" and the audience shouting back, "Whatcha gonna do?" This exchange would be repeated twice, after which he would announce, "I'm gonna play my (instrument) nowwww!" Instead of playing, though, he would merely repeat his audience-punctuated declaration. After a few verses of this, the skit would inevitably end with Spencer failing to play his instrument. Either time would run out, the instrument would malfunction or be booby trapped, or he would manage to produce a few inept notes before being permanently interrupted by Barris.
  • Chuckie's Fables, featuring "The Mighty Gong Show Players", an alleged acting troupe (in actuality, members of the production and stage crews). Barris would flop into a rocking chair and read a narrative from an oversized storybook, while the Players would pantomime the action behind him. These stories always ended with a convoluted moral. The name was a takeoff on the "Mighty Carson Art Players" from the Tonight Show, which in turn was a copy of Fred Allen's "Mighty Allen Art Players."
  • The Worm, a supposed "dance craze" consisting of three men who flung themselves to the floor and wriggled on the ground. At the end of each of their performances, Barris would come out and say, "One - More - Time!" The Worm would often be performed four or five times in succession before the commercial break interrupted the men's performance.

The show's air of spontaneity was abetted by various comic appearances by supporting staff members. Bandleader Milton DeLugg occasionally played flop comedian Naso Literatus and ancient philosopher Old Drool. "Matt Idol" was a dreamboat singer whose vocals were always drowned out by swooning women in the audience, at which point he was ushered offstage since he could no longer be heard above the screaming. The band's bass player, Ray Neapolitan, did a routine singing songs with dubious final lines. On one episode, the sax player Lanny Morgan appeared in a cape and top hat, with giant paws for hands; he was allegedly the next James Bond villain, Paws. Father Ed was played by stagehand Ed Holland. Spouting disjointed theology from cue cards, the priest then claimed not to understand what he'd said. Once, when pressed by Barris for an explanation, Father Ed replied, "Beats the shit out of me." Judy McGrubbs was played by production staff member Judy McGuan, who never got to sing "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" because of the band's overblown introduction.

[edit] Controversial acts

The Gong Show was infamous for a few acts that, by contemporary 70s standards, were especially controversial. The most memorable of all of them was an act called "Have You Got a Nickel?" (also known as "The Popsicle Twins"), which consisted of two 17-year-old girls, sitting on stage and provocatively sucking Popsicles, all with no musical accompaniment. Jaye P. Morgan would not allow either of the other judges (Phyllis Diller and Jamie Farr) to hit the gong on the non-act. The Gong Show Movie includes 10 seconds of footage from the Popsicle Twins.

Years later, Barris told an interviewer that the censors would regularly reject acts that he thought were safe enough to air. So, he made it a point to submit acts to the censors that were totally over the line, in the hope that some of the less questionable ones would slip through. The Popsicle Twins' act was, in Barris's mind, far too suggestive, and he'd submitted it as a stalking horse. In a May 2007 interview with Minneapolis deejay Dan Barriero, Barris corrected the commonly-held belief that the women were merely portraying minors, revealing that the girls were just 17 years old at the time. He said that the usually diligent censors were asleep at the wheel during pre-screening and the act was allowed to go on in the Eastern and Central time zones before they realized what was going on, but the network did censor the telecast for the Mountain and Pacific time zones. Some insiders have claimed that it was this act that led to The Gong Show being canceled. As performers, the Popsicle Twins' act did not go over very well at all with the celebrity judges, who awarded it a combined score of only 12 points, though they did receive a perfect 10 from Jaye P. Morgan, who quipped, "That's how I got started!").

Another impromptu moment came in early 1978, when Jaye P. Morgan unbuttoned her blouse and exposed her breasts during a female contestant's performance; this "flashing" incident was the last straw for NBC, who promptly dropped her from the show for the remainder of its daytime run (though she would continue to appear as a regular on the nighttime syndicated version). The ribald Morgan often inserted risque material into the programs, such as during a performance by Chuck D'Imperio, "The Shower Singer". D'Imperio sang "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" while naked in a shower, inspiring judges Morgan, Jamie Farr and Arte Johnson to do a rousing dance around the shower stall at center stage. Jaye P. poked her head inside the shower, and later commented, "I didn't care too much for his singing, but I'll certainly give him a big 10 for what I saw in the shower!" She later on made an appearance on the NBC finale, dancing along with Chuck and the others.

