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6 episodes with Chuck Barris
2 episodes with Chuck Barris
3 episodes with Chuck Barris
2 episodes with Chuck Barris
2 episodes with Chuck Barris
4 episodes with Chuck Barris
2 episodes with Chuck Barris
2 episodes with Chuck Barris
2 episodes with Chuck Barris
Dennis is joined via Zoom by Hillary Carlip the designer and co-author of the most fabulous pop-up book you'll ever see Willis Wonderland: The Legendary House of Atomic Kitsch, which is a book dedicated to the home, kitsch collection and all-round fabulousness of Hillary's friend, the late great songwriter and visual artist Allie Willis. (Allie is also the subject of a documentary that was featured on this podcast last year; The World According to Allie Willis. It's now streaming on Hulu.) Hillary talks about how the pop-up book project came to her, finding illustrator Neal McCullough in Ireland and "paper engineer" Mike Malkovas in Paris and collaborating on this incredibly elaborate book all over Zoom. She also talks about creative endeavors from her past including the memoir Queen of the Oddballs, the photo book Ala Cart, which was inspired by the abandoned shopping lists Hillary's been collecting for years, juggling in the movie Xanadu and winning The Gong Show and host Chuck Barris's mad adoration. Other topics include: her long marriage to TV writer and producer Maxine Lapiduss, watching Olivia Newton-John fall for Matt Lattanzi on Xanadu, managing the ups and downs of a creative career while staying true to herself and the many times during the book's creation when she felt the spirit Allie guiding the way. www.williswonderlandpopupbook.com www.hillarycarlip.com
National Common Curtesy day. Entertainment from 2010. 1st Comic-Con, 1st Taco Bell, Woman with 2 uteruses gives birth. Todays birthdays - Johann Sebastian Bach, Rose Stone, Timothy Dalton, Eddie Money, Roger Hodgson, Sabrinia Le Beauf, Gary Oldman, Mathew Broderick, Scott Eastwood. Chuck Barris died.Intro - God did good - Dianna Cocoran https://www.diannacorcoran.com/ Common courtesy - CP KelleyBreak your heart - Taio Cruz LudacrisHillbilly bone - Trace Adkins Blake SheltonBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent http://50cent.com/St. Mathew Passion - BachEverday people - Sly & the Family StoneTwo tickets to paradise - Eddie MoneyTake the long way home - SupertrampExit - Gone by tonight - Whitney Doucet https://www.whitneydoucet.com/ countrytundergroundradio.com History & Factoids website
Forget about the original “The Dating Game,” not to mention “The All-New Dating Game” and “The Celebrity Dating Game.” This is director Violet Du Feng's “The Dating Game,” which just had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Of course, this is a documentary not a Chuck Barris game show and, like Violet's previous film, the sublime “Hidden Letters,” which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, her version explores the topic with depth, insight, and humor. Joining Ken for another of our in-person Sundance Film Festival interviews, along with the film's Academy Award-winning producer, Joanna Natasegara (“The White Helmets”), Violet discusses the similarities and differences between “Hidden Letters” and “The Dating Game.” The film delves into the world of dating for young Chinese men, who face immense challenges in a country where there are 30 million more men than women due to China's former One Child Policy. The film's compelling participants include the highly sought after but somewhat cheesy dating coach Hao and his three clients, as well as Hao's wife, Wen, also a dating coach. When, in one scene, Wen confronts Hao about their own marriage, the plot thickens. No game show can match that drama. Follow: @violetdufeng and @joanna_film on Instagram and @VioletFilms @topdocspod on Instagram and X The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.
Art Bell - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Chuck Barris
Bachelor Matt? Is he the focus of... Confessions of a Dangerous Mind? Chuck Barris said he killed people for the CIA when he was filming "The Gong Show". Sam Rockwell plays him. He kills people for the CIA while he films "The Gong Show". Jules and Jason loved this when it came out on DVD. They both still love Sam Rockwell. Will they still love this movie? Or is it total garbage? Will they get Robert John Burke's name right? Do they love Julia Roberts smug mugging for the camera? Tune in! Please do subscribes, rate, review us on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser, Podcast Addict, Audible, Goodpods or wherever you possibly could. If you do that, and let us know, we will cover a movie of your choosing on the podcast.
Chuck Barris was a TV visionary, developing shows in the 70s that were decades ahead of their time. But was he also a covert assassin for the CIA? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We're closing out the year by celebrating the 22nd anniversary of one of our all-time favorite films, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind! Released on this day in 2002, this "unauthorized autobiography" of Chuck Barris features one of Drew Barrymore's finest performances as his longtime love interest, Penny. We're diving into all the behind-the-scenes secrets while praising the brilliance of Sam Rockwell, George Clooney's creative direction, and of course, our girl Drew as the sweetest beatnik-hippie! Join our Patreon! Visit us on the web! @howdoyoudrewpod / howdoyoudrew.com @drewseum / thedrewseum.com
Let's be serious: The Gong Show was a national phenomenon! Unfortunately like a lot of things in the 70's, once a movie was made, the fad was over. This is true of The Gong Show Movie which was really a therapy session for creator and host Chuck Barris. So was his book “Confessions of a […]
Jeremy Bourgeois Prior to starting the home buying company in Utah, Jeremy was fixing up houses in Connecticut. He served in the United States Marine Corps infantry before transitioning into real estate. His passion lies in helping others in difficult situations solve their problems. Jeremy mountain bikes, hikes, and reads in his free time. https://scout-peak.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ When It Worked Podcast https://getoffthedamnphone.com/podcast 00:00:00 When It Worked With Jeremy Bourgeois 00:00:29 Musical Instruments 300 Bucks, Smothers Brothers History 00:01:32 Perfect Lets Do Trivia For 100 Bucks 00:02:24 Nursery Rhyme Jack, Be Nimble 00:04:58 Musical Instruments For 200 Class 00:07:54 Musical Instruments Donald Duck, Chuck Barris, Kazoo 00:12:04 500 Threeletter Chemical Terms 00:12:42 Os, Capice, Bank Trivia 00:14:08 Control, Donor, Marriage, Loping 00:16:14 Confirmed, Incorrect, And Fun Facts 00:17:31 Snow White, 400 Law, Chateau, Nursery Rhymes 00:18:50 Slang Tucker, Nursery Rhymes, Hot Cross Buns 00:19:50 Nursery Rhymes Product Reserves Bags 00:20:59 Bargars Real Estate Success Story 00:21:53 Buy Your First Property With Friends 00:22:22 Entrepreneurship Catapulted Me Into Learning 00:22:49 First Property Bought With Husband In 2020 00:23:34 Property Appreciation And Evictions Worked Out Well For Investors 00:26:36 Selling Property For Profit 00:26:51 Investing In Real Estate With Wholesaling Strategy 00:28:30 Wholesaling With Assignment Fee 00:31:12 Move Forward Or No? 00:34:54 Strict Due Diligence Rules Put Buyers In Tight Spot 00:35:57 Wholesale Deals Close More Quickly, Sellers Prefer Direct Contact 00:39:50 Cold Calling, Partnerships, National Expansion 00:41:08 Investment Opportunities In Local Markets 00:42:15 Get A List Of Properties For Sale Quickly 00:42:53 Round Of Applause For Jeremy Bourgeois
