Thursday, September 25, 2008

Chuck Baris & The Gong Show

The Gong Show was a 1970's variety show, but would now be known as a "reality" show. Chuck Baris was the host. The premise was that acts of dubious merit would perform before a panel of celebrity judges who were given 20 seconds before they could end an act's performance by hitting a large gong, known as "gonging". if an act survived without being gonged, the judges rated their performance on a scale of one to ten. the show sometimes got away with provocative acts, including the one in this video.

Chuck Baris later wrote an autobiography, which was made into a movie, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, in which he claimed to be a CIA spy while he was the host of The Gong Show. Sounds like he went a little crazy, no?

3 comments:

Alexander said...

wow. was this show legal? This is a pretty crazy show.

Miri said...

yeah... i was completely surprised that this even made it on the air.

Lindsay said...

i love it how the older lady didn't get it.

that one chick was really going at it.