Editing The Gong Show (section)

==Broadcast history==

===NBC===
NBC first broadcast the show at 12:30&nbsp;p.m. (11:30&nbsp;a.m. [[Central Time Zone|Central]] and [[Pacific Time Zone|Pacific]]). This was the network's least important time slot, as programs running at that time had to share the half-hour with a five-minute NBC newscast anchored by [[Edwin Newman]]. As a result, the first six-plus months of ''The Gong Show'' featured approximately twenty minutes of program content in a twenty-five-minute episode.

Many NBC affiliates in some larger 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 had picked up the program from the NBC affiliate that had rejected it. For example, in [[Boston]], then-NBC affiliate [[WBZ-TV]] did not run the series, allowing local UHF independent outlet [[WSBK-TV]] to broadcast it.

''Gong's'' time slot was given to a new soap opera, ''[[Lovers and Friends]]'', on January 3, 1977, and the show replaced the cancelled ''[[Another World (TV series)|Another World]]'' spinoff ''[[Somerset (TV series)|Somerset]]'' at 4:00&nbsp;p.m. The time change allowed ''Gong'' to expand to a full half-hour.

NBC broadcast a one-hour prime-time ''Gong Show'' special on April 26, 1977, featuring in-studio special guests [[Tony Randall]], [[Alice Cooper]] and [[Harry James]] and His Orchestra. The winning act on this special was The Bait Brothers, and the panelists were Jaye P. Morgan, Jamie Farr and Arte Johnson.<ref>{{IMDb title|1193452|The All-Star Gong Show Special}}</ref>

===="Popsicle Twins" incident====
During ''The'' ''Gong Show'''s run, Barris became well known for his clashes with the network censors, intentionally bringing in risque acts as a diversion to allow some of the less racy acts to slip by. In 1977, one of these bait acts, called "Have You Got a Nickel?", made it onto the show. The act consisted of two teenage girls, both wearing shorts, sitting cross-legged on the stage floor and silently eating [[ice pop|popsicles]] in a manner that suggested they were performing [[fellatio]] on the frozen treats. The nature of their act led to the two girls being referred to as the "Popsicle Twins".

While the girls were able to complete their act without being gonged, they were given low scores by two of the judges. [[Phyllis Diller]] gave them a zero, while [[Jamie Farr]] followed with a marginally better 2. [[Jaye P. Morgan]] awarded them a 10, quipping, "Do you know that's the way I started (in show business)?" and proceeded to eat one of the girls' popsicles.<ref name="Inde770921">{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104764429/a-popsicle-act-gets-gong-show-in-trouble/|date=September 21, 1977|page=33|agency=Chicago Sun-Times|title=A popsicle act gets Gong Show in trouble|newspaper=The Independent-Record|location=Helena, Montana|via=Newspapers.com|access-date=July 1, 2022}}</ref>

The girls' act was approved by the NBC censors, who apparently did not see anything wrong with it during the rehearsals. However, after the episode was shown in the Eastern Time Zone, NBC cut the act from the later tape delay broadcast for western time zones.<ref name=have-you-got-a-nickel-1>{{cite web|last=Kaufman|first=King|title=Chuck Barris|url=http://www.salon.com/2001/03/06/chuck_barris/|work=[[Salon (website)|Salon]]|date=March 6, 2001}}</ref> [[KNBC]], alerted to the content, was able to preempt it.{{r|Inde770921}} The act was not cut from all the tapes, and the "Popsicle Twins" incident has been seen in reruns and retrospectives. Barris said in a 2001 interview with [[Salon (website)|''Salon'']] that this particular act began making him reconsider his career.<ref name=have-you-got-a-nickel-1/>

====Cancellation====
Despite its popularity and respectable ratings for a non-soap-opera midday show, NBC cancelled ''The Gong Show'', with its final episode broadcast on July 21, 1978. At the time, there was much speculation as to the network's true motivations for dumping the popular show. Barris has commented that he heard that NBC's official reason was because of both "lower than expected ratings" and a desire by the network to "re-tailor the morning shows to fit the standard morning demographics" (the move coincided with the arrival of new NBC president [[Fred Silverman]], who was well known for such programming overhauls and was reported to have disliked ''The Gong Show''). ''[[America Alive!]]'', a magazine-style variety program hosted by [[Art Linkletter]]'s son [[Jack Linkletter|Jack]], replaced ''Gong''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/25/archives/new-jersey-pages-tv-america-alive-makes-debut-on-nbc.html|title=TV: 'America Alive' Makes Debut on NBC|newspaper=The New York Times|date=25 July 1978}}</ref>

Following the cancellation, many critics and industry analysts – including [[Gene Shalit]] and [[Rona Barrett]] – reported having heard comments from within the NBC programming department from "sources preferring anonymity" that the true reason behind the cancellation was Barris's refusal to tone down the increasingly risqué nature of the show. According to the sources, after the "Popsicle Twins" incident<ref name="have-you-got-a-nickel-1" /> and an episode in which Jaye P. Morgan spontaneously exposed her breasts on air during a [[Gene Gene the Dancing Machine]] segment, Barris had been given an ultimatum by the network's [[Standards and Practices]] department to deliver less racy shows for his audience, which included many younger viewers, or NBC would cancel the program.