GGACP celebrates the birthday of veteran character actor Jamie Farr (b. July 1) with this ENCORE presentation of an entertaining interview from 2017. In this episode, Jamie looks back on 60+ years of showbiz memories, including sharing the big and small screen with legends Bob Hope, Doris Day, Sidney Poitier, Danny Kaye and Ed Wynn. Also, Jamie tours with Red Skelton, takes a class with Clint Eastwood, runs afoul of Joey Bishop and borrows a frock from Ginger Rogers. PLUS: “Murder Can Hurt You”! “Who's Minding the Mint?”! The mad genius of Chuck Barris! Lenny Bruce inspires Klinger! And the greatest prime-time lineup in TV history! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After 41 year0s as host of TV's "Wheel of Fortune," Pat Sajak has retired. But co-star Vanna White hasn't. She's been turning the letters since 1982. It wasn't long after joining the show that Vanna was as well-known as Pat. In this 1987 intervbiew Vanna talks about her role, the future of the show, and what it would be like without Pat Sajak. Get Vanna Speaks by Vanna WhiteAs an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.You may also enjoy my interviews with Chuck Barris and Alex Trebek For more vintage interviews with celebrities, leaders, and influencers, subscribe to Now I've Heard Everything on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and now on YouTube Photo by #Wheel of Fortune #Pat Sajak #TV game shows #TV personalities
The Gong Show was a spicy blend of talent, shock and zany, sprinkled heavily with the special sauce that was Producer/Host Chuck Barris. 70s TV was all about The Gong Gang and Game Show Guru Adam Nedeff's newest offering, Gong This Book chronicles the weirdly hypnotic cultural touchstone that was The Gong Show.Adam joins us with returning guest, author and Game Show Writer Shelley Herman. She appeared on The Gong Show and The Dating Game and her book is called My Peacock Tale: Secrets of an NBC Page. Together, we're celebrating game show history and delving deeply into The Gong Show, The Newlywed Game and The Dating Game. We take a look at Adam's all-time favorite hosts, Bill Cullen, Dennis James, Alan Ludden, Gene Rayburn, Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest. Adam shares The Gong Show's origin story which includes original hosts Gary Owens and John Barbour before the NBC head of daytime let Chuck Barris know that he was the only person who could host such a specifically strange show. He did and it worked, but it consumed him.Was Chuck Barris really a CIA spy???! We CAN tell you without having to kill you. Did The Gong show usher in the phenomenon that would become reality TV? Probably. What happened on those Dating Game dates!? Shelley is telling all. Fritz almost hosted two game shows but his tenacious weather job kept pulling him back in and Weezy's very first Hollywood show biz experience was her appearance on the game show, Face The Music!Adam and Shelley also discuss the fascinating intricacies of game show question writing and researching. And, they share the heartwarming story of Adam's book about Alan Ludden appearing dog eared and well loved in the very last photo taken of Betty White. Adam is now the proud owner of Betty's copy of his book.And in recommendations, Fritz has been loving Palm Royale on Apple Plus and Weezy went book to screen with We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter. It is now a series on Hulu.Path Points of Interest:Adam Nedeff Amazon Author PageGong This Book by Adam NedeffBooks by Adam NedeffThe Gong Show PlaylistAdam Nedeff on FacebookAdam Nedeff on YoutubeAdam Nedeff on InstagramAdam Gives Conan Tour of Madame Tussaud'sAdam's Bill Cullen websiteShelley HermanMy Peacock Tale by Shelley HermanShelley Herman on FacebookShelley Herman on InstagramQuiz Show ExpoPalm Royale on Apple PlusWe Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia HunterWe Were The Lucky Ones on HuluGeorgia Hunter's Blog
National Common Curtesy day. Entertainment from 2008. 1st Comic-Con, 1st Taco Bell, Woman with 2 uteruses gives birth. Todays birthdays - Johann Sebastian Bach, Rose Stone, Timothy Dalton, Eddie Money, Roger Hodgson, Sabrinia Le Beauf, Gary Oldman, Mathew Broderick, Scott Eastwood. Chuck Barris died.Intro - Pour some sugar on me - Def Leppard http://defleppard.com/Common courtesy - CP KelleyLove in this club - Usher Young JeezyAll-American girl - Carrie UnderwoodBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent http://50cent.com/St. Mathew Passion - BachEverday people - Sly & the Family StoneTwo tickets to paradise - Eddie MoneyTake the long way home - SupertrampExit - Its not love - Dokken http://dokken.net/ https://coolcasts.cooolmedia.com/
Remember that guy who knows everything about game shows? That's our pal, Adam Nedeff and we're thrilled to have him back on Irritable Dad Syndrome!Adam joins us to talk about his newest masterpiece "Gong This Book" that tells you everything you've ever wanted to know about The Gong Show, Chuck Barris, The Popsicle Twins and more. Adam also gives us the inside scoop on other great moments in game show history, and the elusive Moth Man that once haunted West Virginia. Ooooooh scary!We promise... you won't GONG this episode!#ADAMNEDEFF#GONGSHOW#CHUCKBARRIS#POPSICLETWINS#JAMIEFARR#MATCHGAME#RAYMONDBURR#DAVIDLETTERMAN#DONKNOTTS#MOTHMAN#WESTVIRGINIA#PATSAJAK#RYANSEACRESTOrder Adam's books here:www.bearmanormedia.comwww.barnesandnoble.comwww.amazon.comSupport the show
A classic interview with the late Chuck Barris of the Gong Show, that opening interview sparked many memories for Stan and Haney, Grab Bag, Local Beat, Roger's Entertainment Corner, Junior's segment, the guys make their weekly NFL picks and update standings, News Headlines, Fluffer, your emails, a classic Haney bit, News, Off the Radar Christmas Songs Week concludes, classic standup comedy, and more...
Winners don't wing it, they prepare for it! I believe this so much it's tip #12 in my 12 Tips for Success On-Camera (and off) Here to join me for a rollicking conversation about how preparation makes and breaks careers is the legendary talent manager, casting director, media trainer and CEO of Become A Host, the premier TV hosting Academy, Marki Costello. Marki pulls back the curtain on how TV really gets made, what executives are really looking for, how and why one of the secrets to billionaires' success is they prepare (!) and how that mindset is what sets talent with sustainable careers apart from everybody else. She pulls no punches: Are you prepared to walk in the room and kick ass? Are you prepared for the constant changes in the industry? Oh, and she's hilarious. Her 3 Rs: Reveal - Relatable - Ratings are GOLD. Marki is the granddaughter of Hollywood royalty, the great comedic talent, Lou Costello, and got her start in the industry working on Chuck Barris', The Gong Show. She has media trained dozens of a-listers like Kelly Clarkson, Ceelo Green, and Michael Strahan. She is the author of Become a Host: the Insight Secrets used by every successful television host and was the star of her own reality series, the Drama Queen on E! Follow Marki on instagram https://www.instagram.com/markicostello/ and learn about classes and bootcamps at becomeahost.com.
