Chuck Barris is best known as the mega producer of such game shows as The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game and the host of The Gong Show. But since his memoir Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was released in the early 80s, he has become almost strictly a writer. Sam Rockwell played Barris in the film adaptation of Confessions directed by George Clooney. His latest book is The Big Question, which is the story of a familiar game show producer who is pitched a show by a stranger on the street called The Death Game where players must compete for $100 million or die. The show, of course, becomes a monstrous hit. I got a chance to talk with Barris from his home in New York City.
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Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Chuck Barris: Im trying to finish a new book before I go on tour for The Big Question.
DRE: What is the book about?
CB: I had a daughter who died of an overdose of drugs and Im just writing about her, this book is about her life. Its something Ive wanted to do for a long time, so Im doing it.
DRE: Are you telling her story as you see it or are you doing your best to tell the story as it really happened?
CB: Im doing my best to tell it as it really happened. Thats hard to do because we were estranged for a certain time but Im trying to write the book in her voice, with her telling the story. Its something I wanted to do and Ill be glad when its finished.
DRE: Do you usually have a book deal?
CB: Ive never had a book deal. I always write the book and then I try and go out and get it published. Simon & Schuster, whos publishing The Big Question, have on option on everything that I write next so theyll be the first to get it.
DRE: Was there one specific incident or thing that inspired The Big Question?
CB: The Big Question stems from a question that I was always asked whenever I did appearances or anything like that, Wheres television going? I have a pretty dim view of where television is going in the reality game show area. I always thought that the networks and the syndicators would always go back to the original concept of trying to get the biggest audience for the smallest amount of money. If there werent rules or any laws that would prevent them, I thought that an execution would be the biggest audience provider and cost the least. That idea persisted and I finally wrote a book about it.
DRE: I feel like we started seeing echoes of that with the Saddam Hussein hanging.
CB: I understand theyve done an execution on television in Texas. The book is set in the year 2012 which is another president or two away. The new president changes the laws about suicide. He changes it so that you can do anything you want. If you want to get on a television program that calls for the execution of the loser, you can do it and thats where the book is set.
DRE: While The Dating Game was on the air you got asked if it was the end of civilization and youve always said that it wasnt. But The Death Game feels like it is the end of civilization.
CB: My feeling is that although the laws of the land can change, the final arbiter of whats good or bad is the American public, strangely enough. I never gave the American public that much credit. I had a show once called 3's a Crowd, which had enormous ratings and the public actually picketed some stations that carried it and eventually CBS dropped it. In this book, there are six contestants and they vie to get the final big question and the one who gets the big question wins $100 million or is executed. I think if that show was allowed to be done it would get an enormous audience. But I think that eventually the public would probably make it so that the network couldnt do that anymore.
DRE: Have you met people who you think would greenlight The Death Game?
CB: I dont think so. But if there wasnt anything illegal about doing that show, Im sure that a certain point down the line, something like that could actually be done. If I didnt think it could be done I wouldnt go that far as to say that it could.
DRE: There is the character of Chuck Barris in the book, what made you want to create another persona for yourself?
CB: Its nothing to joke about but I would joke about how The Death Game is something Id created. That seemed to me to be the genesis of this book, this beat up old sickly producer, a certain amount of years from now, finds the guy whos the big shot producer of today and tries to plead with him to look at this game. Thats just how the idea rolled.
DRE: Is the Chuck Barris in the book anything like you?
CB: The Chuck Barris character is nothing like me. Im fairly healthy and I dont have any desire to go back into television but this guy is really driven.
DRE: I would imagine that at the height of your fame people would pitch shows to you all the time on the street.
CB: Absolutely, theres no question about that. Wherever I went, any time I was in a confined place, an elevator or an airplane or anything like that, somebody would pitch me a television show. But things got worst. When I did The Gong Show, people would actually audition for me in these enclosed places which became a little hard to take.
DRE: Can you even use an idea that someone would pitch to you like that?
CB: You could have but they would have to come into the office and sign all sorts of papers. But that never stopped people from suing me for stealing their ideas. I once had a bodyguard who claimed that I stole an idea of a show from him. In those days they would bring a class action suit against you. I was running a public company and we figured out that a class action suit would cost about $75,000 so we just settled and not put us in front of a judge who might extract bigger sums of money.
