Decades before we had American Idol as a showcase for America to laugh at terrible and mediocre entertainers there was Chuck Barris and The Gong Show. Chuck had a successful career creating TV game shows like The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, but his most notorious idea came in the form of The Gong Show. Every day Barris would showcase the bizarre and questionable alongside acts of real talent, while three celebrity judges watched. The judges would then rate the acts on a scale of one to ten, but sometimes they could end the act early by hitting a gong. This freak show only aired for two years, but anybody that saw it would never forget it.
I was gonna put The Gong Show Movie on the blog, but I couldn't find it anywhere. That's o.k., actually, because it's kind of dull. What I did find was several episodes of the show, and they live up to everything I remembered. I'm going to post two that are particularly notable. The first one has every single act performing the song Feelings, and the second one is the 400th episode show. Get into it, and then we'll be right back with more stuff!
The King of Comedy wasn't a huge hit for Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro, but its reputation has grown in the years since its release. Now I'd say it's one of my favorite films from those two, but that wasn't always the case. DeNiro playsRupert Pupkin, a delusional comedian of questionable talent that just wants to catch a break. His big plan is to get on the Jerry Langford Show (Jerry is played by Jerry Lewis), which is the Tonight Show of the film. Rupert and his fellow outcasts come up with a crazy plan to actually get on the show, and... well, if you haven't seen it I'm not going to ruin it.
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