Chuck Barris

I think my ambition came from my great fear of ever ending up in that clothing business.

[Who talked about reality television with contestants who had underlying schemes]: Yeah. But, you know, every -- every contestant knows exactly what's -- what's in store for him or her when they go on these shows, and that's what they used to say about -- about my shows, when -- about the Gong Show. If a contestant comes on the Gong Show, they're opening themselves up to whatever. But -- so if a contestant goes on American Idol and it's one of the first few and that guy Simon rips them apart, the contestant knows that, and is sort of looking for that, don't you think? Show less «

[on his recollection of the celebrity photographs]: They used to have a picture of me on the wall, before they had any other photos up. Half the people demanded they take it down. In the end, someone stole it. Show less «

The day that The Dating Game went on air, the headline in the Chicago Tribune was: Daytime Television Hits All-Time Low. I think I just became the guy they love to hate. Show less «

I always felt I had a midlife crisis right on coast-to-coast television.

[Of his interest in working in game shows]: Only that I was privy to watching them. See, ABC would go on the air at 5 at night, and they wanted to get competitive with NBC and CBS. So they backed up-they went from 5 to 4 to 3 to 2, all the way back to 1-and they did it with game shows, because a) They were inexpensive, and b) If they hit, they hit big, and if they didn't hit, they could be replaced immediately. So game shows were on a 13-week cycle, which was not much. It's like three months, which was only about eight weeks, really, because they had to give you four weeks' notice. So ABC tried tons of game shows. Tons. And I'm there watching them as a low-level clerk. I watched what worked. I watched what didn't work at the time and what I hoped we could do differently at the time. Then, when I thought the time was right, I went out and created The Dating Game and went back and sold it to ABC. Show less «

[Who responded if he watched game shows]: I never even watched them when I was creating them because I didn't want to be influenced by anyone. I hate game shows. But that doesn't mean you can't create them and be successful. Show less «

[Of Dick Clark]: It was at the time of the payola scandals, where these station guys were taking money to play records. It was a big scandal, and a lot of station guys were fired. On the network, they had just gone through the quiz-show scandals, so after that, they didn't want another scandal. Dick Clark had American Bandstand, and that was a big show. One play on American Bandstand was worth 20,000 in sales, was the way they used to figure it in those days. So he was highly susceptible to having payola. At the same time, there was a guy, [legendary DJ Alan] Freed, who was on an ABC-affiliated station in New York. He had a big record program, and he billed $200,000 a year. Dick Clark was billing $2 million a year. Once again, in those days that was big, big money. ABC fired Freed. They gave him over to the lions, and they kept Clark. They were going to have to go down to the FCC and testify as to why Clark was not guilty of any misdemeanors. So they got called, and I was out of work at the time-I had just come down to see if they had anything available for a former NBC management-training-program guy-so they said "Yep, here," and gave me a suit, because I didn't have a suit and they wanted me to look like an executive. They brought me down to Philadelphia and introduced me to Dick Clark and said I had to watch him until he went to Washington, and they expected him to go to Washington any week, so I was there on a week-to-week basis. You figure it out. What was there to watch? I worked from 10 to 6. Then I'd get on the train, and I always thought, "Well, whatever he does, he could be doing it from 6 p.m. to when I get back to work." But I never suggested anything like that, because I needed the job. Actually, he did finally go to Washington after about a year, and was cleared automatically. I think by that time the scandal had blown away. And I got a permanent job in the programming department, which really started me off with game shows. Show less «

[When he talked about working with Dick Clark, for the first time]: I spent my time writing these dumb, low reports, everyday, because I didn't know what else to do; and they piled up in cartons and eventually, they took those down to Washington. I worked with Dick, for about a year, and they took those reports down to Washington, and he was exonerated. I don't think they would even went to look at those things that I wrote. So, he was exonerated and that was the end of my career. Show less «

I was a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none, and I think I just went through life kind of being that. When I look at Bob Barker on "The Price is Right," I couldn't have been a Bob Barker if you put a gun to my head. I could never have done something that long. I probably made a mistake to sell my company when I did and get out of television because right after I did, in 1986, it just exploded with all this reality television. But I always wanted to write and I've written, so I've experienced the things that I wanted to experience. Show less «

I went to a bunch of schools; St. Joseph's for a week, the University of Miami in Florida for a semester. I really wasn't much of a student and all of my family went to Penn and I couldn't get in. I finally got into Drexel, which was great. At least I got myself a college education, which now, in retrospect, I didn't really need. I should have gone right to New York and become a page at NBC. The horrible thing is that I was destined to go into my grandfather's cloak and suit factory. He made men's clothes in this horrible factory down in Philadelphia and that's where all the men in the family went, but I just rebelled and did something else. Show less «

[As to who influenced him on writing]: It used to be Hemingway and Fitzgerald. That's why I went to the south of France to write You And Me, Babe, the first book I wrote, and it was a bestseller, so that's part of the reason I finally quit television. The fun kind of ran out of television in the 1980s, and I dabbled around for a couple of years before finally selling the company so I could pretend I was Fitzgerald and Hemingway and go write on the Riviera. I was lucky enough to make enough money to live happily ever after, so I took off. You know, I probably should have never quit my day job. The books I wrote in Europe, I couldn't even get them published. I think I wrote two manuscripts, and neither one was published. Well, one was, but it wasn't that good. Show less «

If you stick in the business of being creative, you get hurt. And creative disappointment seems so much harder to take than any other kind. But if you're not prepared to get hurt like that, life can be pretty boring. I think I'm going to keep on going. Show less «

[on a game show he preferred]: The Dating Game has a special place for me because it was my first. It was my baby. In my opinion, the best game-show format ever was The Newlywed Game, because it's so simple: It's just four couples, eight questions, and a refrigerator or washing machine. That's it. You're done, and it worked. The Gong Show, that was fun. That was, for me, the epitome. In between, I had a game show called Three's A Crowd, which was "Who knows a husband better? His wife or his secretary?" It was the most powerful game show I ever created. I mean, it was really a visceral experience. It was too embarrassing and devastating for the contestants, so I pulled that show off the air. I did another one called How's Your Mother-In-Law?, which wasn't good because, as I did with all my shows, I tried to do something that my audience could relate to. And I thought everyone could relate to a mother-in-law. If you didn't have one, you certainly knew about them. But the problem was that you were making fun of somebody's mother, so it didn't work. There were other things. There was a show called Family Game, which was about how well kids know their parents and how well parents know their kids. I hated working with kids, so I didn't like that show. Show less «

[on whether The Gong Show (1976) was in direct contrast of American Idol: The Search for a Superstar (2002)]: That's what I've been told. I did an interview show on Fox and the host asked me if I watched American Idol, and I told him no, and he just refused to believe me. He kept repeating the question over and over. Maybe it's out of jealousy because I think they did make American Idol infinitely better than The Gong Show. Show less «

The whole world has changed. Shows now are terribly mean-spirited. You're rooting for people to be eliminated, rooting for judges to find new ways of being nasty. I wouldn't want to see electrocutions on TV. But I've no doubt some day we will. Show less «