for media researchChapter 2 - "The Gong"
About Chuck Barris who created The Dating Game and The Gong Show
other notable media mentioned:
- Dick Clark, who was being investigated for a payola scandal for American Bandstand
- Helen Gurley Brown novel Sex and the Single Girl which was published in this weird time period for women... "The Pill was legal...but young women were still widely expected to stay virgins until marriage"
- Where the Action Is > "groovy music show" that apparently inspired The Dating Game
- The Newlywed Game; quote about the show's requirement to make their own language:
"We couldn't say 'God," we couldn't say 'toilet seat' we couldn't say 'make love,' so we created our own vocabulary," Eubanks told me. His go-to question was "What's the weirdest place you've ever made whoopee?"
- couples bickered more in the 60s on dating shows, Rob Eubanks theorized, because they were mimicking sitcoms like The Honeymooners
- the 1971 sitcom All in the Family "put everyone's family fights on TV"
- Three on a Date - 1976 book, later titled The Love Company, about Stephanie Buffington's adventures as a producer who chaperoned the dating game couples on their prize dates. later adapted into a tv movie!
it really seemed like the people behind the scenes on the show were having a fun time. On a comment on a clip of the Gong Show, I saw someone say that it felt like a public access tv show, which I agree
- The Gong Show segments
Unknown Comic, Unknown Hussy, Gene Gene the Dancing Machine were all crew doing goofy stuff
apparently Barris was kinda a bad host lol, would say "well be right back with more...stuff" which became a 'hip catchphrase' according to the book
>> ok but to amend the note from early about it all being "wild fun" shit got CRAZY. Apparently they didn't do background checks on anyone from the dating game and one of them, Rodney Alcala turned out to be a serial killer omg
...as Chuck Barris started to spiral out, he made a show called 3's a crowd, where it was like The Newlywed Game, but with the man's secretary, and the wife and her competed to see who knew him better (gosh)
in response to this George W.S. Trow, New Yorker contributor wrote "Within the context of no-context" a manifesto against television
...as things were flaming out, Barris made The Gong Show Movie, a scripted comedy co-created with avant-garde filmmaker Robert Downey???
then Barris wrote a book about his "life," claiming he was actually a CIA agent. This book was made into a movie, starring Sam Rockwell, called Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
FURTHER RESEARCH
- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind movie
- The Love Company 1976 book by Stephanie Buffington about her time as a producer on The Gong Show
- Sex and the Single Girl Helen Gurley Brown book
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