Grab some confetti and settle in to meet Rip Taylor -- The King of Confetti! A flamboyant slinger of "rim shot" jokes, Rip initially punctuated his act with exaggerated crying when his gags bombed. Ed Sullivan was a fan (he booked him over 20 times) and dubbed Rip "The Crying Comedian". Much later when bombing on the Merv Griffin show, instead of crying Rip was moved to tear up his joke cards and toss them in the air like confetti. The audience went nuts and from then on it was confetti instead of crying -- and a career that saw long runs in Las Vegas, many game and talk show appearances, and supporting film roles including Indecent Proposal (a rare dramatic turn) and Wayne's World (a great comedic turn). As always find more clips below and thanks for sharing our shows. Want more Rip? The New York Times once described Rip as a cross between Captain Kangaroo and Liberace, wound up to warp factor 7. Pretty good description! https://youtu.be/50pFJU99wUw Ed Sullivan gave Rip his big TV break and had him back over 20 times. Here's an early Rip performance sans mustache and with crying, not confetti, as the shtick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rm4g_ZGx-c Rip was over the top, so in 1978 when producing madman Chuck Barris had an idea for another show that would do for beauty pageants what the Gong Show he tapped Rip to be the host. So back from the glory days of shlock tv -- here's a bit of the $1.98 Beauty Show! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF7yrbl_X6E
On today's episode entertainment writer Jim Colucci give us snippets about what it takes to write books about some of the greatest shows in TV history and an endearing story about finally nailing an interview with Bea Arthur. Jim's work has appeared in such publications as TV Guide, Inside TV, Quick & Simple, InTouch, The Advocate, Next and CBS' Watch! magazine, where he served as a Deputy Editor. Since 2008, he has covered television and other entertainment media in his popular blog, Must Hear TV. He has appeared as a TV expert and historian on such shows as CNN's History of the Sitcom and Reelz's continuing series, Behind Closed Doors. For over ten years, Jim also delivered a weekly on-air version of “Must Hear TV” as a correspondent for “The Frank DeCaro Show” on Sirius XM radio. In the fall of 2004, Time Inc. released Jim's official, authorized companion book to one of NBC's biggest comedy hits, titled Will & Grace: Fabulously Uncensored. His second TV book, The Q Guide to The Golden Girls, was released by Alyson Books in September, 2006. His third book, Golden Girls Forever, released in April 2016 by HarperDesign, a division of HarperCollins, became a New York Times best-seller. In November, 2021, Rizzoli/Universe released All in the Family: The Show That Changed Television, featuring the remembrances of TV legend Norman Lear plus dozens of All in the Family‘s stars, writers, producers, directors, crew and guest stars, and an introduction by Jimmy Kimmel. Always a fan of classic TV, Jim frequently conducts day-long, in-depth, on-camera interviews with legendary figures from American TV history for the Academy of Television Arts & Science's “Archive of American Television” project. Interviewees have included Jayne Meadows, Arthur Rankin, Rue McClanahan, Cloris Leachman, Phylicia Rashad, Tyne Daly, Barbara Feldon, Sam Waterston, James Lipton, Chuck Barris, S. Epatha Merkerson, Jeffrey Tambor, and Bernie Kopell. Jim has written for entertainment media since his days as the Film Editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian, the college newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with degrees in economics/marketing and computer science from the Wharton School of Business and the Moore School of Engineering. Originally from Wayne, New Jersey, he now lives in Los Angeles with Frank and their mischievous Boston terrier, Gabby. www.jimcolucci.com @jimcolucci
Take a solo flight with michelle across the landscape of the american game show over five decades with a special focus on Chuck Barris of THE GONG SHOW and his stint as a CIA assassin (?). #cia #ciaassassin #chuckbarris #thegongshow #thedatinggame #thenewlywedgame #georgeclooney #confessionsofadangerousmind #thepriceisright #bobbarker #valeriebertinelli
Strap in and prepare for an electrifying ride of a show that will leave you exhilarated, astonished, and utterly amazed! Our next guest was an NBC Page in Burbank, California, in the mid-70s. And she's the author of a new book entitled: "My Peacock Tale: Secrets Of An NBC Page." You'll hear a treasure trove of untold stories that will have you on the edge of your seat. Including tales about Richard Pryor, Sid Caesar, John Travolta, Chuck Barris, Joan Rivers, Freddie Prinze, Alfred Hitchcock, Andy Kaufman, The Bee Gees, Erik Estrada, and many, many more! Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this episode of "A Page in History" with the one and only Shelley Herman!
For our first Founders Edition episode we revisit Luc's most favoritest movie of all time, but Chuck and Javier have a few bones to pick… The directorial debut of George Clooney, starring Sam Rockwell, Julia Roberts, Dew Barrymore, Rutger Hauer, and many more, we follow an adaptation of the book written by Chuck Barris that toys with the idea that he was a CIA contract killer during his TV career.The Nostalgia Killers Are…Chuck Starzenski :https://www.instagram.com/youllappreciatethis/Javier Martinez :https://www.instagram.com/thefilmsareallright/Luc Londe: https://www.instagram.com/luclonde/Please check out our Patreon and consider becoming a member to listen to our post show discussions!https://www.patreon.com/NostalgiaKillersPodcastwww.NostalgiaKillers.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
New York, fine anni '50. La vicenda si articola su due piani narrativi perché doppia è la vita di Chuck Barris, il popolare autore e conduttore di spettacoli televisivi, come narrato nella sua autobiografia. Di giorno, è un celebre ideatore e conduttore di show televisivi, di notte si trasforma in uno spietato agente della CIA con il gusto di commettere omicidi. Giovane, energico e concentrato, Barris scala rapidamente i gradini del successo in entrambe le professioni. Diretto da George Clooney, con Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell e Julia Roberts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chris and Steve review 2002's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind directed by George Clooney. Starring Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore, this movie follows the life of Chuck Barris. Game show host by day, CIA hitman by night. It's part comedy, part drama, part Charlie Kaufman surrealism. But is it Chris and Steve's cup of tea? Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was selected by long time patron, GHOST. 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:03:14 - Overall Thoughts 00:13:42 - Scene by Scene Recap We're on YouTube!We got BRAND NEW merch! Join the conversation at streamingthingspod@gmail.com For Streaming Things updates, follow us on Instagram:@streamingthingspodofficial Follow us all on Twitter!@StreamThingPod for the show. @moviesRtherapy for Chris. @stevemay13 for Steve. This month Streaming Things is brought to you by...
The Dating Game… The Newlywed Game… The Gong Show. Chuck Barris created some of TV's most enduring and beloved game shows, at one point supplying network TV with 27 hours worth of game-show programming a week. Did he also work as a contract killer for the CIA, assassinating government targets during the 1960s and 1970s? According to his 1984 book “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” and the 2002 movie directed by George Clooney, that's exactly what Chuck Barris did. In the film, he's portrayed as murdering 33 people while also holding down a full-time job producing game shows. But was it true? Or was it a desperate bid for attention from a man sad to see his identity change from “The King of Daytime Television” to “The Baron of Bad Taste”? Join us as we dig into the controversy surrounding Chuck Barris, one of TV's most prolific and also wackiest figures. MID-ROLL AD: Support Scandal Water by visiting: www.BuyMeaCoffee.com/ScandalWaterPod #ChuckBarris #ConfessionsofaDangerousMind #TheGongShow #TheDatingGame #TheNewlyWedGame #GameShow #Television #Spy #GeorgeClooney #PuttingtheScandalinScandalWater #SpilltheTea
This week's episode takes a look back at the career of trailblazing independent filmmaker Robert Downey, father of Robert Downey, Jr., and his single foray into the world of Hollywood filmmaking, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we follow up on a movie based on a series of articles from a humor magazine that was trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies with a movie that was sponsored by a humor magazine trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies not unlike the other humor magazine had been doing but ended up removing their name from the movie, and boy is brain already fried and we're not even a minute into the episode. We're talking about Robert Downey's 1980 comedy Up the Academy. But, as always, before we get to Up the Academy, let's hit the backstory. If you know the name Robert Downey, it's likely because you know his son. Robert Downey, Jr. You know, Iron Man. Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is a repo baby. Maybe you've seen the documentary he made about his dad, Sr., that was released by Netflix last year. But it's more than likely you've never heard of Robert Downey, Sr., who, ironically, was a junior himself like his son. Robert Downey was born Robert John Elias, Jr. in New York City in 1936, the son of a model and a manager of hotels and restaurants. His parents would divorce when he was young, and his mom would remarry while Robert was still in school. Robert Elias, Jr. would take the last name of his stepfather when he enlisted in the Army, in part because was wanted to get away from home but he was technically too young to actually join the Army. He would invent a whole new persona for himself, and he would, by his own estimate, spend the vast majority of his military career in the stockade, where he wrote his first novel, which still has never been published. After leaving the Army, Downey would spend some time playing semi-pro baseball, not quite good enough to go pro, spending his time away from the game writing plays he hoped to take, if not to Broadway, at least off-Broadway. But he would not make his mark in the arts until 1961, when Downey started to write and direct low-budget counterculture short films, starting with Ball's Bluff, about a Civil War soldier who wakes up in New York City's Central Park a century later. In 1969, he would write and direct a satirical film about the only black executive at a Madison Avenue advertising firm who is, through a strange circumstance, becomes the head of the firm when its chairman unexpectedly passes away. Featuring a cameo by Mel Brooks Putney Swope was the perfect anti-establishment film for the end of that decade, and the $120k film would gross more than $2.75m during its successful year and a half run in theatres. 