====Finale====
NBC allowed Barris to continue the show for the rest of his contract, and Barris made no perceptible change in preparation for the finale. In the finale, staff member Larry Gotterer appeared as "Fenwick Gotterer" to host the show after Barris started the show doing a "Chuckie's Fables" sketch. The rest of the final episode tried to explain the life of the show and its cancellation. Barris managed to have the last word on the show's demise, appearing as a contestant. Playing in a country music band called "The Hollywood Cowboys" with the house band's rhythm section, Barris sang a slightly modified version of [[Johnny Paycheck]]'s "[[Take This Job and Shove It]]", giving NBC [[finger (gesture)|the finger]] during the song to accentuate his point. NBC censored the gesture, with the word "OOPS!" superimposed over a still shot of the set. Barris was gonged by Jamie Farr, who quipped, "Because that little fella's been saying that I've been long of nose, I'm also long of gong, fella."

The group "Lobster Repair" (who performed [[Harry Belafonte]]'s song "[[Day-O]]") won the final $516.32 and trophy of the NBC era. Gotterer presented the award as Barris had been escorted off the set by NBC security.

===Syndication (1976–80)===
Immediately after taping the final NBC episode, Barris was evicted from NBC's Burbank studios and  ''The Gong Show'' set was moved to the studios of [[Golden West Broadcasters]] (now [[Sunset Bronson Studios]]) in Hollywood. Production of the syndicated nighttime/weekend version of ''The Gong Show'' continued there for two years. The entire syndicated run from September 1976 to September 1980 was distributed by Firestone Program Services. While the series eventually met its demise in syndication as it had on NBC, according to Barris, the problem did not lie with any outrageous acts, but instead the controversy and public outcry over another series he had produced.

In September 1979, Barris launched the game show ''[[Three's a Crowd (game show)|Three's a Crowd]]'', which was a spin-off of ''The Newlywed Game''. Instead of recently married couples trying to match answers, the wives and secretaries of married men would compete to show who knew the men better. Religious activists and feminist groups protested against ''Three's a Crowd'' and its ratings eventually forced the show's cancellation during the middle of the season.

In Barris's autobiography ''The Game Show King'', he wrote that "the public backlash from ''Three's a Crowd'' not only caused the program to be canceled, but it took three other TV shows of mine with it. I went to my house in Malibu and stayed there for a year." ''Gong'' was one of those shows to be canceled, and Barris never hosted another series. The trauma from the ''Three's a Crowd's'' backlash was so severe, in the last several weeks of the ''Gong Show'', Barris reportedly had "a small nervous breakdown" on-air, because he was "bored to death" with broadcasting.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.yahoo.com/music/chuck-barris-wacky-host-creator-gong-show-dies-050605615.html|title=Chuck Barris, Wacky Host and Creator of 'The Gong Show,' Dies at 87|date=22 March 2017 }}</ref> His next two series, revivals of the 1960s game show ''Camouflage'' (the replacement for ''Three's a Crowd'') and his 1973–77 series ''[[Treasure Hunt (U.S. game show)|Treasure Hunt]]'' (of which Barris had very little to zero involvement, according to host [[Geoff Edwards]]), both failed to find audiences and Barris went further into his self-imposed exile from television. Barris would not have another hit series until the 1985 syndication revival of ''The Newlywed Game''.

Reruns of the NBC shows began in syndication during the autumn of 1979. In the 1980s, the NBC and syndicated episodes were rerun on the [[USA Network]] and later, the [[Game Show Network]], although by the time GSN picked up the series, many episodes had to be edited or were not broadcast due to musical performance clearance issues. No episodes from the first syndicated season, hosted by [[Gary Owens]], were rerun.

===Later incarnations===
A syndicated weekday revival of ''The Gong Show'', hosted by San Francisco disc jockey [[Don Bleu]], ran during the 1988–89 season from September 12, 1988, to May 26, 1989, with reruns airing through September 15. Each winner was paid $701.
The last show of the Don Bleu's revival is dedicated for a long-week tribute to France.

