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Dec. 4, 2002 - Art Bell
02:19:40
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Chuck Barris
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Time Text
I'm not sure if this is the right way to sing this song, but I'll try.
I said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iririri.
I said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
I said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
You know what?
Maja Bian, Nebu, Bian, Nebu, iriri.
Diego has a sunburn, and it's a point of joy, the Afro-Christian safari.
And the others don't want a soul, and it's better to give yourself a cane, followed by the gringo Ramazanga.
The DJ who knows him plays the anthem for Diego, the most desired song.
To reach our goal in the kingdom of nine from west of the Rockies dial 1
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First-time callers may recharge at 1-775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies 1-800-825-5033. First time callers may reach out at 1-775-727-1222
or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1295. To reach out on the toll free international
line call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Network.
You know what?
If what we're doing these days with clones and creation of life and all the rest of it isn't enough to stand the hair on the back of your neck straight up, this photograph on my website right now is.
This is one of the best or the worst, depending on your point of view, I always have to add, that I've ever seen.
I mean, this is just raw stuff.
It's, uh, went up about ten minutes ahead of airtime, like most things.
It's totally mad.
I mean, this is, um, again, no reflection on this man's father.
He believes it to be the image of his father, and he thinks there's no mistaking it, but I don't know, man.
I look at that face.
And again, no offense, sir, but we're talking pure evil here.
This looks like pure evil to me.
The real McCoy evil, you know?
Maybe it was just a fellow's attitude in life, the grumpiness.
He said grumpiness.
That's a pretty mild word.
This is really bad.
It's under what's new at Artbell.com.
Right now, you're going to want to take a look at this.
Something as horrible as this photograph is, I just noticed something else about it.
God, it's an evil looking entity.
It would appear to be at the top of a stairwell, in what is said to be a remodeled area, and it looks like it's halfway through the wall.
No, it's three quarters of the way through the wall, on the visual side.
The other quarter of it, I don't think you can see, I could be wrong about that, but it looks like it's part way through the wall or door, whatever is there, At the top of this stairwell.
This thing is pretty awful.
In the world of awful, you know, it's like 10 on a scale of 10. www.artbell.com.
It will be the first item under what's new.
Let me see.
Yup.
Dad's Ghost Appears in Photo is what you want to click on when you get there.
And also check out the CD that allows you to actually own artbell.com.
Uh, as it, uh, rolls into its last, uh, 30 days of history.
And there is a lot of history associated with this website.
Uh, first time caller on the line, you are on the air.
Hello.
Well, hello.
Hi.
Hi.
I'm just a girl from Nevada.
Just a girl from Nevada?
Who has a story.
Yes.
I want to tell you a little story.
Thank you.
Very quickly.
As you know, I'm in Nevada too.
I'm in Pahrump, Nevada.
Yes, I do.
Did you know that Pahrump, Nevada, as part of Nye County, has legal brothels?
Oh, yes, sir, I do.
You did know that.
I think a lot of the country knows that.
There are people who have fun At our expense here in Pahrump.
And you know what they call young Pahrumpian women?
What would that be?
Brothelsprouts.
Is that awful?
Brothelsprouts?
Oh God, of course it's not true.
Well, that's pretty cute.
Pretty cute.
It's a nice way to put it, isn't it?
Anyway, hon, what's up?
Well, I've been trying to get in touch with someone just recently in the past couple of years, which included the first time Stephen Greer then Whitley Stryber and then actually yourself. But I seem
to move right after and I've lost contact so nobody could actually have gotten back with me
anyway. What I wanted to say was, especially since Robert Lazar just was on the other day.
Bob Lazar, yes. Yes, well back in the 70s, about 76 or so, I met him. You met Bob?
I met him while I was dealing blackjack in a small town outside of, well actually it was an escape.
He is an incredible person.
Oh yes, but I have more than just having met him.
We have a long version, we have a short version, we have an exciting one, or I could just tell you the facts.
Let's go.
Tell me as we go, okay?
You pick the one you like and go.
I've never done this before, so let's just go for it.
Okay, well you ask me the questions, I don't make sense.
But it was like 1976 or so, and I was dealing blackjack in a little place, Mesquite.
And you get to know everybody there in a small town.
Of course, I'm from Pennsylvania.
It's the first time I've ever done anything like dealing a blackjack in the steet.
Okay, well, let's get to the Bob Lazar part.
Well, there I was doing it, and I knew he wasn't from there.
And I said, hey, what are you passing through?
He says, no, I work down the road.
I said, oh, I said, well, gee, the chicken ranch.
He says, that's the only thing out there.
He says, no, he says there's a base out there I work on.
I said, oh, you mean you're with Nellis?
Well, no, not really.
It's sort of a private base.
Oh, no, this is very interesting because it validates to some degree Bob Lazar's story.
As you know, a lot of people cast aspersions on the story that he ever worked out there and they expunged all records, virtually making him into a non-person.
So if he actually told you that offhand, That's kind of some interesting cooperation for what he's said.
I have a whole lot more, sir.
Keep going.
Okay, so I have been afraid to talk about this because I knew he was a non-person and my family encouraged me not to.
And this has been a very long time and I just can't take it anymore.
Keep going, keep going.
Mr. Lazar said, I worked out there.
I said, well, what do you, I go, what do you do?
And he says, I'm a rocket scientist.
I said, yeah, and I've been visited by aliens.
He said, no, I really am.
I said, well, no, I really have.
Which led us into my belief, the fact that I believed in ships, in aliens and felt I had been contacted throughout my life myself.
Yes.
Therefore, he proceeded.
He said he could show me real ships and That they were working on, uh, recreating models that they had.
I says, yeah, right.
He said, I said, prove it.
What time you get off?
11.
Okay.
He and I then proceeded out hours out somewhere from his gate.
And I really wasn't sure where I was.
It was very dark.
I thought I went to the left side of the road, which would have been the south where the Nellis Air Force Base is, in my mind.
Do you normally get in cars and go to remote locations with people who say they've seen alien craft?
Just a question.
Well, Mr. Lazar seemed so un-violent and un-offensive and un-all those words that most men are.
Yeah, he is very unaffected, yes.
That I took him to be Exactly at his word.
I mean, you know, telling a good-looking lady, a blackjack dealer, a story like this, it ranks right up there beyond what's your sign, that's for sure.
Well, I'm sorry, but I have to... So he took you out into the middle of, no doubt, Area 51, or near it, or something?
We got further, sir.
Did you get near S4?
I saw signs with that.
I saw they're going to shoot you if you go any further.
I remember seeing the black mailbox that you turned at.
Oh, yes.
Uh, we proceeded up to, uh, what he, a mountain, and we went up there, and he had me walking way up there, and we'd already been gone a long time, and I looked over, and he goes, there it is, there's Groom Lake.
Well, I'm looking for a lake.
Yeah.
I don't see a lake, but I see buildings.
And they're, like, way far off, and we're not even there yet.
Uh-huh.
We get back into his car.
Yes.
And we start to proceed.
