IMDB

Actor · Writer

1929-06-03 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA · Male

3 series in the catalog

Charles Hirsch Barris (June 3, 1929 – March 21, 2017) was an American game show creator, producer, and host, author, and songwriter. A key crew member of several hugely successful television game shows, he was the creator of The Dating Game (1965–2021), the original producer of The Newlywed Game (1966–2013) both for the ABC network and syndication, and the host and producer of The Gong Show from 1976 to 1980, for the NBC network and syndication.

His songwriting credits include "Palisades Park", first recorded by Freddy Cannon in 1962 and also recorded by the Ramones in 1989, and he wrote three novels and four memoirs. Barris made unsubstantiated claims that he was an active international assassin for the CIA in the 1960s and the 1970s in parallel to his career, including in his 1984 memoir Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was adapted into a 2002 film of the same name by director George Clooney and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, starring Sam Rockwell as Barris, and in which his alleged CIA career is mostly portrayed in an absurdist manner.

Early life

Barris was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 3, 1929, the son of Edith (née Cohen) and Nathaniel Barris, a dentist. He was raised in Lower Merion Township and attended Lower Merion High School. His uncle was singer, songwriter, and actor Harry Barris. He graduated in 1953 from Drexel University where he was a columnist for the student newspaper, The Triangle.

Career

Barris got his start in television as a page and later was part of the staff at NBC in New York City. After his stint at NBC, Barris worked as a standards-and-practices person at the television music show American Bandstand for ABC. He produced pop music for records and television, and wrote "Palisades Park," which was recorded by Freddy Cannon and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks (June 23–30, 1962) to become the biggest hit of Cannon's career. 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 responsible for determining which game shows the network would air. When he told his bosses at ABC that he felt the game show concepts being pitched were worse than his own ideas, they suggested that he quit his programming job and become a producer.

Barris formed his own production company, Chuck Barris Productions, on June 14, 1965. His first success came with The Dating Game, which debuted in 1965 on ABC. The show was hosted by Jim Lange and featured three contestants who competed for a date with a person hidden from their view. The contestants' suggestive banter and its "flower power"-motif studio set were a revolution for the game show genre. The show ran until 1980 and was twice revived, later in the 1980s and 1990s. A celebrity version of the show began in June 2021.

In 1966, Barris launched 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, broadcast until 1985, for a total of 19 years on both "first run" network TV and syndication. Interviewed on the NPR program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on August 1, 2009, Barris said The Newlywed Game was the easiest program he had developed: "All I needed was four couples, eight questions, and a washer-dryer."

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: the game play normally derived its interest (and often, humor) from the excitement, vulnerability, embarrassment, or anger of the contestants or participants in the game. Barris also made several attempts through the years at non-game formats, such as ABC's Operation: Entertainment, a variety show staged at military bases akin to USO shows; a CBS revival of Your Hit Parade; and The Bobby Vinton Show, a Canada-based syndicated variety show for singer Bobby Vinton (produced in conjunction with Chris Bearde and Allan Blye). The last was his most successful program other than a game show.

The Gong Show

Somewhat shy, Barris disliked appearing on camera, though he once dashed onto the set of The New Treasure Hunt to throw a pie at emcee Geoff Edwards. But he became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and hosted the talent show spoof The Gong Show, which he packaged in partnership with television producer Chris Bearde. The show's cult following has endured, though it ran only two seasons on NBC (1976–78) and four in syndication (1976–80). As with some of Barris's other projects (including The Newlywed Game), it was at one point possible to see The Gong Show twice daily, a relatively uncommon feat before cable TV's expansion into the commercial market.

The NBC show's original host was John Barbour, who initially misunderstood the show's concept as a straight talent show, as opposed to Barris's parody concept. Barbour was dropped as host at the last minute; to save the show, Barris took the advice of an NBC executive who suggested that he should host it himself.

Though initially uneasy before the camera, Barris soon settled in comfortably as the show's host. His jokey, bumbling personality, accentuated hand-clapping between sentences (which eventually had the studio audience joining in with him), and catchphrases (he usually went into commercial break with "We'll be right back with more, uh, STUFF"—occasionally paired with shifting his head to reveal the later ubiquitous sign behind the stage reading simply "STUFF"—and "This is me saying 'bye'" was one of his favorite closing lines) were the antithesis of the smooth TV host (such as Gary Owens, who emceed the syndicated version of the show in its first season). Barris joined in with the eccentricity of the format, using unusual props, dressing in colorful and somewhat unusual clothing and wearing strange hats, pulled down and nearly covering his eyes. He became yet another performer of the show, and for many viewers, a cult hero. 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 stage carpenter who played "Father Ed," a priest who got flustered when his cue cards were deliberately turned upside-down; stand-up comedian Murray Langston, who as "The Unknown Comic" wore a paper bag over his head (with cutouts for his eyes, mouth, and even a box of Kleenex) and "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine", who was arguably the most popular member of The Gong Show "cast". Gene Gene was actually Gene Patton, the show's stagehand, who danced onto the stage whenever the band played "Jumpin' at the Woodside". In the 1980s, long after The Gong Show was canceled, NBC tour guides still pointed Patton out to crowds as his character while he was working as a stagehand.

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 Barris presented an onstage act consisting of two teenage girls slowly and suggestively sucking popsicles. Another incident was when during a "Gene Gene, The Dancing Machine" segment, Jaye P. Morgan opened her blouse to reveal her bare breasts.

In 1980, Barris directed and starred in The Gong Show Movie, which performed so poorly both critically and financially, it was pulled from theaters shortly after release. The film was released on Blu-ray in 2016.

The Gong Show has had four subsequent revivals, one under Barris's title (with Don Bleu) in 1988–89, one on The Game Show Network in 2000 called Extreme Gong, and one with current…