''Extreme Gong'', a later incarnation of ''The Gong Show'' on the [[Game Show Network]] had viewers vote on its acts by telephone. It was hosted by [[George Gray (television personality)|George Gray]] and ran from October 5, 1998, to August 27, 1999,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lasvegassun.com/news/1999/aug/27/going-going-gong/|title=Going... Going... GONG!, Las Vegas Sun talks about Extreme Gong's cancellation, August 26th 1999.|date=27 August 1999}}</ref> with reruns continuing to air up until Fall of 2000. Winners received $317.69. This version was well known for two known incidents: one episode featuring "Cody the Talking Dog" for which he tried to say things like "I love you" and "ice cream" but did not succeed in talking, and another featuring a [[Village People]] parody as ''The Village Little People'' where they sang a cover of "[[Y.M.C.A. (song)|YMCA]]". Orange County comedy punk band [[the Radioactive Chicken Heads]] (then called Joe & the Chicken Heads) made their national television debut on ''Extreme Gong'', though they were gonged midway through their performance. Near the end of the show's run, an hour-long "Tournament of Talent" special was aired in August 1999, with twelve previous winning acts (chosen by viewers via a phone-in poll) competing for a payoff of $10,000.

[[Comedy Central]] debuted a new incarnation called ''[[The Gong Show with Dave Attell]]'', which lasted for eight weeks in the summer of 2008.<ref>{{cite web|title=New 'Gong Show' Coming to Comedy Central|url=http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/05/new_gong_show_coming_to_comedy.php|publisher=TV Week|access-date=6 July 2015}}</ref> The show's format was similar to the original, but its scoring was based on a scale of 0 to 500, and winning acts received $600. The $600 was shown as paid in cash on the spot, rather than being paid by check as in earlier versions, but in reality (because of contestant eligibility regulations by Sony) was paid as a check from Sony Pictures. In place of a typical trophy, winners were awarded a belt in the style of boxing championship belts.

A live stage version of ''The Gong Show'' took place at B.B. King's Blues Club, in the [[Times Square]] district of [[New York City]] on August 12, 2010.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Dollar|first1=Steve|title=Flocking to Meet (and Avoid) the Gong|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704164904575421400783784196?mod=googlenews_wsj|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|access-date=6 July 2015}}</ref> It was produced by [[The Radio Chick]], and is the Sony authorized stage production. This production went into development in 2011–12 and now runs regularly in New York City, with engagements in other U.S. cities.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Gong Show Live|url=http://www.gongshowlive.net|access-date=6 July 2015}}</ref>

====2017 revival====
On October 3, 2016, ABC and Sony Pictures announced a 10-episode summer 2017 revival of ''The Gong Show'' executive produced by [[Will Arnett]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=O'Neill|first1=Natalie|title=ABC bringing back oddball game show 'The Gong Show'|url=https://nypost.com/2016/10/03/abc-bringing-back-oddball-game-show-the-gong-show/|newspaper=The New York Post|access-date=2016-12-09}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-gong-show-return-20161003-snap-story.html|title=Will Arnett and ABC are reviving the '70s quasi-talent show 'The Gong Show'|website=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=3 October 2016|access-date=2016-10-04}}</ref>

The broadcast of the 2017 revival premiered on ABC on June 22, 2017,<ref>{{cite magazine | last=Gettell | first=Oliver | date=June 7, 2017 | magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] | title=Mike Myers gets cheeky in The Gong Show trailer | url=http://ew.com/tv/2017/06/07/gong-show-trailer-mike-meyers/ | access-date=2017-06-12}}</ref> hosted by previously unknown "British comedian" Tommy Maitland. Maitland was, in fact, a character portrayed by [[Mike Myers]], although neither ABC nor Myers confirmed this and ABC officially credited Maitland as host and executive producer.<ref>{{cite magazine | last=Romano | first=Nick | date=May 3, 2017 | magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] | title=Mike Myers debuts new character, ''Gong Show'' host Tommy Maitland | url=http://ew.com/tv/2017/05/03/mike-myers-tommy-maitland-will-arnett-gong-show/ | access-date=2017-06-12}}</ref> Maitland's catchphrase was "Who's a cheeky monkey?"<ref>{{cite news|url=http://etcanada.com/news/231829/mike-myers-is-a-cheeky-monkey-in-first-look-at-gong-show-reboot/|title=Mike Myers Is A 'Cheeky Monkey' In First Look At 'Gong Show' Reboot|last=Furdyk|first=Brent|work=[[Entertainment Tonight Canada|ET Canada]]|date=2017-06-07|access-date=2017-08-15|archive-date=2017-08-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816005745/http://etcanada.com/news/231829/mike-myers-is-a-cheeky-monkey-in-first-look-at-gong-show-reboot/|url-status=dead}}</ref> He also periodically used Barris's "back with more stuff" catchphrase to lead into commercials.

