In my review (trashing) of THE CELEBRITY DATING GAME, I mentioned that I was a two-time contestant. I neglected to mention I was supposed to be a three-time contestant but was thrown off the show. I've posted about it before, and shared the story on my podcast, but for most of you (that haven't read or heard it), I thought I'd tell the story again. Also, someone wanted to know if any tapes of my appearances exist? Maybe. A few years ago I learned there was a warehouse somewhere in New Jersey that had a bunch of old DATING GAME tapes. But none were labeled. It was completely haphazard. Picture the final scene in INDIANA JONES AND THE LOST RAIDERS. I inquired and was told it was impossible to find and there was no guarantee my shows were even among the saved tapes. So unfortunately, no, I don't have a copy of any of my appearances.
Now to the story...
It
was in the late 60’s, I was in high school, and someone recommended I
try out. I was a wise-ass even then. So I called the show, was given
an appointment to audition. The first thing I said when I got there was
that my father worked for ABC radio and if that was a conflict let me
know now and save us all a lot of time and trouble. They assured me
that was no problem. In fact, they said members of their own staff have
had to go on in emergency cases.
So I went through the audition process. They put 40 of us in a room and asked us random DATING GAME-type questions.
A week later they called and invited me to be on the show. Everyone wonders if bachelors are given a preview of the questions or get to see the girl in advance. The answer is no. They filmed three episodes at a time so nine of us reported to an assigned room. We were briefed, then ushered to the stage for a rehearsal. They walked us through it, where we sat, what to do after the girl made her selection, etc. Then it was back to this waiting room until we were called for the show.
I didn’t give a shit about winning the date. I just wanted to score. And I was lucky. Got some good questions, had some funny answers, called one of the other bachelors a blimp, just wreaked as much comic havoc as I could. Big surprise, I wasn’t selected. As a result I missed getting to go on a little cruise boat around the Newport Beach harbor with the Turtles. (I’ve since become friends with Howard Kaylan and he can’t even remember that event).
Two days after the show aired I got invited to go on again for their alumni show. Again I was apparently funny. I just remember doing an Elvis impression and trashing the institution of marriage. This girl didn’t pick me either. Instead I went home with 50 pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses or something useless like that. I think the date I missed was to the Lancaster Date Festival. I’ve since gotten over my disappointment.
After that show aired they invited me to be on the night-time version. Now that was big stuff. Winners got trips to Europe and Hawaii, not Orange County. Oh yeah, and you’d be on national primetime television… but it was really the prizes.
Unfortunately, there was an engineers’ strike at ABC at the time and management had to man the cameras. During the rehearsal, one of the cameramen recognized me and mentioned casually that my father worked for ABC radio. Chuck Barris went ballistic. I was immediately thrown off the show. I said, “But what about when your own staff has to sub…?” Their answer was, “Get out!” So that was that. I was bumped from the show, they grabbed a guy in the audience who was wearing a suit, and he went on in my place. The selected bachelor got a trip to Paris. I got a roast beef sandwich at Arby’s.
A few years later I was working as an intern at KMPC radio in Los Angeles. Jim Lange was hired as a disc jockey. He spotted me down the hall and amazingly, remembered me. Even rattled off my blimp quip. Two days later at the station I get a call from THE DATING GAME. All was forgiven. They’d love to have me on again. I said, “Is this the night-time version?” They said no, I’d have to go back to daytime. So I told them to stick it. And thus ended my storied DATING GAME career.
Do I have regrets? Yes. I wish I had some of those sunglasses today. I could get a FORTUNE for that crap on ebay.
So I went through the audition process. They put 40 of us in a room and asked us random DATING GAME-type questions.
A week later they called and invited me to be on the show. Everyone wonders if bachelors are given a preview of the questions or get to see the girl in advance. The answer is no. They filmed three episodes at a time so nine of us reported to an assigned room. We were briefed, then ushered to the stage for a rehearsal. They walked us through it, where we sat, what to do after the girl made her selection, etc. Then it was back to this waiting room until we were called for the show.
I didn’t give a shit about winning the date. I just wanted to score. And I was lucky. Got some good questions, had some funny answers, called one of the other bachelors a blimp, just wreaked as much comic havoc as I could. Big surprise, I wasn’t selected. As a result I missed getting to go on a little cruise boat around the Newport Beach harbor with the Turtles. (I’ve since become friends with Howard Kaylan and he can’t even remember that event).
Two days after the show aired I got invited to go on again for their alumni show. Again I was apparently funny. I just remember doing an Elvis impression and trashing the institution of marriage. This girl didn’t pick me either. Instead I went home with 50 pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses or something useless like that. I think the date I missed was to the Lancaster Date Festival. I’ve since gotten over my disappointment.
