. . . which, if I believed in the concept of “guilty pleasure” would be near the top of my list. Well, OK, I do believe in guilty pleasures. But for me, that describes a movie (since we’re talking about movies) that I actually feel *guilty *about liking, like Life with Mikey. As a person who has *Showgirls *in his lifetime top ~20 list, “guilty pleasure” has a pretty limited meaning.
So anyway, I’m watching The Gong Show Movie–cowritten by Robert Downey Sr., which makes sense considering he’s the guy who made Greaser’s Palace --and I’m thinking: What’s the difference between the Gong Show and American Idol audition shows? I’m not sure who Randy parallels, but Paula is Jaye P. Morgan, and you KNOW that Simon Cowell has a life-size cutout of Rip Taylor in his bedroom.
Wait, now that I think of it, Simon is the gong. Maybe *Randy *is Rip Taylor. That would make Seacrest Chuck Barris, wouldn’t it? I don’t really see that; Ryan really strikes me as slightly more Rip-Taylorey than he’d be willing to admit, even to himself.
William Hung is 90% of the show’s acts. He’s like the guy who played all the Oompa Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Peel a Gong Show performer, and reveal William Hung every time.
But seriously. You can’t say that the American Idol audition shows represent any kind of cultural progress, can you?
Didn’t Chuck Barris say that he’d originally intended to do a real talent show, but most of the contestants were so horrible that he decided to make it a joke? The American Idol auditions really have that element about them.
From what I’ve read, Chuck had a lot of contempt for TV (don’t recall the reasons). He created game shows that were not your normal “a brand new car!!” type.
With “The Newlywed Game” he could get young couples to talk about their personal lives. On “Dating Game” he could get single people to do the same thing. “The Gong Show” was an experiment to see just how far people would go just to get on TV. “The $1.98 Beauty Pageant” was a jab at all beauty pageants.
Despite all this, nearly all of his shows became big hits. Yep, ole Chuckie Baby was a freaking genius.
My initial point was that, despite Idol being largely packaged as celebration of talent–a golden ticket for some talented hard worker–most of its appeal, for most people, is the meanspiritedness: the Gong continues to rule.
This is exactly why what little I know if it is too much. It is an exercise in cruelty. There are better ways to tell people that a singing career isn’t for them than ridiculing them on national television.
It reminds me of the “worst date” contests some arrogant groups would have. whoever brings the biggest loser as a date wins.
I read Chuck Barris’s book, and he created the show to show what people would do to get on television and to win a little amount of money. When he interviewed people to be the host, they were all taking it very seriously. Finally, he realized he would have to host it himself to convey the big puton that it was.
I remember seeing the “Popsicle Twins” on the show, doing a popsicle-linking act that was very suggestive (giving the popsicles a blow job). Barris says it only aired once, and everybody in the studio went into shock and the phones went crazy. Did anyone else see this?