DRE: Were any of the ideas people told you in those enclosed places any good?
CB: No, none at all. I never remember ever hearing a good idea on the street. Most people think their idea is so fresh but if your occupation is game shows, you know of every single game that was ever made and done. So when somebody comes and tells you something, it generally has in been done before in some form.
DRE: The contestants in the book are almost caricatures.
CB: I really fell in love with these people. They seem to be people I know, although theyre not. The Big Question was the most fun book I ever wrote. It even surpassed Confessions because it is in the game show arena and it is about people who, in some form or other, I came across as contestants. Now if it goes on to be a success, it just goes to show you that the fun books are the ones that succeed.
DRE: Many of your shows, especially The Gong Show, anticipated a lot of whats going on today in television. Did you ever feel like you went too far?
CB: Definitely. In fact, I look upon my leadership of The Gong Show as what led to its destruction. I got carried away with a simple rule that I always told my hosts. When youre doing a five shows a week it may seem boring to you but it isnt boring. People like to see what theyre used to seeing. But as soon as I host my own show, I go out and do exactly the opposite to what I told my original master of ceremonies to do. I just kept ratcheting it up and ratcheting it up because I kept thinking, This is boring the audience and it was totally the wrong thing to do and I was responsible for pushing us off the air.
DRE: So you were a better producer on shows that you didnt host?
CB: Oh absolutely. You get a much better concept of whats going on when youre producing because youre watching everything. If I were producing The Gong Show and I was hosting The Gong Show, I would have told me to simmer down and get it back to where it was in the beginning. Its not inconceivable that that show wouldnt be on today if I had done it that way. If I hadnt been producing that show and had a different host in there, that show could still be running. The show America Has Talent is The Gong Show with a huge set but not a different approach to what was done.
DRE: I read that Confessions was a very cathartic book for you and obviously, the book youre writing about your daughter is very cathartic. Is The Big Question cathartic as well?
CB: The Big Question wasnt cathartic. When I wrote Confessions, I was angry at everything. I was mad at the world, particularly the television critics who wrote that I was the king of schlock and lowering the bar of culture and all those type of things. I was getting all that anger down on paper and Im surprised at how unangry, if there such a word, that book turned out to be. The book Im writing now about Della, thats my daughters name, is called Snapshots and that book is a cathartic thing because I think that I screwed up as a parent. I was one of the tough love parents who decided to give the kid a lot of money and say, Go away, come back when youre drug free and I think that is so wrong now. Its a cathartic book that may be considered a cautionary tale but The Big Question was total fun. I wasnt angry at anybody.
DRE: Youre of a generation where therapy wasnt as popular but have you ever gone to therapy?
CB: No, I never have which isnt to say I shouldnt have gone. I should have but when I was growing up I had a pretty happy childhood. I dont remember anything that would have had me go to a therapy. I didnt do drugs. I ran a company in the 60s that was at the height of drugs but I knew that I couldnt do it because I was running a public company and the last thing I needed was to be found in a doped up state. So I was pretty clean all the way through my life which isnt to say that I was smart but I was clean.
DRE: Are you still working for the CIA?
CB: I never answer that question. Ive had that question thrown at me in so many curves but thats something that I dont get into. I wrote about it and thats enough.
DRE: Over the years youve talked about how you felt you never got a lot of respect, do you feel like that has changed?
CB: Im not pulling a Rodney Dangerfield. Im happy with whats happened. I never expected to be given any awards for whatever I did and I never got any. But I got further ahead than I ever expected I would. I was destined to work in my grandfathers clothing factory as a cutter and anything better than that is getting ahead so I feel like I did pretty good with my time.
DRE: Did your life change much after the Confessions movie?
CB: It was like a second rebirth. I never experienced anything like that before but it goes away just as fast as if comes and youre back to what you were doing before.
DRE: Where is the woman today who said she liked to have sex in the butt on The Newlywed Game?
