Chuck Barris

Charles Hirsch Barris (June 3, 1929 – March 21, 2017) was an American game show creator, producer, and host. He was best known for hosting The Gong Show and creating The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. He was also a songwriter who wrote "Palisades Park", recorded by Freddy Cannon and also recorded by Ramones. He also wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows. He wrote an autobiography titled Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was made into the film of the same title starring Sam Rockwell and directed by George Clooney.

He formed his production company, Chuck Barris Productions, on June 14, 1965. His first success came in 1965 with The Dating Game, which aired on ABC. The show ran until 1980 and was twice revived, later in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1966, he began The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The show is the longest lasting of any developed by his company, broadcast until 1985, for a total of 19 full years on both "first run" network TV and syndication.

He became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and served as the host of the talent show spoof The Gong Show, which he packaged in partnership with TV producer Chris Bearde. It ran only two seasons on NBC (1976–78) and four in syndication (1976–80). It has had four subsequent revivals, one under Barris' title (with Don Bleu) in 1988–1989, one on The Game Show Network in 2000 called Extreme Gong and another with current format owner Sony Pictures Television (with Dave Attell) in 2008. A fourth version, produced by Will Arnett and hosted by fictional British celebrity "Tommy Maitland" (Mike Myers), aired on ABC in 2017.