{"id":3859,"date":"2024-09-06T04:23:49","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T04:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3859"},"modified":"2024-10-12T22:18:27","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T22:18:27","slug":"the-gong-show-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/06\/the-gong-show-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gong Show Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Gong Show Movie<\/strong> (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, vulgar humor, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Chuck Barris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenwriter: Chuck Barris and Robert Downey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Milton DeLugg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Richard C. Glouner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 23, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Chuck Barris, Robin Altman, Jaye P. Morgan, Murray Langston (The Unknown Comic), Mabel King, Lillie Shelton, James B. Douglas, Jamie Farr, Pat McCormick, Rip Taylor, Vincent Schiavelli, Gene Patton (Gene Gene The Dancing Machine), Rosey Grier, Ed Holland (Father Ed), Tony Randall, Della Barris, Phil Hartman, The Vatican 4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating: *<\/strong> (as a movie)\/*** (as a campy curiosity)<\/p>\n

\u00a0As a kid, I loved watching The Gong Show. For those who don\u2019t know, The Gong Show was an amateur talent contest that ran on TV from 1976 to 1980. Participants, usually of questionable talent, would perform various acts and a panel of three celebrities would rate them on a scale of 0 to 10. The worst acts were \u201cgonged\u201d meaning that one of the judges would strike a gong, automatically eliminating them from the competition.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hosted by Chuck Barris, it was known for being tasteless, sometimes offensive and always idiotic. I watched it with my father every night, so naturally I was excited when I heard about The Gong Show Movie<\/strong>. I thought he\u2019d cave in and take me to see it even though it carried the dreaded R rating. I thought wrong. Not only that, it stayed in theaters for just one week before being pulled. It received overwhelmingly negative reviews and bombed at the box office. It\u2019s never been available on video or DVD. It does show up on cable TV which is how I finally got to see it a few years back.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At this point, let me direct your attention to where I rated it. You\u2019ll see that I gave The Gong Show Movie<\/strong> two ratings. Allow me to explain. By normal movie standards, it stinks! It\u2019s bad on pretty much every conceivable level. Hence, the one-star rating. As an exercise in high camp, it\u2019s a lot of fun. It has a very high kitsch factor due to it being a total product of its time. Something this outrageously bad could only have been made in the late 70s. Hence, the three-star rating. Any way you look at it, you have to admit that there\u2019s never been anything quite like The Gong Show Movie<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie is basically a fictionalized week-in-the-life story about Barris (playing himself) as he deals with the various stresses of hosting a popular TV show. Among other things, he has to deal with a nervous network executive (Douglas) who\u2019s constantly worrying about the content of the show. God forbid there\u2019s anything offensive on it. People run up to him on the street and audition for the show. Barris is forced to watch endless bad acts. He barely gets a moment to himself. All of this puts a strain on his relationship with live-in girlfriend Red (Altman). He\u2019s clearly a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It doesn\u2019t help matters any when regular panelist\/judge Jaye P. Morgan flashes her breasts on TV, a real life incident that resulted in her being fired from the show. Chuckie Baby (as he\u2019s often referred to) finally loses it (\u201cKREPLACH!!!\u201d) and retreats to the desert to think things over. Everybody- friends, family, co-workers and various other associates- shows up and encourages him to return to the show with a rousing musical number, \u201cDon\u2019t Get Up For Me\u201d. End of movie. Roll credits.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Gong Show Movie<\/strong> promised to show fans the acts that couldn\u2019t be shown on television. This would appear to imply that we\u2019d get to see stuff that was too racy for TV. WRONG! The real reason we didn\u2019t see most of these acts on TV is because they\u2019re plain awful. Not funny awful, just awful! Very few of the acts in the movie are any good. Like the old guy who clucks like a chicken to \u201cIn the Mood\u201d; Chuck keeps calling him back to the stage for encore after encore until the guy suffers a heart attack. I also liked \u201cThe Vatican Rag\u201d in the movie\u2019s final moments. There is one racy act in the movie that was actually on the show, the bit featuring two teenage girls eating popsicles in a very suggestive manner. That one damn near put Chuckie Baby out of a job (he was briefly replaced as host by Gary Owens).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Some of The Gong Show Movie<\/strong> makes no sense. For example, why does Tony Randall cameo as a contestant? On the upside, show regulars The Unknown Comic and Gene Gene The Dancing Machine (always my favorite on the show) make appearances.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Here\u2019s the thing, The Gong Show was a definite product of the 70s. It\u2019s so hopelessly dated now that it\u2019s just hilarious. The Gong Show Movie<\/strong> was a bad idea on so many levels. Did anybody really think it would make a movie star out of Barris? I like the guy, I find him immensely entertaining, but he\u2019s a personality, NOT an actor! He\u2019s not much better as a director. The movie can be described as funny, but for all the wrong reasons. Supposedly, Barris is the one responsible for keeping The Gong Show Movie<\/strong> out of circulation and it\u2019s easy to see why he\u2019d want to do that. It\u2019s a total embarrassment. Yet you can\u2019t stop watching. It\u2019s tantamount to a train wreck in that respect. On that level, The Gong Show Movie<\/strong> is worth watching at least once. It\u2019s a very, VERY bad movie, but I still like it (sort of). As a cinematic curiosity, it rates an 8. As a movie \u2026.. GONG!!!!<\/p>\n

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Copyright HAG ?2008<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gong Show Movie (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, vulgar humor, nudity, sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Chuck Barris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenwriter: Chuck Barris and Robert Downey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Milton DeLugg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Richard C. Glouner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 23, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Chuck Barris, Robin Altman, Jaye P. Morgan, Murray Langston (The Unknown Comic), Mabel King, Lillie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guilty-pleasures","category-weird-ones"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/The-Gong-Show-Movie-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3859"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5432,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3859\/revisions\/5432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}