The young David Letterman guested as a Gong Show panelist when he was unknown to most of the national public. After he gonged one act, the outraged performer glared at Letterman and shouted, "Who are you?"

[edit] Legitimate talent

The two biggest Gong Show-related show-biz successes were Andrea McArdle and Cheryl Lynn. Twelve-year-old McArdle appeared on an early show in 1976, shortly before winning the lead role in the hit Broadway musical Annie. Lynn was signed to a recording contract as a result of her appearance and recorded the top-20 disco hit "Got To Be Real."

Among the other true talents that appeared on the show were:

Singer. Appeared as himself.
He appeared more than once as "Professor Flamo" -- holding his hand directly over lighted candles, the Professor would "sing" in pained tones as he moved from "low-note" to "high-note" candles. He would go on to be WGN's second Bozo the Clown, from 1984 to 2001.
"Queen of the Oddballs"; juggler, comedienne and comedy writer.
Billed as "the world's worst band"
Actress. Appeared in a cheerleading act with friends. According to "E True Hollywood Story", Plato was "discovered" on the show, which led to her acting career.
The musical theater group that would evolve into the new wave band Oingo Boingo
Actor. Removed a leaf from a tree, put it up to his mouth, and "played" the leaf. He was "gonged".
Actor. Also removed a leaf from a tree, put it up to his mouth, and "played" the leaf (the tune "Autumn Leaves"). He was not "gonged".
Later famous as Pee Wee Herman
Singer, guitarist, clown [1]
Singing under the pseudonym "Sharon Shamus"
He later appeared in the Police Academy film series.

[edit] Ratings/Scheduling

At the time of its debut, The Gong Show was an unlikely choice to find a slot on a daytime schedule. But NBC decided to take the chance on Barris's talent show to fix a scheduling problem at 12:30 p.m. Eastern/11:30 a.m. Central, where no fewer than seven shows had aired in the past two-and-a-half years. This was NBC's least important time slot, running only 25 minutes (leaving room for a five-minute newscast anchored by Edwin Newman), so the actual program content was less than 20 minutes. Many NBC affiliates in larger Eastern Time Zone markets opted not to run network programming during the noon hour at all, preferring to broadcast local news and talk shows instead. Thus Gong made its debut mainly on medium-market and smaller stations (or on large-market rival stations that picked up the program from the NBC affiliate that had rejected it, as occurred in Boston).

NBC hoped the show would attract different audiences than those watching the soap operas on ABC and CBS; in fact, the regularly scheduled CBS soap, Search for Tomorrow, had run for 25 years. According to the A. C. Nielsen company, the demographics for Gong showed very low viewership (well behind the competing soaps) among the section of the viewing audience that made up the largest percentage of the total viewing audience for the time block from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET: women, ages 30-65, married and/or widowed, and primarily employed only as homemakers with two to five children. The same demographic data showed, however, that Gong managed to bring in viewers from target markets that traditionally were not TV viewers during the daytime hours--males, ages 16-30, single or married, fully employed--more than any other daytime show for the two years the show broadcast on the network. This meant that Gong had not stolen away audience share from the other networks; rather, it had attracted a new one.

After the New Year, Gong found itself at 4 p.m./3 Central (and expanded to a full 30 minutes), succeeding the cancelled soap Somerset. However, numerous NBC affiliates had been pre-empting the slot for years, meaning that Gong ran at a disadvantage against CBS's Tattletales and ABC's The Edge of Night. By early December, the network decided to return Gong to 12:30/11:30; at the start of the year, NBC had discontinued the five-minute newscast, meaning the program could remain at a full 30 minutes.