1970's Pound, based on one of Downey's early plays, would be his first movie to be distributed by a major distributor, although it was independently produced outside the Hollywood system. Several dogs, played by humans, are at a pound, waiting to be euthanized. Oh, did I forget to mention it was a comedy? The film would be somewhat of a success at the time, but today, it's best known as being the acting debut of the director's five year old son, Robert Downey, Jr., although the young boy would be credited as Bob Downey. 1972's Greaser Palace was part of an early 1970s trend of trippy “acid Westerns,” like Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo and Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Character actor Allan Arbus plays Jesse, a man with amnesia who heals the sick, resurrects the dead and tap dances on water on the American frontier. It would be the first movie Downey would make with a million dollar budget. The critical consensus of the film at the time was not positive, although Jay Cocks, a critic for Time Magazine who would go on to be a regular screenwriter for Martin Scorsese in the 1980s, would proclaim the film to be “the most adventurous movie of the year.” The film was not a hit, and it would be decades before it would be discovered and appreciated by the next generation of cineastes. After another disappointing film, 1975's Moment to Moment, which would later be retitled Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight in order to not be confused with the 1978 movie of the same name starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin that really, truly stunk, Downey would take some time off from filmmaking to deal with his divorce from his first wife and to spend more time with his son Robert and daughter Allyson. By 1978, Robert Downey was ready to get back to work. He would get a job quickly helping Chuck Barris write a movie version of Barris' cult television show, The Gong Show, but that wasn't going to pay the bills with two teenagers at home. What would, though, is the one thing he hadn't done yet in movies… Direct a Hollywood film. Enter Mad Magazine. In 1978, Mad Magazine was one of the biggest humor magazines in America. I had personally discovered Mad in late 1977, when my dad, stepmom and I were on a cross country trip, staying with friends outside Detroit, the day before my tenth birthday, when I saw an issue of Mad at a local grocery store, with something Star Wars-y on its cover. I begged my dad to give me the sixty cents to buy it, and I don't think I missed another issue for the next decade. Mad's biggest competition in the humor magazine game was National Lampoon, which appealed to a more adult funny bone than Mad. In 1978, National Lampoon saw a huge boost in sales when the John Landis-directed comedy Animal House, which had the name of the magazine in the title, became an unexpected smash hit at the box office. Warner Brothers, the media conglomerate who happened to own Mad Magazine, was eager to do something similar, and worked with Mad's publisher, Bill Gaines, to find the right script that could be molded into a Mad Magazine movie, even if, like Animal House, it wouldn't have any real connection to the magazine itself. They would find that script in The Brave Young Men of Weinberg, a comedy script by Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses, a pair of television comedy writers on shows like The Carol Burnett Show, The Sandy Duncan Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Tony Randall Show, who had never sold a movie script before. The story would follow the misadventures of four teenage boys who, for different reasons, depend on each other for their very survival when they end up at the same military academy. Now, of all the research I've done for this episode, the one very important aspect of the production I was never able to find out was exactly how Robert Downey became involved in the film. Again, he had never made a Hollywood movie before. He had only made one movie with a budget of a million dollars. His movies were satirical and critical of society in general. This was not a match made in heaven. But somehow, someone at Warner Brothers thought he'd be the right director for the film, and somehow, Downey didn't disagree. Unlike Animal House, Downey and Warners didn't try to land a known commodity like John Belushi to play one of the four leads. In fact, all four of the leads, Wendell Brown, Tommy Citera, Joseph Hutchinson, and Ralph Macchio, would all be making their feature debuts. But there would be some familiar faces in the film. Ron Liebman, who was a familiar face from such films has Slaughterhouse-Five, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood and Norma Rae, would play the head of the Academy. Tom Poston, who played Mindy's downstairs neighbor on Mork and Mindy, plays what would now be considered to be a rather offensive gay caricature as the guy who handles the uniforms of the cadets, Antonio Fargas, best known as Huggy Bear on Starsky and Hutch but who had previously worked with Downey on Putney Swope and Pound, as the Coach, and Barbara Bach, who had starred as Anya Amasova in the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. The $5m film would begin production in Salina, Kansas, on September 17th, 1979, still using the title The Brave Young Men of Weinberg. The primary shooting location would be the St. John's Military School, which was still functioning while the film was in production, and would use most of the 144 students as extras during the shoot. The film would shoot for nine weeks without much incident, and the cast and crew would be home in time to enjoy Thanksgiving with their friends and family. Unlike Animal House, the makers of The Brave Young Men of Weinberg did attempt to tie the movie into the magazine that would be presenting the film. At the very end of the movie, the magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, shows up on the side of the road, to wave goodbye to people and deliver his signature line, “What, Me Worry?” in a thought bubble that leads into the end credits. The person wearing the not quite realistic looking Neuman head gear, fourteen year old Scott Shapiro, was the son of the executive vice president of worldwide production at Warner Brothers. After the first of the year, as Downey worked on his edit of the film, the studio decided to change the title from The Brave Young Men of Weinberg to Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. Bill Gaines, the publisher of Mad Magazine, suggested a slightly different title, Mad Magazine Completely Disassociates Itself from Up the Academy, but the studio decided that was too long for theater marquees. But we'll come back to that in a moment. Warner Brothers set a June 6, 1980 release for the film, and Downey would finish his cut of the film by the end of March. A screening on the Warners lot in early April did not go well. Ron Liebman hated the film so much, he demanded that Warners completely remove his name from everything associated with the film. His name would not appear on the poster, the newspaper ads, the television commercials, the lobby cards, the press kit, or even in the movie itself. Bill Gaines would hate it to, such much in fact that he really did try to disassociate the magazine from the film. In a 1983 interview with The Comics Journal, Gaines would explain without much detail that there were a number of things he had objected to in the script that he was told would not be shot and not end up in the final film that were shot and did end up in the final film. But he wouldn't be able to get the magazine's name off the movie before it opened in theatres. Now, one of the problems with trying to research how well films did in 1980 is that you really have only two sources for grosses, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and they didn't always report national grosses every week, depending on outside factors. It just hadn't the national sport it's been since, say, 1983. So when Up the Academy opened in theatres on June 6th, we don't have a full idea of how many theatres it played in nationwide, or how much it grossed. The closest thing we do have for this Variety's listing of the top movies of the week based on a limited selection of showcase theatres in the top 20 markets. So we know that the film played at 7 showcase screens in New York City that weekend, grossing $175k, and in Los Angeles on 15 showcase screens, grossing $149k. But we also know, thanks to newspaper ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that the film was playing in 11 theatres in the New York Metro area, and in 30 theatres in the Los Angeles Metro area, so those listed grosses are merely a snapshot and not the whole picture. According to Variety's limited tracking of major market showcase theatres for the week, Up the Academy was the second highest grossing film of the week, bringing in $729k from 82 theatres. And according to their chart's side notes, this usually accounts for about 25% of a movie's national gross, if a film is playing in wide release around the entire country. In its second week, Up the Academy would place ninth on that showcase theatre listing, with $377k from 87 theatres. But by the time Variety did bring back proper national grosses in the film's third week of release, there would be no mention of Up the Academy in those listings, as Warners by this time had bigger fish to handle, namely Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Shining, and Bronco Billy, their Clint Eastwood movie for the year. In that showcase theatre listing, though, Up the Academy had fallen to 16th place, with $103k from 34 theatres. In fact, there is no publicly