CB: I have no idea. I have very little idea where anybody that I dealt with is today. I dont mean that in a flippant way but I never have gone back to class reunions and stuff like that. When something is done, its done and then I move on to the next life or whatever Im doing next. I remember very distinctly being in the control room when that woman said that. In the movie of Confessions, George Clooney changed it to in the ass which was dumb because the original in the butt was much funnier and it was honest. Its funny how that line has come back into my life.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?
Chuck Barris: Im trying to finish a new book before I go on tour for The Big Question.
DRE: What is the book about?
CB: I had a daughter who died of an overdose of drugs and Im just writing about her, this book is about her life. Its something Ive wanted to do for a long time, so Im doing it.
DRE: Are you telling her story as you see it or are you doing your best to tell the story as it really happened?
CB: Im doing my best to tell it as it really happened. Thats hard to do because we were estranged for a certain time but Im trying to write the book in her voice, with her telling the story. Its something I wanted to do and Ill be glad when its finished.
DRE: Do you usually have a book deal?
CB: Ive never had a book deal. I always write the book and then I try and go out and get it published. Simon & Schuster, whos publishing The Big Question, have on option on everything that I write next so theyll be the first to get it.
DRE: Was there one specific incident or thing that inspired The Big Question?
CB: The Big Question stems from a question that I was always asked whenever I did appearances or anything like that, Wheres television going? I have a pretty dim view of where television is going in the reality game show area. I always thought that the networks and the syndicators would always go back to the original concept of trying to get the biggest audience for the smallest amount of money. If there werent rules or any laws that would prevent them, I thought that an execution would be the biggest audience provider and cost the least. That idea persisted and I finally wrote a book about it.
DRE: I feel like we started seeing echoes of that with the Saddam Hussein hanging.
CB: I understand theyve done an execution on television in Texas. The book is set in the year 2012 which is another president or two away. The new president changes the laws about suicide. He changes it so that you can do anything you want. If you want to get on a television program that calls for the execution of the loser, you can do it and thats where the book is set.
DRE: While The Dating Game was on the air you got asked if it was the end of civilization and youve always said that it wasnt. But The Death Game feels like it is the end of civilization.
CB: My feeling is that although the laws of the land can change, the final arbiter of whats good or bad is the American public, strangely enough. I never gave the American public that much credit. I had a show once called 3's a Crowd, which had enormous ratings and the public actually picketed some stations that carried it and eventually CBS dropped it. In this book, there are six contestants and they vie to get the final big question and the one who gets the big question wins $100 million or is executed. I think if that show was allowed to be done it would get an enormous audience. But I think that eventually the public would probably make it so that the network couldnt do that anymore.
DRE: Have you met people who you think would greenlight The Death Game?
CB: I dont think so. But if there wasnt anything illegal about doing that show, Im sure that a certain point down the line, something like that could actually be done. If I didnt think it could be done I wouldnt go that far as to say that it could.
DRE: There is the character of Chuck Barris in the book, what made you want to create another persona for yourself?
CB: Its nothing to joke about but I would joke about how The Death Game is something Id created. That seemed to me to be the genesis of this book, this beat up old sickly producer, a certain amount of years from now, finds the guy whos the big shot producer of today and tries to plead with him to look at this game. Thats just how the idea rolled.
DRE: Is the Chuck Barris in the book anything like you?
CB: The Chuck Barris character is nothing like me. Im fairly healthy and I dont have any desire to go back into television but this guy is really driven.
DRE: I would imagine that at the height of your fame people would pitch shows to you all the time on the street.
CB: Absolutely, theres no question about that. Wherever I went, any time I was in a confined place, an elevator or an airplane or anything like that, somebody would pitch me a television show. But things got worst. When I did The Gong Show, people would actually audition for me in these enclosed places which became a little hard to take.
DRE: Can you even use an idea that someone would pitch to you like that?
CB: You could have but they would have to come into the office and sign all sorts of papers. But that never stopped people from suing me for stealing their ideas. I once had a bodyguard who claimed that I stole an idea of a show from him. In those days they would bring a class action suit against you. I was running a public company and we figured out that a class action suit would cost about $75,000 so we just settled and not put us in front of a judge who might extract bigger sums of money.
DRE: Were any of the ideas people told you in those enclosed places any good?
CB: No, none at all. I never remember ever hearing a good idea on the street. Most people think their idea is so fresh but if your occupation is game shows, you know of every single game that was ever made and done. So when somebody comes and tells you something, it generally has in been done before in some form.