As we do so, when I missed, like, the mailbox turns and all that, I don't remember, and we did stop at the Alien Inuit on the way in.
Anyway, we get up there, and as we go to lead down the mountain to go further, he says, you want to go further?
I said, yes.
They stopped us with these, like, light green or yellow blazers.
Uh-huh.
And security came up to the car, and I was hiding in the back under something, and he knew who he was.
So he let us proceed.
Bob Lazar was recognized and allowed to proceed.
Yes, sir.
I was really scared then, because... Would you like to give us your first name?
It's true, so I think it would be good if I did.
Just give me your first name.
Paulette.
Paulette, all right.
That really is your name?
That really is my name.
All right, Paulette, because I'm going to be asking Bob about this.
That's what I want.
Okay, all right.
That's what I want out of this whole conversation.
All right, Paulette, let's keep going.
He was allowed to proceed.
You were hiding in the back of the car, then what?
Yes, and I thought this was all, like, silly until that moment.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
And then I was scared.
I said, oh my gosh, I'm hiding in the back, and we are now.
You know, these guys are serious, okay?
And they were scared.
Oh, they are serious.
So we proceeded up to, turned right into, uh, and I saw this long, uh, field.
And on the left side was a large hangar with a couple large doors and a small door to walk into.
And at the end of the field, which I'm still looking for a lake.
It's not a lake, it's some kind of landing strip.
At the end of it is some kind of tower I could see.
And we stopped the car and we entered into the building of the hangar where the ships were.
You got in that building?
Yes sir.
And you saw the ships?
Yes.
Describe to me and everybody what you saw please.
Okay well it was kind of dark in there because he just turned on the lights up towards the front.
Gotcha.
But as we walked in I remember a little ha ha because they had those like Uh, people movers that they, those velvet things in the gold poles that they have where movie theaters are.
Right.
And I laughed.
I thought, yeah, this is going to get people away from here all, you know.
Anyway, there was a cigarette shaped one, a cigar shaped one first, then in the middle with a little round kind of a teardrop looking thing, like a little helicopter without its top.
And the third one is the one that I actually saw more of and entered into.
You entered this craft?
Yes.
The third one was made of sort of You could look like wings of a butterfly that you could look through.
Had like little veins going through it.
And I remember it to be a yellow.
Okay.
I remember seeing hydroglyphic type markings.
It was very small.
I'm 5'2", and I had to bend over and crawl in.
So it was obviously meant for small beings.
Yes, sir.
Of some sort.
All right.
What clicked my memory on this, which I have to remember that after this all happened, I had no memory of this till about 12 years ago.
And when I heard a report on TV in Vegas that talked about someone talking about a sports model.
Right.
I remember the third ship and I thought to myself when I saw it, he said, this is our sports model.
And in fact, that when I wrote my letter to somebody, I wrote that he said, this is our compact model.
But I think the word was sport.
And I thought to myself, that's the economy model.
And I thought, no, that's not the economy model because you don't need fuel and space because everything works in wheels within wheels and reverse gravity.
So he got you in and he got you out.
No, wait, they let us out.
He was caught just like I was.
He's got to remember this.
Well, I'm sure he will.
How did the two of you get caught?
And what were you doing when you got caught?
Well, I was in the little ship looking around, goofing around.
And he was kind of just down, I don't know, down where we walked in before we went up Walked into the ship area.
Yes.
And there was like a little, um, there was a hall, um, and then there was that cage look like you used to have on taxi where that guy, fat guy sat in.
Yes.
And right next to it there was a hallway and right next to it was a large plate window.
I went over to the plate window and I remember seeing some type of alien body of some type or something.
Oh my god.
Now.
Now, you see, Bob has never admitted To having seen either bodies or aliens at all.
Now, this is part of my memory that I would like clearer, sir.
Because I have been... What happened is they did something to my memory.
I don't have all the details.
Well, what keep bringing all this back?
I mean, you just suddenly... Just hearing things.
Just hearing another, oh okay, well, yeah.
Bob Lazar's interview.
Hearing the sports model and so forth.
The sports model, it kicked it off.
Alright, gotcha.
So, let me say this.
I will not swear that at that point I saw a body there, but this is the images that came from my thoughts of that time.
So I'm not going to swear at that moment.
Alright, what do you know about after you were caught?
Okay, okay, that's what I mean.
At that point, They zapped us or something, and I remember being... Us?
You mean they zapped Bob as well?
Yes!
They took both of us, and we were taken through this area where, that's where I remember the aliens working on these little, little, like they were all working on carburetors or something, you know what I mean?
They were all working on something.
And they all looked alike, and they were all in a row, and they were all doing the same thing.
And as they took our bodies through to this back room, we went up, and all of a sudden, I mean, there's time that I don't remember, of course.
As I woke up, Bob Lazar, myself, and two other couples were connected to a machine with electrodes on it, standing in front of a military man, which was standing in front of a large glass window, and he had a desk.
And I said to him, please, I said, let us go, we won't say anything.
And we were nude.
And I remember looking over at Bob Lazar.
And I remember thinking, oh my God, this is so embarrassing, you know?
And then I thought, well, he don't look so good himself, so I guess I don't have to feel that bad.
Oh my God.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Do you swear all of this is true?
I swear to God.
The only thing I'm not sure, because of my other times I was taken, I'm not positive of the bodies, but I know of everything else.
Alright, that's fair.
I mean, you're clear on that.
Here's what I want you to do, Paulette.
I want you to contact me privately.
I have email at artbell at mindspring.com.
Artbell.
Artbell at mindspring.com.
Okay.
And provide me with a phone number, which I will not give out.
I promise you to anybody else.
Thank you.
And I want to talk to you, and I want to talk to Bob, and I want to follow up on this story, alright?
You know how happy that would make me, because it's something I've wondered about myself all these years, too.
Paulette, you do it.
I'll do it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
You get me the information.
I will follow up, and then I'll follow up for all of you.
Oh, you never know.
Wildcard Line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hi, Art.
Hi.
This is Chris from Minnesota.
Hello, Chris.
What's up?
Hello.
And boy, that's a tough one to follow.
Well, give it a try.
Two quick things before I get to my main point.
I saw an interview recently with Jerry Lewis and he apparently...
has been uh... like remote control device uh... the he uses to uh...
uh... triggers from sort of a a device offers back yes i i i i'd rather not
talk about my back anyway what's up sir on and then the other thing is before you are going to be
here for retirement i would love to hear the oral we g board story that uh...
probably years you refused to tell and i i will refuse uh... you can take that
one to my grave anything else or her yet on i'd
recently was watching entertainment tonight and they're not doing a movie
about uh...
uh... chuck barris and and his story and i'd be interested in hearing it
Oh, you're exactly right, and that movie is about to come out.
I mean, it's just about to be released.
Chuck Berris is an incredible... He did some incredible things.
I mean, for television, Chuck Berris is just an absolute icon.
Chuck Berris.
He is a flat-out icon, no matter what you think.
And you know, there are a lot of people, and I'm gonna talk to Chuck about this.
I mean, how many of you out there never saw either The Gong Show, The Newlywed Game, or The Dating Game?