Despite fairly respectable ratings for a non-soap-opera midday show, NBC cancelled Gong, with its final episode to air on July 21, 1978. Much speculation occurred as to the network's true motivations for dumping the show. Barris himself has commented that the official reason he heard was that NBC acted in response to both "lower than expected ratings" and a desire by the network to "re-tailor the morning shows to fit the standard morning demographics." America Alive, a magazine-style variety program hosted by Art Linkletter's son Jack, replaced Gong.

Following the cancellation, many critics and industry analysts--including Gene Shalit and Rona Barrett--reported having heard comments from within NBC's programming department from "sources preferring anonymity" that the true reason behind the cancellation was Barris's refusal to tone down the racy nature of the show. According to the sources, after the "Popsicle Twins" incident and Morgan's "breast baring", Barris had been given an ultimatum by NBC's Standards and Practices department to deliver cleaner shows, with a particular eye to the potential children and youth watching the show. Barris, however, continued to deliver shows with the same amount of supposedly questionable content, apparently in an effort to call the network's bluff.

[edit] Cancellation, and the final episode

NBC allowed Barris to continue the show for the rest of the contract, and Barris made no perceptible change in preparation for the end.

On the final episode, Murray Langston appeared in his real persona to host the show, after Chuck started the show doing a "Chuck's Fables" sketch. The rest of the show was done in sort of a way to explain the life of the show, and its cancellation. Barris managed to have the last word on the cancellation: he appeared as a contestant himself. Playing in a country music band called "The Hollywood Cowboys", Barris sang Johnny Paycheck's Take This Job and Shove It, and even gave the camera a "middle finger salute" (obscene gesture) to accentuate his point. The network, of course, censored the offending digit in the same way it handled offensive celebrity score cards: the word "OOPS!" superimposed over a still shot of the set. Barris was gonged by Jamie Farr. Gene Gene the Dancing Machine then came out after a few more skits, and did his famous dance. The rest of the cast, including staff members, people who participated, and even Jaye P. Morgan, all joined in at the end to dance with him.

Gong continued in syndication for two years after NBC's daytime dismissal, often airing on weekends. Not surprisingly, with censors largely out of the picture, this evening version pushed the envelope even further, with local stations making the decision about whether the show would be suitable for local mores and taste. In all likelihood, this version was chiefly responsible for the show's cult following, since it usually reached a far larger audience than had been possible on daytime.

[edit] Later incarnations

[edit] Film adaptation

  • In 1980, The Gong Show Movie was released by Universal Pictures to scathing reviews. It is considered a minor cult classic by some. Advertising proclaimed it as "The Gong Show that Got Gonged by the Censor".
  • Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a film directed by George Clooney and written by Charlie Kaufman, based on the autobiography of Chuck Barris. Part of the film chronicles the making of The Gong Show, and features several clips from the original series.
  • Following the success of the print and screen versions of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, GSN (The Game Show Network) produced a documentary called The Chuck Barris Story: My Life on the Edge.

[edit] Foreign versions

  • Red Faces, a segment on the long running Australian variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday was also similar to The Gong Show.
  • An Indonesian Show aired on Trans TV based on Gong Show and also called Gong Show
  • A one-off British version of The Gong Show, aired on Channel 4 at Christmas 1985. The compere was Frankie Howerd. The show was deemed a failure and a series was not commissioned; this was considered surprising, as the station had recently been airing episodes of the original U.S. series and had been getting high audience ratings from them. In 2006, BBC Television aired Let Me Entertain You, a talent show with a similar format to The Gong Show.
  • The Spanish language program Sábado gigante regularly airs a similar segment, El chacal de la trompeta ("The Jackal of the Trumpet"). During this contest, six contestants are given the chance to sing a song, with the bad performers being eliminated mid-song by el chacal, a ghostlike character who blows an old trumpet to end such acts. Unlike The Gong Show, el chacal does not have to wait a specific amount of time before eliminating someone (on many occasions, players have been eliminated almost immediately after beginning). The "surviving" performers are voted on by the audience, with the one receiving the most applause winning a prize or some cash.
  • In the world of NASCAR, Roush Racing's auditions for future drivers are called "The Gong Show." The process was aired as the Discovery Channel reality series Roush Racing: Driver X.