After that show aired they invited me to be on the night-time version. Now that was big stuff. Winners got trips to Europe and Hawaii, not Orange County. Oh yeah, and you’d be on national primetime television… but it was really the prizes.
Unfortunately, there was an engineers’ strike at ABC at the time and management had to man the cameras. During the rehearsal, one of the cameramen recognized me and mentioned casually that my father worked for ABC radio. Chuck Barris went ballistic. I was immediately thrown off the show. I said, “But what about when your own staff has to sub…?” Their answer was, “Get out!” So that was that. I was bumped from the show, they grabbed a guy in the audience who was wearing a suit, and he went on in my place. The selected bachelor got a trip to Paris. I got a roast beef sandwich at Arby’s.
A few years later I was working as an intern at KMPC radio in Los Angeles. Jim Lange was hired as a disc jockey. He spotted me down the hall and amazingly, remembered me. Even rattled off my blimp quip. Two days later at the station I get a call from THE DATING GAME. All was forgiven. They’d love to have me on again. I said, “Is this the night-time version?” They said no, I’d have to go back to daytime. So I told them to stick it. And thus ended my storied DATING GAME career.
Do I have regrets? Yes. I wish I had some of those sunglasses today. I could get a FORTUNE for that crap on ebay.
Ah, my first time on The Dating Game was the network night time version. That was the time I won.
ReplyDeleteThe second time was 11 years later; it was the daytime version, and I was paid AFTRA minimum. At that time (1979), desperate for genuinely funny bachelors, they were regularly shopping for paid contestants at The Comedy Store, and that year pretty much every unmarried comic at The Store did the show for the money. This was how I ended up as Bachelor #1 when the girl was future-SNL cast member Gail Mathias, whom I had been onstage with at The Comedy Store the night before. When I came around the partition on the set and we saw each other, it was so freaking obvious that we already knew each other that Jim Lange commented to that effect on the air.
Some comics got invited back over and over. I forget how many times obviously gay Taylor Negron was a contestant, but it was at least four times.
The Comedy Store was not the only place they shopped for contestants. Several times I spotted guys I'd seen doing gay porn as bachelors on the show. Sure, some were gay-for-pay, but some of them doing the show were basically being straight-for-pay.
For me the highlight of this was when I saw a man I'd had an affair with as a contestant on The Newlywed Game. I ran into him about a year later in a gay bar and asked him about that. He said the marriage was quite short. They'd only gotten married to do the show and try to win some furniture they could sell and divide the money. (They lost.) They may well have been annulled before the episode ever aired.
Oh, and taping three shows would have meant 18 bachelors, not 9.
ReplyDeleteIn the days before eBay and streaming, there were a number of game show geeks (myself included) who taped shows faithfully. And while there were very few game show producers from the 1960s who kept copies of as many shows as they could (most of them thought it was disposable entertainment), Chuck Barris was one of them--so The Dating Game ran pretty often in the early days of Game Show Network (which is owned by Sony, which now owns Chuck Barris Productions). I just checked my list of Dating Game, and I have your episodes (unless you used a pseudonym). But do advise whether you used your real name, and I can ask around.
ReplyDeleteBarris seemed like that type who could lose it in a second.
ReplyDeleteBased on the books and films, and Al Michaels's account of working for him, on another day, Chuck Barris might have tried to marry you.
ReplyDeleteRaiders of the Lost Ark or Last Crusade?
ReplyDeleteI think it's funny that on shows like "The Dating Game," they'd cast contestants who were good-looking, had big personalities and were comfortable on camera, so naturally they'd look to people in show business. But now, on programs like "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," they still cast contestants who are super good-looking, have big personalities and are comfortable on camera, but then all those people have to insist they aren't in show business and never wanted to be -- they're really just marketers and dental assistants from Ohio and Alabama who are genuinely looking for their lifetime love match. (Ironically, the ones who can seem sincere enough about being there for "the right reasons" get further along in the show, increasing the chances that they'll end up mildly famous and be considered for, say, a hosting gig on "Extra." Or get to be on "The Celebrity Dating Game.")
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered if contestants on game shows got paid. Or maybe D.MCEWAN was a special case.
ReplyDeleteMCEWAN's "straight-for-pay" comment made me think of something. This latest version of "The Celebrity Dating Game" will probably be cancelled long before this ever becomes an issue. But how long will it be before the so called "gender fluid" and/or "non-binary" want to be on the show? It would be a great opportunity for woke Hollywood to pardon the cliché, "put it's money where it's mouth is."