Now, I'm sure, like many, you have ragged criticism for that kind of television.
Oh, that's trash TV!
God, that's trash TV!
But almost everybody watched.
Almost everybody watched.
Boy, he caught the critics' barbs, I'll tell you.
They pierced him more than one time.
So, you know, in a lot of ways, Chuck and I are going to have a lot in common.
I felt the barb of the long critics' stingers as they enter my body.
You know, over the years, many, many, many, many times, but people listen.
You know, as people watched those programs, most did not admit it, of course.
What, me?
Watch the dating game?
A newlywed game of the gong show?
Please!
But oh, you bet your butt they watched.
In droves.
As a matter of fact, at one time he had more half hours on television than any other human being on the face of the planet.
And to imagine that this man Who produced this kind of, and did this kind of television, had a second secret life as a hitman.
As a hitman!
That's just outrageous!
And we're going to be, perhaps, talking to Chuck in a moment, a few moments.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air, not a lot of time.
Hello.
Yeah, unfortunately, I've got a Riddlesham Forest, Mount Ararat, and a hitman story all connected by the Air Force.
I have a good friend of mine who got out of the Air Force, but was a contract hitman.
private pilot for a major corporation which gave him a great entree into South
and Central America and he just sort of cruise in and out on business trips and
conduct his own other business
I guess that's the way it's done. And also the Rendlesham Forest thing took place at RAF Bentwaters
Woodbridge, split base You are aware, of course, that the British are finally going to release the secret report on all of that?
Yes, right.
But let me tell you what they were interested in, probably.
You see, the Rendlesham Forest comes right up to the perimeter of the base at RAF Woodbridge for the 78th Act Fighter Squadron, my squadron.
About 10 seconds.
Okay, the nuclear alert pad is there and all the nuclear weapons storage facilities are on that side of the base.
Wonderful.
I've got to run, sir.
You call me again, all right?
All right.
And we'll carry on with that.
Coming up in a moment, Chuck Barrett.
From the high deserts, I'm Art Bell.
Good morning!
Hey life, look at me.
I can see the real sky.
You took me out of my world I won't stop
Suddenly I just won't stop Cause I have found me
When you find me That's the love that's real
I need you To light up the whole
Baby, this madhouse Me and my king Kong
My beat just been moved I'm the moon and the star
Where am I to go Now that I've grown
So far I don't want to let you go
Why don't you come Baby, this madhouse
Me and my king Kong My beat just been moved
I'm the moon and the star Where am I to go
Now that I've grown so far You will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone You will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone You will come to know
When the bullet hits the bone I'm falling down a spiral
To a destination unknown Oh
Double-clock messenger, all alone Can't get no connection, can't get through, where are you?
Gotta listen to the words, here it's relevant Well, the night is heavy on his guilty mind
Let's fall from the borderline Let man come, knows him well, he hasn't seen it
Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from West of the Rockies at 1-800-7-8.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First time callers may reach Art at 1-775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First-time callers may reach out at 1-775-727-1222.
And the wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295.
To reach out on the toll-free international line, call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800-893-0100.
This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell from the Kingdom of Pine.
Top of the morning, everybody.
This is gonna be really different.
A departure.
Coming up in a moment, Chuck Beres.
You should know that name, Chuck Beres.
Jack of all trades, really.
Creator, books, music, TV.
Chuck Beres has had some big hits.
His rock song, if you're old enough to remember, Palisades Park.
Well, I sure am.
Received a gold record.
One of his three novels, You and Me Babe, reached number seven on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Three of the many television shows he created and produced, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and of course, The Gong Show, have become TV legends.
Now, the second of his three books, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, is the premise of a coming film.
The book has just been reissued.
Barris is working on a sequel.
Bad Grass Never Dies, more Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to be published next year.
He also just released CDs of songs he sings with his band, The Hollywood Cowboys, entitled Confessions of a Dangerous Singer.
Barris is a prize-winning still photographer, recently received a doctorate degree from Drexel University, founded the Chuck Barris Production Company in 1965 and 68.
Chuck Barris Productions became the first independent television production company to go public.
At that time, Chip Barris Productions had made more television half hours per week, that would be 27 in total, that's incredible, than any other TV production company in the country.
Barris was president, CEO of Chuck Barris Productions, later named Barris Industries until the company's sale in 1986.
In 1969, Barris Industries sold a half-hour game TV show, The Parent Game, to independent television stations all across the country, opening up what quickly became one of the most lucrative sides of the television industry's first-run TV syndication.
He's a member of the Friars Club of New York, New York Athletic Club, member of the Board of Directors of the New York Police Foundation.
Oh-ho!
Ours lives in Manhattan, in Stenton's Landing, New York, with his wife, Mary.
In a moment, he'll be up.
And one of the things that I'm gonna say right now, that he may later confirm, deny, or let us think what we will, is the apparent statement in his book And apparently to be followed up in the movie, that while he was doing all this, absolutely incredible as it may sound, while he was doing all of what I just told you about, he was a C.I.A.
hitman.
We'll be right back.
All right, all the way from New York, where he lives.
Here is Chuck Barris.
Chuck Barris, welcome to the program.
Oh, how you doing, Art?
I'm doing just great.
And yourself?
I am fine.
Fine and dandy for, like, 10 a.m.
to 2 a.m.
for 2 in the morning.
Yeah, that's right.
You're on the East Coast, aren't you?
Right.
All right.
Well, you and I have a whole lot to talk about, Chuck.
What a life you've had.
I mean, what a life you've had.
How in the world did you come to produce things that, for their time, I mean, for today, of course, they're nothing.
I mean, look at the things that go on today on TV.
But at the time, the dating game and the newlywed game, those kind of things, especially the dating game and the doctor, they're outrageous.
Totally, absolutely blinking outrageous.
And so how did that come to be?
Well, you know, it's amazing that they were considered outrageous when you think about what's going on today, but they were.
And I think the whole situation was that my program, starting with a dating game, was spontaneous.
I mean, there weren't any answers.
There weren't any correct answers.
It wasn't a question and answer show.
It wasn't a stunt show.
Everything was spontaneous and that was brand new.
and uh... appeal that happened when we were game and everything else i ever did
was a show that that didn't have uh... you know that couldn't be scripted
and so when you had a show that was inscripted
anything could happen Mm-hmm.
I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun.
I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had
a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot
of fun.
I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun.
I had a lot of fun. I had the dirtiest things that could come to mind.
Really?
And in those days we weren't allowed to say toilet, we couldn't say God, we couldn't say make love.
Oh, we had to say, uh, make whoopee.
Where would you, where was your favorite place with you and your husband in the newlywed game?
We always said make whoopee.
But these kids said things that just knocked me out.
I would, I would sit up in the wee hours of the night trying to figure out what possessed them to say this stuff.
What do you think did?
I have no idea.
I really don't to this day.
And so in order to save the program because I was warned that if it continued the program would go off air and I'm talking about the dating game, which is my first.
I had to get a friend to impersonate.