available record of how many theatres Up the Academy played in during its theatrical run, and it wouldn't be until the 1981 Warner Brothers 10-K annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Up the Academy had earned $10m from American movie theatres. If studios get about 55% of the box office grosses in rental fees, that would put the $5m film in a very good position to be profitable, depending on how much was spent on P&A, prints and advertising. The film wasn't an Animal House-level hit, but it wasn't exactly the bomb many have painted it to be. After Up the Academy, two of the actors, Wendell Brown and Joseph Hutchinson, would never act in another movie, although, billed as Hutch Parker, the latter would produce six X-Men related movies between 2013 and 2019, including Logan. Tommy Citera would make two more movies until he left acting in 1988. And Ralph Macchio would, of course, go on to play Daniel LaRusso, the Karate Kid, in a career-defining role that he's still playing nearly forty years later. Robert Downey would make another wacky comedy, called Moonbeam, in 1982. Co-written with Richard Belzer, Moonbeam would feature a fairly interesting cast including Zack Norman, Tammy Grimes, Michael J. Pollard, Liz Torres and Mr. Belzer, and tells the story of a New York cable television station that becomes world famous when they accidentally bounce their signal off the moon. But the film would not get released until October 1986, in one theatre in New York City for one week. It couldn't even benefit from being able to promote Robert Downey, Jr., who in the ensuing years had started to build an acting career by being featured in John Sayles' Baby It's You, Fritz Kiersch's Tuff Turf, John Hughes' Weird Science, and the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School, as well as being a member of the cast of Saturday Night Live for a year. There's be sporadic work in television, working on shows like Matlock and The Twilight Zone, but what few movies he could get made would be pale shadows of her earlier, edgier work. Even with his son regularly taking supporting roles in his dad's movies to help the old man out, movies like Rented Lips and Too Much Sun would be critically panned and ignored by audiences. His final movie as a writer and director, Hugo Pool, would gross just $13k when it was released in December 1997, despite having a cast that included Patrick Dempsey, Richard Lewis, Malcolm McDowell, Alyssa Milano, Cathy Moriarty and Sean Penn, along with Junior. Downey would also continue to act in other director's movies, including two written and directed by one of his biggest fans, Paul Thomas Anderson. Downey would play Burt, the studio manager, in Boogie Nights, and the WDKK Show director in Magnolia. Anderson adored Downey so much, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker would sit down with Downey for a four-part conversation filmed for the Criterion Company in 2013. Robert Downey would pass away in July 2021, a curious footnote in the history of cinema, mostly because of the superstar he sired. Most of his movies are hard to find on video, and nearly impossible to find on streaming services, outside of a wonderful two disc DVD set issued by Criterion's Eclipse specialty label and several titles streaming on The Criterion Channel. Outside of Up the Academy, which is available to rent or purchase from Amazon, Apple TV and several other streaming services, you can find Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace and Too Much Sun on several of the more popular streaming services, but the majority of them are completely missing in action. You can also learn more about Robert Downey in Sr., a documentary streaming on Netflix produced by Robert Downey, Jr. where the son recounts the life and career of his recently passed father, alongside Paul Thomas Anderson, Alan Arkin, and mega-producer Norman Lear. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 107, on John Landis's underrated 1985 comedy Into the Night, is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.
This week's episode takes a look back at the career of trailblazing independent filmmaker Robert Downey, father of Robert Downey, Jr., and his single foray into the world of Hollywood filmmaking, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we follow up on a movie based on a series of articles from a humor magazine that was trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies with a movie that was sponsored by a humor magazine trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies not unlike the other humor magazine had been doing but ended up removing their name from the movie, and boy is brain already fried and we're not even a minute into the episode. We're talking about Robert Downey's 1980 comedy Up the Academy. But, as always, before we get to Up the Academy, let's hit the backstory. If you know the name Robert Downey, it's likely because you know his son. Robert Downey, Jr. You know, Iron Man. Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is a repo baby. Maybe you've seen the documentary he made about his dad, Sr., that was released by Netflix last year. But it's more than likely you've never heard of Robert Downey, Sr., who, ironically, was a junior himself like his son. Robert Downey was born Robert John Elias, Jr. in New York City in 1936, the son of a model and a manager of hotels and restaurants. His parents would divorce when he was young, and his mom would remarry while Robert was still in school. Robert Elias, Jr. would take the last name of his stepfather when he enlisted in the Army, in part because was wanted to get away from home but he was technically too young to actually join the Army. He would invent a whole new persona for himself, and he would, by his own estimate, spend the vast majority of his military career in the stockade, where he wrote his first novel, which still has never been published. After leaving the Army, Downey would spend some time playing semi-pro baseball, not quite good enough to go pro, spending his time away from the game writing plays he hoped to take, if not to Broadway, at least off-Broadway. But he would not make his mark in the arts until 1961, when Downey started to write and direct low-budget counterculture short films, starting with Ball's Bluff, about a Civil War soldier who wakes up in New York City's Central Park a century later. In 1969, he would write and direct a satirical film about the only black executive at a Madison Avenue advertising firm who is, through a strange circumstance, becomes the head of the firm when its chairman unexpectedly passes away. Featuring a cameo by Mel Brooks Putney Swope was the perfect anti-establishment film for the end of that decade, and the $120k film would gross more than $2.75m during its successful year and a half run in theatres. 1970's Pound, based on one of Downey's early plays, would be his first movie to be distributed by a major distributor, although it was independently produced outside the Hollywood system. Several dogs, played by humans, are at a pound, waiting to be euthanized. Oh, did I forget to mention it was a comedy? The film would be somewhat of a success at the time, but today, it's best known as being the acting debut of the director's five year old son, Robert Downey, Jr., although the young boy would be credited as Bob Downey. 1972's Greaser Palace was part of an early 1970s trend of trippy “acid Westerns,” like Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo and Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Character actor Allan Arbus plays Jesse, a man with amnesia who heals the sick, resurrects the dead and tap dances on water on the American frontier. It would be the first movie Downey would make with a million dollar budget. The critical consensus of the film at the time was not positive, although Jay Cocks, a critic for Time Magazine who would go on to be a regular screenwriter for Martin Scorsese in the 1980s, would proclaim the film to be “the most adventurous movie of the year.” The film was not a hit, and it would be decades before it would be discovered and appreciated by the next generation of cineastes. After another disappointing film, 1975's Moment to Moment, which would later be retitled Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight in order to not be confused with the 1978 movie of the same name starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin that really, truly stunk, Downey would take some time off from filmmaking to deal with his divorce from his first wife and to spend more time with his son Robert and daughter Allyson. By 1978, Robert Downey was ready to get back to work. He would get a job quickly helping Chuck Barris write a movie version of Barris' cult television show, The Gong Show, but that wasn't going to pay the bills with two teenagers at home. What would, though, is the one thing he hadn't done yet in movies… Direct a Hollywood film. Enter Mad Magazine. In 1978, Mad Magazine was one of the biggest humor magazines in America. I had personally discovered Mad in late 1977, when my dad, stepmom and I were on a cross country trip, staying with friends outside Detroit, the day before my tenth birthday, when I saw an issue of Mad at a local grocery store, with something Star Wars-y on its cover. I begged my dad to give me the sixty cents to buy it, and I don't think I missed another issue for the next decade. Mad's biggest competition in the humor magazine game was National Lampoon, which appealed to a more adult funny bone than Mad. In 1978, National Lampoon saw a huge boost in sales when the John Landis-directed comedy Animal House, which had the name of the magazine in the title, became an unexpected smash hit at the box office. Warner Brothers, the media conglomerate who happened to own Mad Magazine, was eager to do something similar, and worked with Mad's publisher, Bill Gaines, to find the right script that could be molded into a Mad Magazine movie, even if, like Animal House, it wouldn't have any real connection to the magazine itself. They would find that script in The Brave Young Men of Weinberg, a comedy script by Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses, a pair of television comedy writers on shows like The Carol Burnett Show, The Sandy Duncan Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Tony Randall Show, who had never sold a movie script before. The story would follow the misadventures of