Will they have to disclose that some contestants are "non-binary" or that they are in transition? Will a binary, hetero sexual male have to sign an agreement that a potential date may only appear female? Will a lesbian have to date a transgender female that still has a penis? Will a straight woman be O.K. with getting ELLIOTT PAGE as a date? Etc. Even the use of the wrong pronoun could get you kicked off the show.
The big question is would anyone watch a "fluid" version of "The Dating Game?" I'm sure some would because to them it celebrates a long over due diversity. To others it may have a "Jerry Springer," *****show kind of vibe. However, I don't think it's something I would want to see.
M.B.
""Mike Bloodworth said...
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered if contestants on game shows got paid. Or maybe D.MCEWAN was a special case."
I was not a "Special Case." Though most game shows do not pay contestants, Dating Game, after a decade on the air, began hiring paid AFTRA contestants, as they needed genuinely funny people. As I said in my above comment, at that time - late '70s to early 80s - every unmarried comic at The Comedy Store, both genders, did the show, and we all did it for the money.
Friday Question:
ReplyDeleteI'm reading Judd Apatow's book about his working with Garry Shandling (great read BTW). In the book, he mentions how Garry had difficulty landing gigs at the Comedy Store because at the time he was still a sitcom writer, and Mitzi Shore had difficulty taking comedy writers seriously as comics.
Did you ever have comedians try to write for you or vice versa, or was it a non-issue as long as you were funny?
Semi-relevant, perhaps ...
ReplyDeleteI read an interview with Rip Taylor, a frequent flyer on The Gong Show, and the host of The $1.98 Beauty Pageant, both for Chuck Barris.
According to Taylor, everybody on these two shows was paid.
Remember the oddly-totaled "prize money" on Gong? That was AFTRA scale after the FICA tax was deducted - and every contestant got it (only the "winner" got the trophy).
What I remember about The Gong Show was that the worst things that would happen - the humiliating things - always happened to Chuck Barris himself.
Chuckie Baby was the one who would get pies and/or seltzer in the face, who would get knocked around by stagehands (actually stuntmen engaged for that purpose), who would get props thrown at him, who would have to stand there as scenery collapsed around him, etc.
That means something - I think ...
I was a “civilian” and did the Dating Game twice: won once, lost once. And other than the prizes, I wasn’t paid. It was my understanding that Union or guild members (SAG, AFTRA, hell, maybe even SEG and IATSE) were paid for the same reason they’d be paid on any other Union show.
ReplyDeleteNow for something completely different:
ReplyDeletePerhaps a bit late on this idea, but how does "Take-Out Plays" grab'ya? ;>)
https://nowtoronto.com/culture/stage/plays2performhome-is-takeout-theatre-for-your-bubble?utm_source=nowtoronto.com&utm_campaign=148fef1ee2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_06_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bfaa0e1d4c-148fef1ee2-81139154
"Mike Doran said...
ReplyDeleteI read an interview with Rip Taylor, a frequent flyer on The Gong Show, and the host of The $1.98 Beauty Pageant, both for Chuck Barris.
According to Taylor, everybody on these two shows was paid.
Remember the oddly-totaled "prize money" on Gong? That was AFTRA scale after the FICA tax was deducted - and every contestant got it (only the "winner" got the trophy)."
I was a contestant on The Gong Show once. (Gonged) I was not paid.
Mike Doran said:
ReplyDeleteWhat I remember about The Gong Show was that the worst things that would happen - the humiliating things - always happened to Chuck Barris himself.
Chuckie Baby was the one who would get pies and/or seltzer in the face, who would get knocked around by stagehands (actually stuntmen engaged for that purpose), who would get props thrown at him, who would have to stand there as scenery collapsed around him, etc.
I've read before one of the reasons Barris felt he needed to host the program (much to the dismay of Gary Owens, who hosted the evening syndicated version from 1976-1977, only to have Chuck push him out) was the actual contestants on the show needed an anchor of sorts. They were up on stage with a live band, a bunch of television cameras, a studio audience screaming at them, and three hammy celebrities who wanted to get them off the stage. Barris was always there throughout the entire audition process, and by that time the contestants thought of him at least as a familiar face, if not a friend.
(I believe in most cases he and the other staffers would talk to the untalented contestants in advance and tell them, "Look, you're probably going to get gonged, so don't get pissed off and do something stupid; if you do we're going to have to cut it from the show.")
I'm reading this post after seeing Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, from Chuck Barris's autobiography of the same name. Supposedly the trips got better to give Chuck cover on his supposed hit jobs for the CIA. Whether it was true or not, the movie is always worth watching for the great Sam Rockwell.
ReplyDelete