I got an actor who impersonated someone from the FCC.
And he told the contestants beforehand that, you know, they would go to jail if they said, you know, anything that stays on the air.
These were FTC airways.
These are government airways.
So what did you do?
You got a guy in a suit who looked... Yeah, I had a guy in a trench coat and a hat.
Yeah.
And that's what he did.
And so he'd be like come on the set before the show and he'd say, yeah.
He would walk into the dressing room.
I'm Mr. Brown from the Federal Communications Commission and here's the way it is guys.
$10,000 fine and 10 years in prison for saying anything, you know, off color on a government airwaves.
How did you even convince some network executive to do something as outrageous for the time as a dating game?
And then after that years went by and then it became bleeps.
You bleeped out dirty words or you bleeped out things and so forth and so on.
How did you even convince some network executive to do something as outrageous for the time
as a dating game?
I mean he must have said, are you out of your mind?
Well it was Leonard Goldberg actually was the head of daytime programming at...
At the American Broadcasting Company.
And you know, the show really didn't seem to be all that outrageous.
Here was a nice clean cut little girl talking to three guys.
One guy was a handsome guy.
One guy was kind of not so handsome and some other character and a celebrity.
I always try to get a celebrity in there.
And she would ask him, it sounds good.
I mean, it doesn't sound like that.
And it was good.
It was a really sweet Kind of a nice program.
And everybody did it.
I mean, every person out there, you know, every budding New Zealand star or whatever did the show.
And there wasn't anything really dirty about it.
You can make it that way, and they have.
Have you seen Meet My Parents?
Yeah, of course.
No, you know something, Art?
That's what a lot of people said about your shows though.
They were so panned.
in the world. I think that is the most important thing. I think that is the most important,
I think, you know, exciting about them. But...
Well, that's what a lot of people said about your shows, though.
Oh, yeah. Well...
I mean, they were so canned. They were so... The critics slaughtered you. I mean, they
just came after you tooth and tongue.
Yeah. Well, when the dating game went on the air, Art, the headline in the Chicago Tribune
was, Daytime Television Hits All-Time Low. That was the first dating game show that went
on the air, now. I ask you...
But it hit real hard. The thing was, though, the people watched it.
Yeah, they did. I mean, of course, as you said, you know, not many people ever admit
that they did, but they did.
That's right.
Obviously. And it got worse. I mean, the criticism just...
It seemed to be something to criticize.
And I would, you know, in turn, bait the critics.
I'd read their reviews on the air and particularly on the Gong Show and stuff like that.
But internally, it was messing me up royally.
Was it really?
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, I don't know what that was from.
I don't know what it was.
Yeah, but didn't you balance that against, like, when the ratings came out?
And television, man, they have ratings all the time, right?
They've got ratings... Every day.
Like, every day or something.
Yeah.
And so, you know, as much as the criticism might have torn you up, didn't you balance it and say, well, you know, kind of like, screw you, look at the ratings?
No.
No, you didn't.
As a matter of fact, no, I didn't.
And I don't know, and now in retrospect, One of the things I think about a lot these days is, why did I take it so hard?
I mean, that's kind of a wimpy thing to do, you know?
You can't take the heat, get it out of the kitchen, and I ran out of the kitchen.
I mean, after about four years of the Gong Show, I just couldn't deal with it.
And it really crumbled me up and I took off.
You know, I left for Europe and I went and got rid of the company and I... and now... You moved to France or something, right?
Yeah, I lived there for about...
Yeah, eight years.
And you left because of all that?
Yeah, I mean, it just wanted to get the hell out and get away.
And I really don't think that was the thing to do.
I really think that was a really chicken thing.
I wasn't really doing all those, the stuff wasn't that bad, and I didn't have any reason to take it that hard.
And if I had it two over again, I probably would do the same thing.
How do you feel on the general subject of celebrity or notoriety or maybe even the word
notorious would be appropriate in the way you were thinking then anyhow?
I mean, how do you feel?
People should be, so many people want to be celebrities.
They should really be careful what they wish for in a lot of ways.
Well, it depends.
Certain celebrities love it.
If they weren't recognized in a crowd, they would be really heartbroken.
To me, I think it affects people totally differently.
I couldn't I couldn't take it.
I don't know why.
I mean I don't have any great explanation for it.
But I hated the thought that I couldn't go to breakfast and a luncheonette or a diner anymore without getting people asking questions or going to a movie and standing in line or going to a sporting event.
And, uh, and again, you know... I mean, to do something as radical as go to France, to go live in France, and I love Paris, by the way.
God, what a beautiful city.
So, not so bad a place to go, but I mean, to be driven that far, yeah, it must really have affected you.
I'm not so wild about celebrity, either.
I'm not... It's not near so bad on radio, because hardly anybody knows what you look like.
But, um, still and all, I'm recognized, even when I go to South America.
It's a daggone thing, and it... I don't really like it.
Well, you know, I again, I don't think this is a great attitude.
I mean, you go up there on television.
I mean, I'm speaking for myself.
No, that's fine.
I do go out on television and you're out there.
These people feel that they have a kind of familiarity with you and you should accept that.
and there shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
You actually should embrace it.
I mean, this is what you're doing, and everybody's got a right to feel that way.
Why you should feel angry about it and something like that, again, I don't think it's right yet.
That's what I did.
That was the reaction I had, like, leave me alone.
I just wanna eat my little sandwich and have a cup of coffee here,
which is, again, I think wrong.
I don't know if all that, you were talking about my age, I'm 73.
73?
Yep, if I had it to do over again, if I would be real friendly with everybody on the street.
Would you?
Oh, yeah, and I would, I mean, because I think I was kind of obnoxious,
and more than kind of, and I think that if I had it to do,
I just would be nicer, and I wouldn't take the criticism as.
I think it is funny because I am getting reviews for the book and the good reviews are great
but when I see a bad line in some reviews I get that old feeling again.
Well, see then, you haven't changed.
Yeah.
You haven't changed.
It's a pain.
I know.
It's something that you live.
To live that same thing.
I mean I've been really slammed around and I've never Even though you try and put on the face.
I've never really you know they get me.
I mean it gets me I Read somebody really comes after me and it gets me it does get to you it goes to your soul because you're putting your soul into this and so I I don't know.
It just goes right to your soul.
It's like there's no way to stop it.
You put on a brave face, but really it still gets you, right?
Yeah, and it doesn't.
And it's way out of whack.
I mean, you know, it's just a television program.
It's just a movie.
It's just a book.
There's a zillion other books and a zillion other movies, so what are you getting so upset about?
I mean, that's the way I kind of look at it now, but it's not the way I behaved before, and that's a shame.
So it was a celebrity, it was being recognized all the time, it was not having a private life, it was having to do the show.
How about doing the show itself, Chuck, when you were actually doing the show?
Yeah.
For four years, I mean, that were the happiest days of my life.
I mean, it was a subculture.
I'm talking about the gong show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, I lived and breathed every day of the week with the people I worked with.
It was fun?
It was like Camelot.
It was fun?
Fun.
The best fun.
I never laughed.