four teenage boys who, for different reasons, depend on each other for their very survival when they end up at the same military academy. Now, of all the research I've done for this episode, the one very important aspect of the production I was never able to find out was exactly how Robert Downey became involved in the film. Again, he had never made a Hollywood movie before. He had only made one movie with a budget of a million dollars. His movies were satirical and critical of society in general. This was not a match made in heaven. But somehow, someone at Warner Brothers thought he'd be the right director for the film, and somehow, Downey didn't disagree. Unlike Animal House, Downey and Warners didn't try to land a known commodity like John Belushi to play one of the four leads. In fact, all four of the leads, Wendell Brown, Tommy Citera, Joseph Hutchinson, and Ralph Macchio, would all be making their feature debuts. But there would be some familiar faces in the film. Ron Liebman, who was a familiar face from such films has Slaughterhouse-Five, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood and Norma Rae, would play the head of the Academy. Tom Poston, who played Mindy's downstairs neighbor on Mork and Mindy, plays what would now be considered to be a rather offensive gay caricature as the guy who handles the uniforms of the cadets, Antonio Fargas, best known as Huggy Bear on Starsky and Hutch but who had previously worked with Downey on Putney Swope and Pound, as the Coach, and Barbara Bach, who had starred as Anya Amasova in the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. The $5m film would begin production in Salina, Kansas, on September 17th, 1979, still using the title The Brave Young Men of Weinberg. The primary shooting location would be the St. John's Military School, which was still functioning while the film was in production, and would use most of the 144 students as extras during the shoot. The film would shoot for nine weeks without much incident, and the cast and crew would be home in time to enjoy Thanksgiving with their friends and family. Unlike Animal House, the makers of The Brave Young Men of Weinberg did attempt to tie the movie into the magazine that would be presenting the film. At the very end of the movie, the magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, shows up on the side of the road, to wave goodbye to people and deliver his signature line, “What, Me Worry?” in a thought bubble that leads into the end credits. The person wearing the not quite realistic looking Neuman head gear, fourteen year old Scott Shapiro, was the son of the executive vice president of worldwide production at Warner Brothers. After the first of the year, as Downey worked on his edit of the film, the studio decided to change the title from The Brave Young Men of Weinberg to Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. Bill Gaines, the publisher of Mad Magazine, suggested a slightly different title, Mad Magazine Completely Disassociates Itself from Up the Academy, but the studio decided that was too long for theater marquees. But we'll come back to that in a moment. Warner Brothers set a June 6, 1980 release for the film, and Downey would finish his cut of the film by the end of March. A screening on the Warners lot in early April did not go well. Ron Liebman hated the film so much, he demanded that Warners completely remove his name from everything associated with the film. His name would not appear on the poster, the newspaper ads, the television commercials, the lobby cards, the press kit, or even in the movie itself. Bill Gaines would hate it to, such much in fact that he really did try to disassociate the magazine from the film. In a 1983 interview with The Comics Journal, Gaines would explain without much detail that there were a number of things he had objected to in the script that he was told would not be shot and not end up in the final film that were shot and did end up in the final film. But he wouldn't be able to get the magazine's name off the movie before it opened in theatres. Now, one of the problems with trying to research how well films did in 1980 is that you really have only two sources for grosses, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and they didn't always report national grosses every week, depending on outside factors. It just hadn't the national sport it's been since, say, 1983. So when Up the Academy opened in theatres on June 6th, we don't have a full idea of how many theatres it played in nationwide, or how much it grossed. The closest thing we do have for this Variety's listing of the top movies of the week based on a limited selection of showcase theatres in the top 20 markets. So we know that the film played at 7 showcase screens in New York City that weekend, grossing $175k, and in Los Angeles on 15 showcase screens, grossing $149k. But we also know, thanks to newspaper ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that the film was playing in 11 theatres in the New York Metro area, and in 30 theatres in the Los Angeles Metro area, so those listed grosses are merely a snapshot and not the whole picture. According to Variety's limited tracking of major market showcase theatres for the week, Up the Academy was the second highest grossing film of the week, bringing in $729k from 82 theatres. And according to their chart's side notes, this usually accounts for about 25% of a movie's national gross, if a film is playing in wide release around the entire country. In its second week, Up the Academy would place ninth on that showcase theatre listing, with $377k from 87 theatres. But by the time Variety did bring back proper national grosses in the film's third week of release, there would be no mention of Up the Academy in those listings, as Warners by this time had bigger fish to handle, namely Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Shining, and Bronco Billy, their Clint Eastwood movie for the year. In that showcase theatre listing, though, Up the Academy had fallen to 16th place, with $103k from 34 theatres. In fact, there is no publicly available record of how many theatres Up the Academy played in during its theatrical run, and it wouldn't be until the 1981 Warner Brothers 10-K annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Up the Academy had earned $10m from American movie theatres. If studios get about 55% of the box office grosses in rental fees, that would put the $5m film in a very good position to be profitable, depending on how much was spent on P&A, prints and advertising. The film wasn't an Animal House-level hit, but it wasn't exactly the bomb many have painted it to be. After Up the Academy, two of the actors, Wendell Brown and Joseph Hutchinson, would never act in another movie, although, billed as Hutch Parker, the latter would produce six X-Men related movies between 2013 and 2019, including Logan. Tommy Citera would make two more movies until he left acting in 1988. And Ralph Macchio would, of course, go on to play Daniel LaRusso, the Karate Kid, in a career-defining role that he's still playing nearly forty years later. Robert Downey would make another wacky comedy, called Moonbeam, in 1982. Co-written with Richard Belzer, Moonbeam would feature a fairly interesting cast including Zack Norman, Tammy Grimes, Michael J. Pollard, Liz Torres and Mr. Belzer, and tells the story of a New York cable television station that becomes world famous when they accidentally bounce their signal off the moon. But the film would not get released until October 1986, in one theatre in New York City for one week. It couldn't even benefit from being able to promote Robert Downey, Jr., who in the ensuing years had started to build an acting career by being featured in John Sayles' Baby It's You, Fritz Kiersch's Tuff Turf, John Hughes' Weird Science, and the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School, as well as being a member of the cast of Saturday Night Live for a year. There's be sporadic work in television, working on shows like Matlock and The Twilight Zone, but what few movies he could get made would be pale shadows of her earlier, edgier work. Even with his son regularly taking supporting roles in his dad's movies to help the old man out, movies like Rented Lips and Too Much Sun would be critically panned and ignored by audiences. His final movie as a writer and director, Hugo Pool, would gross just $13k when it was released in December 1997, despite having a cast that included Patrick Dempsey, Richard Lewis, Malcolm McDowell, Alyssa Milano, Cathy Moriarty and Sean Penn, along with Junior. Downey would also continue to act in other director's movies, including two written and directed by one of his biggest fans, Paul Thomas Anderson. Downey would play Burt, the studio manager, in Boogie Nights, and the WDKK Show director in Magnolia. Anderson adored Downey so much, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker would sit down with Downey for a four-part conversation filmed for the Criterion Company in 2013. Robert Downey would pass away in July 2021, a curious footnote in the history of cinema, mostly because of the superstar he sired. Most of his movies are hard to find on video, and nearly impossible to find on streaming services, outside of a wonderful two disc DVD set issued by Criterion's Eclipse specialty label and several titles streaming on The Criterion Channel. Outside of Up the Academy, which is available to rent or purchase from Amazon, Apple TV and several other streaming services, you can find Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace and Too Much Sun on several of the more popular streaming services, but the majority of them are completely missing in action. You can also learn more about Robert Downey in Sr., a documentary streaming on Netflix produced by Robert Downey, Jr. where the son recounts the life and career of his recently passed father, alongside Paul Thomas Anderson, Alan Arkin, and mega-producer Norman Lear. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 107, on John Landis's underrated 1985 comedy Into the Night, is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.
National common courtesy day. Pop culture from 1986. Alcatraz closed, 1st Rock & Roll concert, 1st Comic-Con. Todays birthdays - Johann Sebastian Bach, Rose Stone, Timothy Dalton, Eddie Money, Roger Hodgson, Gary Oldman, Sabrina Le Beauf, Mathew Broderick, Scott Eastwood. Chuck Barris died.
