The Gong Show Movie

The Gong Show Movie
May 23, 1980
Universal
Comedy, Musical
VHS
C+

This is sort of what it says on the package, a behind-the-scenes look at the odd '70s "talent" show that I watched regularly and even saw in person.*  But it's also a cynical look at show business, co-written by Robert Downey, Sr.  It doesn't really work, especially with Chuck Barris playing himself as worn out and mumbling.  (It was the year for that, as we'll see with Paul Simon in One-Trick Pony.)  But the movie is marginally entertaining, especially the songs.  My favorite is the group song, "Don't Get Up for Me," even though no one except Mabel King, as Mabel, can sing.  (She's not quite playing herself, but Chuck does greet her with "What's happening?")  Barris's then real-life wife Robin plays his girlfriend Red, with many people, from Tony Randall and 17-year-old daughter Della Barris to of course The Unknown Comic and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, appearing as themselves.

Milton Delugg is best known for the Gong Show, and for the music in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  Tourist lady Nora "Dodo" Denney is best known as Mrs. Teevee in Willy Wonka.  Gary Mule Deer, who plays Gary, was a man at the health food restaurant in Annie Hall.  Pat Cranshaw, the old man who dies in the elevator (as Chuck and Red are oblivious), was the Western Union messenger in Sgt. Pepper.

Stand-up comic Taylor Negron is "Blond-Haired Man Auditioning," and he'd turn up as a delivery man in Johnny Dangerously.  Cynthia Szigeti, Diner Doll Sophie here, would also be in Dangerously, as Mrs. Capone, and she was a passenger in The Big Bus.

Betsy Lynn and Carol Gwynn Thompson of the Siamese Connection would be in The Fab 400 in Hamburger-- The Motion Picture.  (They were also responsible for my best friend Carla laughing incredibly hard at the trailer for Midnight Madness, which was 1980's answer to Scavenger Hunt.  I never saw the movie but I still remember the fat disco-dancing twins.)

Band member Dana Glover would contribute "The Way" to the Two Weeks Notice soundtrack.  Danny DeVito allegedly is a performer here, although I didn't spot him.


*Growing up in Southern California, I got to be part of a lot of live studio audiences, and I was there for the misery of the all-"Feelings" episode in '76.  On the bright side, at the end of the day, Arte Johnson gave me one of the balloons that came down from the ceiling.

Rabbit Test

Rabbit Test
April 9, 1978
Laugh or Die Productions [These are the choices?]
Comedy, Romance
VHS
C+

Like Sextette, this shows how tacky the late '70s could get, but it's less enjoyably bad.  It does admittedly have more of a plot, the complications (medical and otherwise) faced by the world's first pregnant man, played by a young Billy Crystal, around the time he was making TV history as a gay main character on Soap.  The movie has a very slight resemblance to Miracle of Morgan's Creek, in that the unwed pregnancy shocks the whole world, but the reaction is more mixed here.  Also, like Trudy K., Crystal's Lionel Carpenter gives birth on Christmas, but it's a lot more blasphemous here, since the baby is possibly a Saviour.  (A deep-voiced star says, "Oh my God, it's a girl!!")  But then the whole movie is tasteless in just about every way imaginable, while Morgan's knew how to be suggestive without being PG-raunchy.

Then again, Joan Rivers (writer/director/over-actress in the role of a nurse) is no Preston Sturges.  If you're going to have a joke where an African waitress in rabbit ears and a swimsuit says, "I'm your jungle bunny," you've got to make it so outrageously funny that the viewer can't help but laugh, even if it's guiltily.  It's the same with jokes about (to take a few examples among many) incest, abortion, and urine.

Oddly enough, while there's none of the good-natured sweetness of Sextette (which loved even those it mocked), there is somehow a not bad romance here, between Crystal and his Russian Gypsy girlfriend, played by Joan Prather, who would find more success as Janet on Eight Is Enough.  And Doris Roberts, in the Doris Roberts Role of Crystal's mother (cf. Angie, Everybody Loves Raymond), is much better than her material.

There are two genuinely funny things in the movie: Richard Deacon's very phony toupee and a routine about a commemorative stamp.  Likely if you dare to watch this movie, it's going to have to be for the cast. Seemingly, nearly every actor and actress from the '70s you've heard of (or haven't) was in this flick, from a young Michael Keaton to Valerie Curtin and Suzanne Zenor from the first Three's Company pilot.  Rivers's Hollywood Squares colleagues (or at least game-show stalwarts) include George Gobel (as the President of the US), Fannie Flagg (as the First Lady), Peter Marshall (as himself), Jimmie "J. J." Walker (as an African ventriloquist), and Mr. Center Square himself, Paul Lynde, as the doctor whose rabbit dies.  Alice Ghostley is Lynde's nurse.  Billy Barty is Walker's black-face dummy.

This time Charlotte Rae plays Cousin Claire.  Roddy McDowall has a dual role, as the Gypsy grandmother and as Dr. D & C Fishbine.  (Hardy har har!)  Imogene Coca and/or Norman Fell plays his child.  (It's hard to tell in this movie.)  Hamilton Camp is some relation.

Ben Frommer, who's Mr. Sanchez, was "Man" in Plan Nine from Outer Space.  (Luckily, this isn't the extent of his resume.)  Intern William Callaway was a party guest in Annie Hall.  The role of the Japanese doctor was one of a handful that Rollin Moriyama would have in my late '70s movies.

Hospital visitor Tommy Madden would be One-Eyed Midget in The Muppet Movie.  May Boss, "Frail Old Lady," would be Adele Miller in Americathon.  (She was far from frail in real life and in fact was a stuntwoman, even up to 2003.)  Adam Anderson, the "Sobbing Sailor," would be a pilot in The Nude Bomb.  Rod Haase, who's the surfer on the bus, would be Wally in The Gong Show Movie.  Rosey Grier, who's the taxi driver, would be himself in The Gong SM.  Raymond O'Keefe, Bronco here, would be a man at the hospital in Nine to Five.  Shelley Morrison, who plays Mrs. Borzoni, would be Rosa the Maid in Troop Beverly Hills.