I never had such a good time.
But there was a reaction, though, that was taking place.
I don't know.
It was kind of a genetic ham in my family or something because on the stage I was behaving Like a wild man, and I'm basically a pretty shy guy, and I couldn't really kind of watch myself, but the act of doing those shows for those four years was terrific.
But you could feel it like a switch being thrown, right?
When you started that show, you were somebody else.
Somebody else.
I joke about, you know, like I was having my midlife crisis on coast-to-coast television, but it wasn't that.
That's a joke, and it's not even a funny joke.
It was something, some other thing got out there.
I mean, I broke every rule that I told all my hosts to do all the time.
I would always, you know, tell my host to Don't be bored with it.
The public likes a routine.
Don't think you have to push the envelope because the show will carry you.
The show will go on and it will make you a star.
When I went on to do the show, I thought I was boring the death out of my audience.
I pushed the envelope as far as I can go week after week.
I'm convinced now, after it's all over, that high-powered television shows, the high-powered people, Uh, they're off.
They're off.
They're off.
Yeah, they're off.
They all push the envelope.
The stuff that succeeds pushes the envelope.
Yeah, it pushes the envelope, but not for long.
I mean, the Andy Williams's, the Donna Shore's, the Perry Como's, they never pushed.
They were calm and their programs lasted forever.
Even Ed Sullivan, I mean, he just had this kind of boring personality, but he went on forever.
But the Arsenio Halls and the Chuck Barrises and those other kind of guys that are up there powerhousing in a way last for about three or four years and are gone.
Three or four years, that's three or four years more than most people get in television.
Yeah, I guess so, but I come from, you know, the shows that I'm thinking about are shows
that have gone on forever like The Price is Right or In the Evening, you know, some of
these great shows that have been on for 10 or 11 or 12 or 13 years.
Carson?
Yeah, well, Carson went on forever and rightly so.
David Letterman, they are all on there for quite some time but they are not powerhouse
in that sense. I was like a crazy man up there. I thought the audience was really excited
in the studio and I thought that was it. I thought as long as they were excited everything
was fine but studio audiences are not a barometer of what the show is doing.
Now, I have a good observation.
Now, hold on, Chut.
Chut Ferris is my guest.
We're talking about one of Chut's lives right now, and we'll slide into another one of Chut's lives.
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
Coast to Coast Bay Head is shiver in the dark
It's raining in the park of mean time Out of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowing dick things Double ball time
You feel alright When you hear the music play
The night's endless time But you don't see too many faces
When the girls are on the ride On the merry-go-round
They're gonna have a ball of their own And there's a smile on your face
And you're with me My heart is flying up
I'm just rocking Down, I like the roll of your back
I like the loop-de-loop and the round I like the merry-go-round
You can hear that on my drum band You can't get out to a rocking band
And when my king and queen are on You can't stop the fun
You let go of me And you feel when you talk to me
I'm on the merry-go-round That's it.
That's policy.
Indeed, that was one big monster record.
That was one of the things that Chuck Ferris had to do with.
And you haven't heard the whole story yet.
Stay right where you are.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
To recharge now in the Kingdom of Nine, from west of the Rockies, dial 1-800-618-8255.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First-time callers may recharge at 1-775-727-1222.
Or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1295.
775-727-1222 or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1225. To rechart on the toll-free international line,
call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
Now, speaking of long-running television shows, one of them that happens to be still running
and came and got Chuck.
Oh, now, it ran a long, long time.
Still running, actually.
And they came and they did their thing, the old put it in their face and let's see them sweat kind of interview.
They grilled you about demeaning people on your programs, that sort of thing.
That's right.
Tell me a story about that.
Well no, Mike Wallace came and he said to me, you know, do I have a good time really running people through their paces and demeaning them and making fun of them on the air and so forth and I really took exception to that because I never really thought I did that except for one show at the very end.
So how'd you answer him?
Well, I told him that, you know, I said, these contestants are having the time of their life.
I think it's the one little moment that they'll always remember.
And he mentioned one lady who fainted on the show because she didn't get, she got a prize she thought was, you know, something with the prizes and she just collapsed and fainted.
I thought she still had the best time of her life.
She fainted from joy.
She just got this really abnormal feeling when she thought she was getting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
She just overwhelmed and fell right down among all the cables and everything.
On that KMD interview, did you know they were going to do a job on you?
No, it was nothing that I really worried about.
What could Mike ask me that I wouldn't be able to answer truthfully?
So anyway, Mike went and went to this lady's house.
And he asked her, what did she think when she fainted?
And she said, she had the time of her life.
That's what really was the situation with everybody on our shows.
They really had a good time.
We never did anything, really.
They were, even on the Gone Show, you know, they were just enjoying themselves.
We did create a show at the end called Three's a Crowd, which was a show where the premise
was who knows the husband better, his wife or his secretary.
I thought that was a great premise.
It turned out to be a disaster because it was a hurtful show and for the first time
the contestants really didn't have a good time.
They weren't enjoying themselves.
The ratings were immense.
I never saw that.
It was on for a very short time.
The ratings were incredible.
What happened?
Did the secretary know?
The women's organizations around the country rose up and other organizations.
That was about the time when we were really baked for everybody.
That's part of the reason that messed me up because then that show went off the air and
I realized I kind of overstepped that area myself.
You really think so?
Yeah.
How many of the secretaries knew the men better than the wives?
I suppose then wives had a sad face and walked out and it couldn't have been a happy moment.
Oh, it was worse than that.
The husband would come out first and the host would say, how many presents has your secretary
Oh God.
And he'd say none, never.
And then the secretary would come out and she would say three.
I got her the ninety for your anniversary and I got her that.
And then the wife would come out and say he better had said none and he would hold his
card up with zero which you know.
And then the host, the evil host would say well that's not what the secretary said and
the wife would crumble right on the air.
Oh God.
That wasn't fun.
Not good.
Not good.
That wasn't fun.
Well you know I guess a lot of net now boy we're in the age of reality TV.
In fact, you know, really, there's a new show called 30 Seconds to Fame, and you have to have seen that.
I mean, everybody has to have pointed that out to you at least, right?
It's been pointed out, yeah, like the Gong Show.
It's just like the Gong Show.
And all those dating shows.
There's a huge collection of dating shows.
And I'll tell you something, I think Free the Crowd, that Secretary Husband thing, today would be a huge hit.
Huge.
Because that kind of pain and that kind of agony on television is... What sells?
It sells.
I wouldn't do that show.
I really don't think I would because I couldn't deal with that, being responsible for that kind of...
Newsweek also came to you, didn't they?
They covered the Gong Show, didn't they?
Oh, yeah.
I think it was Maureen Dowd.
I'm not sure.
How'd that go?
Well, that was great, because she came out as a cheerleader.
And she was great.
She handled the show well.
I mean, she wrote it.
Everything was good for us in that interview.
So that was good.
Well, the dating game came to life during the height of the sexual revolution.
Right.
So I guess I can really understand how a lot of the comments were out of bounds, way beyond what you would What you would expect, but you really honestly had an FCC guide or a fake FCC guy there, huh?