DRE: The contestants in the book are almost caricatures.
CB: I really fell in love with these people. They seem to be people I know, although theyre not. The Big Question was the most fun book I ever wrote. It even surpassed Confessions because it is in the game show arena and it is about people who, in some form or other, I came across as contestants. Now if it goes on to be a success, it just goes to show you that the fun books are the ones that succeed.
DRE: Many of your shows, especially The Gong Show, anticipated a lot of whats going on today in television. Did you ever feel like you went too far?
CB: Definitely. In fact, I look upon my leadership of The Gong Show as what led to its destruction. I got carried away with a simple rule that I always told my hosts. When youre doing a five shows a week it may seem boring to you but it isnt boring. People like to see what theyre used to seeing. But as soon as I host my own show, I go out and do exactly the opposite to what I told my original master of ceremonies to do. I just kept ratcheting it up and ratcheting it up because I kept thinking, This is boring the audience and it was totally the wrong thing to do and I was responsible for pushing us off the air.
DRE: So you were a better producer on shows that you didnt host?
CB: Oh absolutely. You get a much better concept of whats going on when youre producing because youre watching everything. If I were producing The Gong Show and I was hosting The Gong Show, I would have told me to simmer down and get it back to where it was in the beginning. Its not inconceivable that that show wouldnt be on today if I had done it that way. If I hadnt been producing that show and had a different host in there, that show could still be running. The show America Has Talent is The Gong Show with a huge set but not a different approach to what was done.
DRE: I read that Confessions was a very cathartic book for you and obviously, the book youre writing about your daughter is very cathartic. Is The Big Question cathartic as well?
CB: The Big Question wasnt cathartic. When I wrote Confessions, I was angry at everything. I was mad at the world, particularly the television critics who wrote that I was the king of schlock and lowering the bar of culture and all those type of things. I was getting all that anger down on paper and Im surprised at how unangry, if there such a word, that book turned out to be. The book Im writing now about Della, thats my daughters name, is called Snapshots and that book is a cathartic thing because I think that I screwed up as a parent. I was one of the tough love parents who decided to give the kid a lot of money and say, Go away, come back when youre drug free and I think that is so wrong now. Its a cathartic book that may be considered a cautionary tale but The Big Question was total fun. I wasnt angry at anybody.
DRE: Youre of a generation where therapy wasnt as popular but have you ever gone to therapy?
CB: No, I never have which isnt to say I shouldnt have gone. I should have but when I was growing up I had a pretty happy childhood. I dont remember anything that would have had me go to a therapy. I didnt do drugs. I ran a company in the 60s that was at the height of drugs but I knew that I couldnt do it because I was running a public company and the last thing I needed was to be found in a doped up state. So I was pretty clean all the way through my life which isnt to say that I was smart but I was clean.
DRE: Are you still working for the CIA?
CB: I never answer that question. Ive had that question thrown at me in so many curves but thats something that I dont get into. I wrote about it and thats enough.
DRE: Over the years youve talked about how you felt you never got a lot of respect, do you feel like that has changed?
CB: Im not pulling a Rodney Dangerfield. Im happy with whats happened. I never expected to be given any awards for whatever I did and I never got any. But I got further ahead than I ever expected I would. I was destined to work in my grandfathers clothing factory as a cutter and anything better than that is getting ahead so I feel like I did pretty good with my time.
DRE: Did your life change much after the Confessions movie?
CB: It was like a second rebirth. I never experienced anything like that before but it goes away just as fast as if comes and youre back to what you were doing before.
DRE: Where is the woman today who said she liked to have sex in the butt on The Newlywed Game?
CB: I have no idea. I have very little idea where anybody that I dealt with is today. I dont mean that in a flippant way but I never have gone back to class reunions and stuff like that. When something is done, its done and then I move on to the next life or whatever Im doing next. I remember very distinctly being in the control room when that woman said that. In the movie of Confessions, George Clooney changed it to in the ass which was dumb because the original in the butt was much funnier and it was honest. Its funny how that line has come back into my life.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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on a side note there is a great youtube clip of oingo boingo from the gong show...