Celebrity guest judges for the 2017 revival included Arnett,  [[Zach Galifianakis]], [[Alison Brie]], [[Andy Samberg]], [[Elizabeth Banks]], [[Tracee Ellis Ross]], [[Joel McHale]], [[Megan Fox]], [[Courteney Cox]],  [[Dana Carvey]], [[Will Forte]], [[Jack Black]], [[Jennifer Aniston]], [[Ken Jeong]], [[Fred Armisen]], [[Maya Rudolph]] and [[Anthony Anderson]].<ref>{{cite magazine | last=Rose | first=Lacey | date=April 28, 2017 | magazine=[[The Hollywood Reporter]] | title=ABC's 'Gong Show' Reboot Taps One Very Interesting Host  | url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/abcs-gong-show-reboot-taps-one-very-interesting-host-998339 | access-date=2017-06-12}}</ref> Among the more notable acts featured on the revival are [[the Radioactive Chicken Heads]], making their second appearance on a ''Gong Show'' incarnation since ''Extreme Gong'' in 1998. The first season of this version also features a regular segment featuring a staff performer leading the audience in a sing-along of the [[novelty song]] [[Shaving Cream (song)|"Shaving Cream"]], reminiscent of the recurring gag acts on the earlier version.

The winner of each show received a gong trophy and an oversized check in the amount of US$2,000.17, later increased by a penny the following year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-boyband-review-20170622-story.html|title='The Gong Show' reboots and 'Boy Band' dances to distract in a new era of tumult|first=Lorraine|last=Ali|website=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=22 June 2017}}</ref> The final episode of the first season featured a memorial to Barris, who died prior to the series' premiere in 2017.

On January 8, 2018, ABC announced that the revival would be picked up for a second season, officially confirmed Myers as the portrayer of Maitland and crediting Myers as an executive producer by name.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.buzzerblog.com/2018/01/08/abc-renews-the-gong-show-for-a-second-season/|title=ABC Renews The Gong Show for a Second Season|date=8 January 2018}}</ref> The second (and final) season premiered on June 21, 2018.<ref name="auto">{{Cite news|url=https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/gong-show-season-two-mike-myers-game-show-return-set-abc/|title=The Gong Show: Season Two; Mike Myers Game Show Return Set by ABC – canceled TV shows – TV Series Finale|date=2018-04-19|work=canceled TV shows – TV Series Finale|access-date=2018-08-22|language=en-US}}{{better source needed|reason=[[WP:NOTRS]]|date=August 2019}}</ref> Celebrity guest judges for season 2 included [[Jimmy Kimmel]], [[Jason Sudeikis]], [[Brad Paisley]], [[Dana Carvey]], [[Alyson Hannigan]], [[Ken Jeong]], [[Kristen Schaal]], and [[Rob Riggle]].<ref name="auto"/> However, the series was not renewed for a third season and was quietly cancelled.

===Film===
In May, 1980, [[Universal Pictures]] released ''[[The Gong Show Movie]]'' to scathing reviews and the film was rapidly withdrawn from wide release. Advertising proclaimed it as "''The Gong Show'' That Got Gonged by the Censor". It was seen periodically on cable TV, but was never released on home video<ref>{{cite news|title=The Gong Show Movie (1980)|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/93553/The-Gong-Show-Movie/overview|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071214060722/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/93553/The-Gong-Show-Movie/overview|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 December 2007|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=[[The New York Times]]|author=Sandra Brennan|date=2007|access-date=6 July 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Gong Show Movie (1980)|url=http://www.shockcinemamagazine.com/gong.html|publisher=Shock Cinema|access-date=6 July 2015}}</ref> until March 29, 2016, after the film, which achieved [[cult film|cult]] status<ref name="Tasho">{{cite web |last1=Tasho |first1=Ken |title=The Gong Show Movie | url=https://www.edgemedianetwork.com/story/194255 |website=EDGE Media Network |access-date=11 September 2024 |language=en}}</ref> was released on [[Blu-ray]] by [[Shout! Factory]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://insidepulse.com/2016/03/08/the-gong-show-movie-bangs-blu-ray-in-march/|title=The Gong Show Movie bangs Blu-ray in March – Inside Pulse|date=9 March 2016 }}</ref>

''[[Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)|Confessions of a Dangerous Mind]]'', a film directed by [[George Clooney]] and written by [[Charlie Kaufman]], was based on the semi-fictional autobiography of the same name by 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'', GSN produced a documentary called ''The Chuck Barris Story: My Life on the Edge'', which included rare footage from the Gary Owens pilot.