Yeah, but you know, Art, that's not true.
Even though it was the 60s, not everybody was a hippie.
And not everybody, you know, in that young adults.
And then again, we had older people that wasn't any one particular age.
But not everybody, you know, was into, you know, wild, free love, this, that, and the next thing.
And that's where we aim for because we want to stay on the air.
And it was that element that went berserk and that's why we had to get that guy to come along and scare the hell out of us.
Did that say to you, I mean did you sort of cringe inwardly thinking this is what we've come to?
I mean you must have private thoughts while you're doing this thing.
When that was happening?
Yeah, sure.
Oh, it was, you know, I was in debt, I was in hock, I had borrowed money to make a run through to try to sell the show.
My life was in the balance at that time and here I got a break and I got a show on the air and these kids are ruining it.
Out of control.
And I wasn't, you know... Five shows, that's a lot of shows, five shows.
How long, did you do those like in five consecutive days or even in one day?
Oh, you mean when we had 27 and a half hours?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, we had five different shows, five days a week.
Each show was on Monday through Friday.
Five shows on Monday through Friday, and two half hours were on a night, on a Saturday, a dating game.
I'm surprised you didn't have a heart attack.
Oh, that was the best.
Boy, I'm telling you, we were having fun.
We were kicking a lot of...
You're an icon.
around those days, which, you know, it was just wonderful.
Well, okay, you know, I'm going to have to try here.
Now, you know, your shows and you, I mean, you're an icon, you're a television icon,
and as with a lot of icons, it's kind of like you were forgotten for some years.
In fact, I think the book you wrote went out of publication, sort of slid quietly out of publication, right?
20 years ago.
And now here the book's back, and now it's going to be a movie.
And so it's boom, all of a sudden it's coming back.
And people think a lot of things of you, Chuck.
You know, good, bad, and ugly.
But the one thing they would not have thought of Connecting with you in any way whatsoever would be employment by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Somebody said that to me and I went, what?
Chuck Ferris, CIA, give me a break.
Well, you know, I wrote Confessions of a Dangerous Mind at a bad time and all the shows were off the air and I was holed up in a hotel here in New York and I was really living in California.
Left town.
I held up here and I wrote Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which tells a story about supremacists.
This guy, you know, he's getting crucified for doing television shows trying to entertain people.
And meanwhile, he's getting medals and presidential citations for killing enemies of the United States of America.
That's the premise of Confessions, which I wrote.
Chuck, after I thought that, just to stop you for one second, then I thought, Yeah, but you know, that's exactly what they would want you to think.
In other words, you would be the least likely to ever be thought of in that category, and
that would make you just right.
Well, um, uh, I'm not going to talk about it.
I wrote the book and they made the movie and the movie with George Clooney and Julia Roberts and Drew Bradmore is really good and it's opening up at the end of the year.
I don't know.
The movie tells the story of the book.
Is that going to be a December movie?
December 31st the movie opens up in New York and LA and then around the country.
December 31st, really?
Yeah, the next month, last day of the year.
That's last day.
But when I wrote that book that's how I felt.
And times have changed.
Twenty years later it's a whole new world.
That's the thing that's amazing about everything.
Things change.
They change so fast.
I mean, you're down and then you're up and then you're down again and you're up again and it just keeps going on.
It's amazing.
That's the way life works.
Two years ago I had lung cancer.
It came as a shock.
I went in for something else and I got that.
And there I was sitting in the hospital room and I had just been divorced.
I had low programs for only a year.
I couldn't write any books.
Nobody was buying them.
I mean, about as gloomy as an outlook you could have.
Here it is two years later.
And the book's out again, and it's doing well.
The movie is coming out at the end of the month.
I'm married to the love of my life.
What about the lung cancer, Chuck?
Beat it!
Beat it!
You know, at the time when I was looking out that hospital window at the Hudson River... Most people don't.
Yeah, I know, but I got that by... I mean, it was an accident.
I went in for a CAT scan for a rotator cuff.
Tell your audience to get CAT scans if they ever smoke because you can't find it on a chest x-ray.
You'll save lives by just telling people to go out and get a CAT scan.
That's what happened to me.
The CAT scan caught it so early that It was just an operation.
I never had to take chemo or radio or anything like that.
They caught it right at the very beginning.
Very, very beginning.
And that's what, you can find that out if you take a catch game.
But that whole, but look how life has changed.
And that's not to say that, you know, tomorrow afternoon it could be something, you know, disastrous.
But it, Lord give us and take us away and keeps doing it all the time.
And so fast, make your head spin around.
And that's what this story with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is.
Do you agree with that premise, Chuck, that of all the people in the world that you might think of as a CIA hitman, Chuck Beres would not exactly be the first name that would spring to your mind?
Well, you know, of course.
There's no question about that.
But I also believe in that premise, too, that you can get, you know, nails of the cross for trying to entertain and praised to
the sky for killing.
That's weird.
That is weird, you're right.
You, uh, I understand that you can't talk about probably the details of that work.
That's right.
Obviously.
But you did a lot of traveling, didn't you?
Yes.
So that traveling would give you an opportunity to do whatever work you had to do, aside from what you were doing otherwise?
Well, I just don't want to talk about it.
I mean, you know, I'm sort of stating the obvious.
The obvious situation, sure.
We sent dates all over the world.
We sent dates to Russia, to... Oh, that's right.
Everywhere.
That's right, that's right.
And every time we sent a date somewhere, there was a chaperone, and the chaperone came from my company.
It was a reward for the kids that worked for me.
I mean, here are these kids that had to be 21 years older, older.
Right.
And here these kids worked for me.
I had a real young company and they were all Californians and they're going all over the world.
I mean, they're going to Vienna and Paris, London, Rome, you know, Tokyo, anywhere you get.
Oh, Australia.
I mean, they were in Brazil.
We sent dates everywhere.
And when you sent dates, you always sent a chaperone.
We always sent a chaperone.
And then, on many occasions... There must be a lot of stories with that alone.
Oh, there were a couple of books the kids wrote.
I mean, yeah, there were plenty of stories about that alone.
But I was... I'd catch a trip now and then.
You know, I'd go I was a little bit of a crybaby. I was a little bit of a
crybaby. I was a little bit of a Go off to here or there, you know.
So it was a perfect, you know, it was easy for me to do that.
So I did travel a lot and so did everybody in the company.
They were kids.
Do you think that the, see how can I phrase this, the anger that you felt, you know, with
what you were going through, enabled you to do the other kind of work?
Beep.
Thanks for watching!
I mean, I can imagine that.
I can imagine an inner, seething anger that could suddenly manifest itself in some way, huh?
Yeah, well, I was... I was... I was... Well, you know... Pretty angry?
Well, I'm not... You know that?
I'm not so sure I was so angry.
I was...
I was having a pretty good time.
I was pretty happy.
Things were good.
It got angry toward the end, but only because... People don't pick it up and go to France because they're real happy.
I mean... No, that's true.
I had a little self-exiled job there, which really...