It's like Mark Bolan and T. Rex once said: "Get it on! Banger, Gong! Get it, Gong!” We're not certain who Gong is - according to Lewisohn, it's longtime Lennon idol Chuck Barris - but we're sure fans of Beatle Bangers. And in Part Two of Part Two, we hear some killer listener-suggested Bangers, and also ask:
Game show legend Thom McKee joined me to discuss his growing up watching Jeopardy; sitting as a child reading encyclopedias in the bathroom; how his navy training made him quick witted; taking the "general" game show test but wanting Tic Tac Dough because there was no limit; originally taping on weekends; the Navy learning about it and he becomes a celebrity; taping five episodes in a day; getting numbers in the bonus round from his wife, Jenny; always starting in the center; quickness of Wink Martindale; a contestant who introduction made him nervous; topicality of questions; playing trivia weekly now; COVID didn't change his routine; being friends with Mike Post; his dad waiting to meet his future daughter-in-law because the Rockford Files was on; contestants who tied him; one had six ties making the pot the largest in game show history; has the shows on tape but when he's a guest on a TV show he only sees clips of his loss; feeling like Bill Buckner; donated a lot of his winnings to his brother; losing to Eric Krapelian; Eric donated some winnings to Thom's brother; wanting to win but not because opponent made stupid mistakes; one contestant was introduced but never came back to do the show due to nerves; not feigning excitement and being himself; Jenny being brought in for car rounds; two month break was refreshing; landing the 225,000 plane on his aircraft carrier; going on The Merv Griffin Show; Wink misremembering Jenny being pregnant; Wink being friends with Elvis; Chuck Barris; not being overly concerned by Eric Krapelian; feeling fatigued when asked about 10 most populated Japanese cities; only go to take one of twenty vacations (lost all cash value); sold all cars and appliances; playing an Air Force Colonel (turns out he was a Navy Chief Warrant Officer); Wink and the crew thinking of Thom as part of the show; not having to be sequestered and escorted to the bathroom after a while; going into sales after the Navy and settling in real estate; his three children; Jenny wants a grandchild, preferably a granddaughter; Twitter says Top Gun's Goose's look based on Thom; Thom is 66 to 1 odds to take over Jeopardy!; meeting Ken Jennings; being inducted into the Game Show Hall of Fame; inducting Wink the next year; donating solar panels; dinner with Ken Jennings and wife; never studying except one time his wife reads a triva book on the way up and the question appears on that nights show;
Oscar-winning actor, George Clooney, starts his directing career with a biopic about controversial TV producer, Chuck Barris. See what the Grouches think of this audacious debut starring Sam Rockwell, and written by Charlie Kaufman.
Game show legend Jim Peck joined me to talk about living in Milwaukee during the Happy Days era; favorite radio shows; the first time he saw a television; going to Marquette University; getting the performing bug; his first job as a booth announcer at WISN; Don Pardo; hosting a series called Confrontation; Jim Peck's Hotline; hard to get guests; Take it from Here from Washington DC; Big Showdown; falling down during entrance and having it be on YouTube today; emulating Johnny Carson; contestant interviews; Hot Seat; the Richard Dawson "feud": Second Cance; Peter Tomarken; going out with Monty Hall on his 94th birthday; Peter Marshall; his unaired late night pilot After Hours: The Jim Peck Special which would have featured Susan Anton, Robin Williams, and Loni Anderson; You Don't Say; Nipsey Russell; Dick Gautier; Robert Ridgely; 3's a Crowd; led to divorces and firings; originally pitched by Jess Oppenheimer as a clean game show and sexed up by Chuck Barris; Chuck realizes "no one had fun on the show"; cheating on game shows; Press Your Luck; The Price is Right; his famous perm; Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; Everything's Relative and other game show pilots; You Tube 3's A Crowd reaction video; being hired to sub for and take over for Jack Barry on Joker's Wild; Barry dying and the syndicator choosing to go with Bill Cullen; calling his mother's friend out of the audience to play game; Divorce Court; Doug Llewellyn; Judge William Keane; show was done with actors and scripts; guest lawyers including John Erlichman; Judge Keane decided case by what he saw, not original outcome; hosting the Drum Corps International on PBS; Milwaukee; retiring from WTMJ-AM in 2021 - his first radio job.
Did you ever watch The Gong Show after school? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Did you ever watch The Gong Show after school? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"PUT ON A STACK OF 45's"- FREDDY "BOOM BOOM" CANNON - "PALISADES PARK" - CHAPTER NINETY - Featuring Bill Mesnik and Rich Buckland " THE HISTORY OF BOOM BOOM":https://www.history-of-rock.com/freddy_cannon.htm
Tell Them What They've Won - America's Favorite Game Show Podcast
This week we talk about the predecessor to Press Your Luck, Second Chance. We also talk about Team Ken vs. Team Mayim, Chuck Barris, and iconic 70s game show sets and contestants as well. And we try to stump Christian again. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tellthemwhattheyvewon/message
We all know The Dating Game! The weird 60s game show that basically invented reality tv, where swingin' bachelors and bachelorettes ask each other overtly s*xual questions from either side of a screen? But what if that sweet, innocuous game show was actually... a CIA front?? Our guest this week is the truly delightful comedian Brian Huskey (host of the podcast Bald Talk) and he dares to ask the dangerous questions. Brian's got a theory that the host of The Dating Game was a cold-blooded killer and a soldier in the Cold War. This ep we also discuss our least-favorite NPR hosts, water sports, exotic erotic vacations, and how much everyone hated Chuck Barris.
Casey Venus joins Jeff to talk about his childhood, his marriage, and his professional journey. They cover a handful of topics related to their local area, including wild mushroom foraging, local cuisine, and the local nightlife. We hear from the saga of Casey's romantic life including the story of his first orgasm, which might surprise you. Also, I believe we got his second orgasm in there too. And of course Jeff chimes in with his own sexual anecdotes in a manner that would be so inappropriate under any normal circumstances that he had to create his own show. Additional topics include: the career of Billy Zane, repressed memories, Christian-rock music, podcasting, Chuck Barry vs Chuck Barris, Joe Rogan's use of the N-word, and the formation of a brand new political party called the Gun-toting Liberals party (GTL). Jeff's lovely daughters join him for the intro to reiterate that this episode is for adults only. The content is graphic in nature and while hilarious, may not be suitable for younger listeners. Keywords: ASMR; Youtube; NFTs; Cult of Meerks; Ukraine; Russia; misophonia; Billy Zane; The Mummy; Dwayne The Rock Johnson; Zoolander; Hollywood Video; Robinhood Men in Tights; Dave Chapel; Cancel culture; censorship; Russel Brand; Joe Rogan; Apple Podcasts; UFC; Qanon; mushrooms; Matsutake; psilocybe; cooking; culinary arts; Religion; theology; Puritanism, sexual health; masturbation; sexual fantasies; repressed memories; sexual abuse; sexual education; kinks; deviance; romance; guns; violence; salmon; salmon fishing; salmon habitat restoration; Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife; salmon hatcheries; steelhead fishing; black bear; trophic cascades; The Apprentice; Trump; economy; Covid-19 relief; Reddit.com; Discord servers; Google; fermented foods; kimchi; Hawaiian plate lunch; teriyaki chicken. music: Incessant, Ofelia Moore Still Fly, Revel Day Links · Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ramblebytheriver (Patreon.com/ramblebytheriver) · Website: http://ramblebytheriver.com/ (Ramblebytheriver.com) · Business: ramblebytheriver@gmail.com · Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeff.nesbitt.9619/ (https://www.facebook.com/jeff.nesbitt.9619/) · Instagram: https://instagram.com/ramblebytheriver (https://instagram.com/ramblebytheriver) · Twitter: https://twitter.com/rambleriverpod (https://twitter.com/rambleriverpod) · Podcast host: Ramblebytheriver.captivate.fm
He created some of the most memorable daytime television in history. He also claims he was assassinating people for the government the entire time. In the mid-60s, Chuck Barris got his start producing daytime television. He produced shows such as The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and even was the host of the Gong Show. But, all the way, he struggled with inner demons and family tragedy. And, according to him, was also working for the CIA as an assassin. On this episode of Deep Cuts, we explore the wild Kayfabe of Chuck Barris. -- Join our Discord server! https://bit.ly/deepcutsdiscord -- Pick up some Deep Cuts T-Shirts and other merch! https://bit.ly/deepcutsmerch -- Get the official Deep Cuts shoulder patch! http://bit.ly/deepcuts_patch -- Listen to our album, a 9 song rock opera about the rise and fall of Napster! https://open.spotify.com/album/63C5uu1tkzZ2FhfsrSSf5s?si=q4WItoNmRUeM159TxKLWew Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/deepcutspod/message