[edit] Spinoffs

At the height of the show's popularity, NBC gave Barris a prime-time variety hour, The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show. This was played somewhat more seriously than the zany Gong Show, with Jaye P. Morgan singing straight pop songs as in her nightclub and recording days, and bygone headliners like Slim Gaillard reprising their old hits for an enthusiastic studio audience.

[edit] Episode status

All episodes of The Gong Show are presumed to exist and have been seen on GSN (except the Gary Owens version). An episode of John Barbour's week has been aired by GSN, and an episode of the Owens version is on the trading circuit.

[edit] Legacy

During its run, many critics excoriated The Gong Show as one of the worst shows in TV history. Today, The Gong Show is seen as an inspiration for much of the modern-day genre of reality television.

The Gong Show was part of a long continuum of nonprofessional talent shows such as the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, a very popular radio broadcast of the 1930s and '40s. Using a boxing bell, Edward Bowes would "ring" performers off the stage who he considered to be "dying" onstage. It was the bell that inspired the gong for Barris' Gong Show.

Although many televised talent shows had preceded it, The Gong Show's sardonic outlook continues to influence many unsympathetic talent and celebreality shows including American Idol, America's Got Talent, and especially Pants-Off Dance-Off, where the often out-of shape stripper contestants are frequent objects of derision.

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

[edit] References in other shows

  • In The Simpsons episode $pringfield, Homer mentions that his life long dream was to become a blackjack dealer; Marge corrects him and says: "your life long dream was to be a contestant on the Gong Show and you did it back in 1977, remember??" Then a flashback comes with Homer and Barney both standing in the same pair of pants and playing an off-key rendition of Oh Susanna on the harmonica, to the sound of audience booing and repeated gongs. After the flashback, Homer replies: "We got more gongs than the breakdancing robot that caught on fire" (which really happened on the original show).
  • On an episode of Sanford and Son, Fred Sanford attended a taping of the show, then decided to get on an episode to win the grand prize. He was supposed to do an act with son Lamont and brother-in-law Rodney. But Rodney also needed the prize money to pay off a debt to a bookie, so he also auditioned as Raymond C. Gordon, singing an opera aria. When Rodney found out he was scheduled on the same show as Fred's act, he feigned an injury to get out of it, and Bubba took his place. Fred ended up winning the prize, in part because he gonged Raymond/Rodney himself. But when Rodney fell ill for real, a large chunk of Fred's prize money ended up going towards his medical bill, leaving Fred and company with almost nothing.
  • The Carol Burnett Show featured The Gong Show in one episode. In a segment of "The Family," Eunice decided she was ready to hit the big time, and went on the program. But she was quickly gonged after just a few agonizing lines of "Feelings," and the camera zoomed in on her face, showing her painful surprise and disappointment. The moment was played more for poignance than for comedy, with the character seeing her dreams of fame and fortune shatter.
  • On the final night of the 2005 series of the UK version of Big Brother, Makosi Musambasi's post eviction interview was compared live on the air by presenter and interviewer Davina McCall to the Gong Show in relation to the crowd booing her everytime she spoke (which commonly happened on the show if the act was not liked by the crowd). McCall attracted some complaints for her hostile interviewing of Makosi, which was much criticized in the British press.

[edit] References in film

  • In the movie Being There, the main character Chauncey Gardiner changes the channel and takes a meticulous look at his TV just in time to see one of the worst/best acts ever on the Gong Show: a man dressed in animal skins who howls out several "sentences" of unintelligible screams as a supposed caveman language.

[edit] Reference in music

  • Mac Dre mentions The Gong Show in the J Diggs song, "Always Into Something" from their album, Dre Diggs Presents: Me & My Cuddie
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic mentions The Gong Show in his song, "You Make Me" from his album Even Worse.
  • Jimmy Buffet mentions The Gong Show in his song, "Miss You So Badly" from his album, Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.
  • Both the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC have used the lines "On the Gong Show, we won't get gonged, 'cause we're (insert name of group), not Cheech and Chong." in the song "Slow and Low" originally written by Run-DMC, then recorded and released on the Beastie Boys album Licensed to Ill.

[edit] External links