I was kind of disappointed later that I exiled myself because I couldn't understand why I did that.
There wouldn't be any other reason for that exile that you can't talk about beyond... It's just something you don't talk about.
I just don't talk about that.
I'm sorry.
I don't want to be a bad interview.
There's ways to talk about things without really talking about them anyway.
I was just wondering, could we imagine that there might be reasons for your exile?
No, not really.
I mean, you know, basically for me it was just, I just wanted to take a break.
You know, I kind of lived a Walter Mitty life in a sort of strange way, and one of my little Walter Mitty dreams was to write the great American novel in the south of France like Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
And here I made enough money to actually make that dream come true.
And at the time, boy, it was nothing.
I know everybody must feel at some point in their life, just get me out of here.
And the time passes, but with me I could do it.
I could afford it, and I did it.
I went to the south of France, and I wrote what I hoped was a great American novel,
I mean, that was the bad part of the dream.
Yeah, how were those years?
They were great.
In France, were they good?
They were terrific.
I mean, I was living out a fantasy, and it was a fun fantasy, and then all of a sudden, whap, you know, I just missed the States, I missed sports, I missed language, and I just, you know, looked up one day and said, you know, get me the hell out of here, and I went home.
Very interesting.
I lived in Japan for 10 years.
Okinawa.
You know, the Far East.
I lived there 10 years.
And I got to the point, Chuck, where I realized if I didn't come home, I knew I was going native big time.
And I realized if I didn't come home and come back to the States, that I was never going to come back.
And so that's what brought me back to the States.
That never was my feeling.
I had a jacket on the back which said the Latin American and I never ever thought I would be staying in France ever. I missed
the scores, you know, we got them two days late and this drove me nuts to a point where I finally came
home. You know, I couldn't get the baseball scores or basketball scores, you know, and we didn't
have the internet then and stuff like that. So were you alone most of that time?
The time you were in France?
No.
I was married for part of that time.
And, you know, I had friends there, other writers who were my friends previously who lived there and gave me the idea of going there.
It was great.
I mean, I lived in the south of France.
I had this great little house overlooking the Mediterranean and a little speedboat.
I played bull and bocce in the town square in the afternoon.
It was fun. It was great.
But then all of a sudden, I looked up one day and wondered what I was doing there.
Time to go home.
Oh yeah.
Alright, hold it right there and we will be right back.
Chuck Barris is my guest and we're going to get what we can from him.
Game show host, producer, CIA hit man.
The movie coming out December 31st.
That should be interesting.
from the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
Daddy was a cop on the east side of Chicago Back in the USA, back in the bad old days
Back in the bad old days In the heat of a summer night
In the heat of a summer night In the land of the dollar bill
In the land of the dollar bill When the town of Chicago died
When the town of Chicago died And they talked about it still
And they talk about it still When a man named Al Capone
When a man named Al Capone Tried to make that town his own
Tried to make that town his own And he called his gang to war
With the boys of the law I heard my mama cry
I heard her pray the night Chicago died Take it right, all that's right, just for me
Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from West of the Rockies at 1-800-4-4-5-5-5.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First time callers may reach Art at 1-775-727-1222.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First time callers may reach out at 1-775-727-1222.
And the wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295.
To reach out on the toll free international line, call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell from the Kingdom of Nine.
It certainly is.
As you know, I get little computer blasts on my screen here as I do the program.
Steve in Johnstown, Pennsylvania says, Hey Art, you know, while you were playing Palisades Park, I was Freddy Boom Boom Cannon.
I can close my eyes, and I can see Chuck Barris dancing with a hat on his head, arms flailing.
Chuck made me laugh till I cried many times.
That's Steve and John.
Now, I'm sure that's right.
Me too.
I remember it all.
All right, actually, this, uh...
This came to me from Adam Leiter, I believe it is, I guess, Adam Leiter, and he's promoting all of this, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the movie coming out shortly.
It's going to be a big one too, Miramax Films, the all-star cast, including Sam Rockwell, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Drew Barrymore, about the man's life that we're interviewing right now, Chuck Beres, and what was written to me was the following, with regard to The Gong Show, but It says, in between those outlandish acts that were gonged nightly and during some of those fabulous getaway dates awarded on the dating game, Chuck was serving America in a very different way.
He joined the CIA in the early 60s, remained with them Straight through his tremendously successful television career, after several years of domestic work, he was sent abroad to kill enemies of the American state, claiming to have killed over 30 people!
Over 30 people!
Now, he doesn't want to talk about this.
You know, and there's not a lot I can do about that.
So we're gonna just have to sort of talk about it and not talk about it, if you know what I mean.
I have a question that I think you can answer, because you really brought it up yourself, Chuck, and that is, why do you think that in America, producing silly but really fun shows is a critical sin?
But killing people appears to be understood or even applauded.
I mean, what does that say about us?
Oh, Art, that's serious.
Yeah, serious.
That's a heavy question.
I really don't know how to go about answering that.
You know, that's very complicated.
Yeah.
Silly shows.
I said silly but fun.
I know, you know, whatever.
Trivial, silly, fun.
Entertaining?
Entertaining.
People, um, I don't think this is, I think this is a small, you know, number.
Not the big population that we have out there.
I think they just don't want to acknowledge the fact that This is the kind of show that can entertain them.
It's a personal thing.
It has to do with their own evaluation of what they think of themselves and so forth.
I think that's, you know, really ridiculous because on the Gong Show in particular, people always say to me, uh, I never watched that show.
I just never watched it.
I mean, but when you had that act on with such and such, all of that was, you know, it was so telling how that has to do with With, uh, you know, you take, then you move over to the other area, killing people.
Yeah.
It's done by our, you know, armed forces.
It's done by our, our law and order people.
Uh, it's, it's never a great thing.
Uh, but it, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a necessity to defend our country, defend our cities.
But how, what does that tell you?
That, that you get, uh, uh, you get, The ridicule for entertaining and medals... For light entertainment.
For light entertainment and medals for killing.
Well, killing is valor in most situations in our country.
And I don't know what that has to tell you about the American people.
I don't think it tells you much of anything about them.
Other than maybe they're just a little too embarrassed to say they like a silly show.
I don't think it gets much more serious than that.
That's my own opinion.
I mean, I think people can delve into that and make what they want of it, but to me, it's just living.
I mean, we've got to do one thing, and we've got to do the other.
We've got to entertain, and we've got to defend, and life goes on.
As the Beatles say, ooh, blah, dee, ooh, blah, dah, and I don't know what else to say about it.
There are those, Chuck, who would say, I don't believe a word of it.
In other words, what I believe is, I believe what Chuck said.
I think he was hurt to his soul by the criticism that he got for what he did.
Hurt so much that he ran away to France.
has hurt so much that you made this up to, you know, to counter the other image?
Um, I'm to respond now, right?
Yeah, if you can find a way to.
Well, it's something I just don't talk about, that's all.
I mean, I don't talk about the truthfulness of this to my wife, to my family, to anybody else.
This is something that only I hold in my head, and that's where it'll stay.