He created some of the most memorable daytime television in history. He also claims he was assassinating people for the government the entire time. In the mid-60s, Chuck Barris got his start producing daytime television. He produced shows such as The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and even was the host of the Gong Show. But, all the way, he struggled with inner demons and family tragedy. And, according to him, was also working for the CIA as an assassin. On this episode of Deep Cuts, we explore the wild Kayfabe of Chuck Barris. -- Join our Discord server! https://bit.ly/deepcutsdiscord -- Pick up some Deep Cuts T-Shirts and other merch! https://bit.ly/deepcutsmerch -- Get the official Deep Cuts shoulder patch! http://bit.ly/deepcuts_patch -- Listen to our album, a 9 song rock opera about the rise and fall of Napster! https://open.spotify.com/album/63C5uu1tkzZ2FhfsrSSf5s?si=q4WItoNmRUeM159TxKLWew Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Happy birthday, Freddy Cannon! Freddy's music was a rock'n'roll radio staple in the late 50's and early 60's. His first hit "Tallahassee Lassie" was written by Freddy and producers Bob Crewe and Frank Slay. As Freddy tells me in the interview, the idea for the song came from his mother! Dick Clark (who co-owned Freddy's label Swan Records) suggested the record be edited to highlight the pounding bass drum, and Freddy became known as Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon for the thumping power of his music. "Tallahassee Lassie" hit the Top Ten in July 1959, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. His next record, "Way Down Yonder In New Orleans", rocketed up the charts in January 1960. It was his biggest hit and also sold a million. One of Freddy's biggest hits came in June 1962 with "Palisades Park", written by Chuck Barris. The song was originally written for Dion and it was called "Amusement Park" but producers Crewe and Slay changed the title. Another Top 10 million seller! Freddy came to Vancouver in 1963 for a show with Gene Pitney, The Chiffons, and Bobby Vinton. He signed with Warner Brothers that same year and he recorded his last two hits "Abigail Beecher" in 1964 and "Action" (the theme song to the TV series "Where the Action Is", a spin-off of American Bandstand) in 1965. Both failed to crack the Top 10. After leaving WB in 1967, he continued to work with Dick Clark at his Bandstand reunion concerts and to tour all over the world. Did you know Freddy appeared on "Bandstand" more than 100 times? Freddy returned to Vancouver in 1985 for The Legends Of Rock'n'Roll preview show. That's where we recorded this interview. Freddy lives in sunny Oxnard, CA today and you can keep in touch at freddycannon.com
What happens when a superhero puts on that mask? We examine the concept of hiding your face from people in hopes of becoming something greater and more powerful. The sad downfall of real life superhero Phoenix Jones, Japanese secret pornstar dads, "secret spy" Chuck Barris are all examined.
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk you'll be treated to a conversation with former TV host, John Monsul. His show was dedicated to showcasing the many different ways people & organizations have of communicating with one another. Amongst other things, we talk about:John's background.His journey that led him to the Washington, D.C. areaOne of John's fellow graduates, Chuck Barris, and the odd connection John and Rob share with this most unusual man. Retirement and the rebirth of John's career.What motivated John to move into TV and the show he successfully pitched.A life lesson that had the biggest impact on his career.It's an enjoyable conversation, and possibly the rebirth of John Monsul yet again - this time as a podcaster!
No Chuck, no reality TV...
A GONNA GONG YA' DOUBLE FEATURE! First, the boys don their fedoras and grab their silencers to join Chuck Barris on his adventures as a game show murderer in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind! Then… Ryan finds himself in the same boat as you, dear listener, as Charles describes a movie to him that he has never seen. Join us for a blind taste test as we dive into The Gong Show Movie! ___________________________________________ Have a movie request? A compliment about our delicious snack bar treats, our (mostly) friendly staff and our spotless restrooms? Don't bother filling out a comment card. (Lucy throws those away.) Connect with us via: Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllNightDriveIn Instagram: @allnightdrivein Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAllNightDriveInPictureShow/ E-mail: Allnightdriveinpictureshow@gmail.com Join us every two weeks for another double feature under the stars by subscribing, reviewing, and rating the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcatcher, or check out The All-Night Drive-In Picture Show YouTube page! We appreciate your patronage and please hang up your speaker, and drive safely!
Welcome to a special episode of the IXNAY podcast featuring a song we've written specifically to end the Trump presidency. What started as a rap during his Senate impeachment trial has morphed into a proper parody song, ready-made to go viral. With your help and ours, his days in the White House are surely numbered. Its called IXNAY (The Subpoeña Colada Song) and it's performed by Har Mar Superstar, Eli Janney, and Seth Jabour with lyrics by Trace Crutchfield. Head to IXNAYPAC.org to get a high-quality download of the song for just $1, with all proceeds going to support our efforts to get out the vote this November. Lyrics: I was tired of his WINNING We'd been losing too long MAGA bullshit from beginning Was time for Trump to be gone. With everyday our country reeling A thought crept into my head Instead of burning down DC I wrote these lyrics instead. If you like Subpoeña Coladas, And getting caught in Ukraine; If you're pushing General Barr To wreck what's left of DOJ If you like tweeting out at midnight, And ignoring your fate; Joe's the answer you've looked for, Just endorse him and IXNAY. Now Rupert Holmes is a hero I'd hate to ruin his song But this Cheeto tinted nightmare Deserves the Chuck Barris' gong. So I wrestled with my conscience And checked in with my God(s) They agreed, it was unanimous. Fuck this grifter —but hard. (So) If you like Subpoeña Coladas, And getting caught in Ukraine; If you're pushing General Barr To wreck what's left of DOJ If you like tweeting out at midnight, And ignoring your fate; Joe's the answer you've looked for, Just endorse him and IXNAY. Yes I like Subpoeña Coladas, But want you out of my brain, Just retreat to Mar-a-Largo With Melania and cocaine. You can cheat on your golf course And enjoy your well done steak Joe Biden is your replacement Cuz you're FIRED and IXNAY'D! Words: Trace Crutchfield Music: Rupert Holmes -- Follow @IXNAYPAC on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook Become a member of IXNAY PAC today! https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ixnaymembership Sign up for our newsletter and grab IXNAY shirts, stickers, buttons and more at IXNAYPAC.ORG Give us a ring! Call us on (512) 766-8279 and leave us a message or file a scene report! Read about IXNAY's origin over at Pacific Standard: "MEET THE GUY WHO FORMED A PAC DEVOTED SOLELY TO TAKING DOWN TRUMP" --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ixnay/message
Tim Shahady of Paiste came into the Drummers' Hang studio and spent some time hanging. Ken, Duke, and new host Amy inquire about Paiste products, endorsers, Tim's own band "The Lonesome Pines", and cymbal product development. The hang takes a small detour toward the topic of gongs and how surprisingly popular they are, and even the topic of The Gong Show's original host, Chuck Barris. https://www.facebook.com/LonesomePines www.paiste.com
This week, the Girls relive the glory of classic TV game shows. Julie reveals the mysteries of Jeopardy as she talks about her experience as a contestant on the popular quiz show. The Girls delve into the world of the Price is Right when they review the documentary Perfect Bid. Melissa celebrates her ultimate game show crush and creative genius Chuck Barris. The Girls also share fun facts about Supermarket Sweep and weigh in on the practicality of tattoo pants. They also discuss their pre-podcasting trip to Target for hats and pajamas.
We live in a post-"The Gong Show" world. Any TV that you've ever heard anyone use the word "Dada" to describe -- David Letterman's entire career, for instance -- owes something to Chuck Barris's creation.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Unknown Comic and Gene Gene The Dancing Machine Too.
Gong Show creator Chuck Barris has died at 87. Jim interviewed him seven years ago for a candid discussion of the Gong Show, drug addiction and his life as a CIA assassin.
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