And by the way, let's talk about that for a second.
Let's assume that all of this really did occur.
That's a lot to hold in your head, in your heart, in your soul.
That's a lot to hold in, no matter the reasons you may have done it.
No matter that it was, you know, for the good of your country.
And we all know, God knows, it goes on.
We do it like everybody else does.
Nobody should imagine for one second that we don't, because we do.
We kill.
But I mean, that's a lot to hold in.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
Would be a whole lot for anybody to hold in, and how do you think that's affected you?
Well, listen, every one of us lives these lives of, at times, you know, desperation.
Yes.
You and I, and you're listening to everybody else, and we all have our problems, and that's all in our heads, and we hold them in however we choose to hold them in.
Some of us just go off the deep end, some of us manage to deal with it, Uh, that's a personal thing.
How I hold it in?
I don't know.
I think that I've gotten through life, uh, you know, pretty good, but you might lie up six other people and say eight versions of what I just said.
It's hard for me to say.
Yeah.
Um, you know, usually writing a book about this kind of thing, um, would, uh, Um, it might even be a death sentence.
I mean, to write of this sort of thing, to even speak of this sort of thing, one can imagine, um, just wouldn't make some people happy somewhere.
Yeah, I imagine that could be true.
You think that might be true?
Yeah, uh, I think that, uh, I think it's something I just don't want to talk about.
I know.
That's why I'm keeping it so general.
I'm just saying that you're doing a very good job.
And you're really good at this.
Did you worry about that at all?
I mean, that you might make some people... I worry.
I'm a worrier, Art.
I worry about everything.
I do, too.
I do, too.
Total class type A personality, right?
Major.
I mean, major.
You know, I worry about my wife, but she's dressed warmly enough.
I worry about what's going to happen with the book.
I worry about what's going to happen with the weather.
Whether United Airlines, I'm going to be able to fly out there to California with them.
I read somewhere that they taped a wing on with a piece of scotch tape.
I don't know if any of that stuff is true, but I've got plenty of grounds to worry about.
So, you know, I'm going to work here.
So when you wrote this book, did you worry?
Well, you know, when I wrote the book, Confessions, which I think is, I kind of really think it's kind of good.
I mean, I read it recently.
I wrote it 20 years ago.
I read it recently.
And Jesus, I was amazed at how funny it was.
I mean, and entertaining.
But when I wrote it, I was in some other place.
And I, you know, in writing the sequel, I try to Get that back.
But that was a different place and at a time in my life when I felt like writing this damn book.
And now I'm not there anymore.
And it's different.
Were you surprised that at the time, I mean, are you surprised now would be a better question, that at the time it didn't do as much as it's doing now.
I mean, here it is roaring back to be a movie and all the rest of it.
This is wild.
Why do you think that's occurring?
There was a review in Publishers Weekly that said 20 years later it's a classic.
But it also said in that same review that It wasn't the right time and that I was enmeshed in all well, I'll tell you this art is one of the reviews back then 20 years ago was what can you expect?
Talking about the book.
What can you expect from the guy who gave us the dating game a newlywed game?
Yeah, so there was my journalist my my novel novelistic career compared to some kind of a Maybe you were always ahead of your time.
I'm sure you thought about that a lot.
nasty comparison couldn't possibly be good. It was a different time and I was at a different
place and the whole, I mean that was... Maybe you were always ahead of your time. I'm sure
you've thought about that a lot. I mean with the shows that you had ideas for, with what
you were doing. It's not good being too early.
It's good being early, but it's not good being too early sometimes.
Well, it's not good at all.
I've always considered, I consider a lot of the stuff I did being ahead of my time, but I also consider them to be failures because being ahead of your time, in my opinion, is not Anything to be proud of.
Being right on the money is something to be proud of.
I mean, when you can do a show, or a book, or a company, or you create, whatever you create, if it's a time for it to happen, great.
If it's you're ahead of your time, you might as well be behind the time, because it doesn't mean anything.
And that's how I've always considered being ahead of my time, and I have!
I know I have.
But, uh, it amounts to a big goose egg as far as I'm concerned.
But when you reflect back on it all, um, you know, would you really go back?
I mean, you said earlier you'd be so different.
Do you really think you'd be?
I mean, even today, I hear in you what you described was in you back then, so it doesn't sound to me like you'd be old.
No, you're right, Art.
I mean, I think that what I'm saying is I would like to be.
Uh, after going through all this and learning things I've learned, I would like to go back.
If I got back, I would like to be this other kind of person because I think it's a better person.
But you probably wouldn't be, though.
But I wouldn't.
Yeah.
Toward the end of the gong show, you said you did ridicule.
What happened toward the very end of the gong show?
Oh, well, at the end of the gong show, I think that a lot of stuff was coming to, uh, confluence.
They were just converging and, uh, Uh, I was tired.
I was fatigued.
Uh, the shows were going through a bad time that the country was not, you know, the country was going through a pretty clean time.
Jerry Falwell was chasing me.
Uh, and these are for shows that, you know, that I was doing at that time.
And, um, well, I was doing the Gone Show and it was a murderous schedule.
And one day I was standing on my mark waiting for a commercial break.
And I watched the audience, they were going crazy.
The band was having, you know, screaming and yelling.
And I just had it, you know.
And I broke out in a little sweat, and I was staying there, and the makeup girl was trying to pat me down.
And I said, you know, I don't really, I would just love to just quit.
She said, why don't you?
And I said, well.
And I did.
What did Jerry Falwell say about you?
He's come after a lot of people.
Oh, believe me, Jerry.
Jerry typically goes out and he says something so intolerably outrageous, and then ends up apologizing for it later.
How did he come after you?
Well, we just were the devil incarnate, or whatever that means.
I think that we weren't, we weren't, we weren't, the stuff I was doing was just not
arable to Jerry.
And you know, it's funny because at that time, I'm talking back in the late 70s, it was what
he said, you know, carried a lot of weight.
Now I think, with all due respect to Jerry, if he said something was bad, it would probably be considered good for the program.
Times changed.
And they keep doing it.
They just keep doing it.
It's amazing.
Wild as that was, anybody ever die on that program?
Yes, we did have some lady die on the Gonk Show.
She was in the middle of singing Havana Gala and she just dropped dead.
Her husband said afterwards that if she had a choice of a way to go, that was it.
So she went happily, according to him?
Yeah.
That must have been... What did you do with that?
I mean, did the news get out at the time, or...?
Well, actually, it was... She finished her song, walked backstage, and then died.
So you aired it?
Yeah, but we didn't see her die.
I understand.
So you aired the segment, though, where she's... Yeah, but when that lady on that other show was talking about collapse from joy, I wasn't sure whether she died or not, and I was wondering at the time whether it would have been good for the ratings or not.
Would you have pushed to have aired it?
Uh, yes.
Yeah, I think I really would.
Again, it didn't happen, and I don't have to worry about a judgment, but if it did happen, I was really happy to see her jump up.
I mean, that was a relief.
But, you know, I don't know what I would have done.
Well, apparently you do.
I mean, you would have argued to go ahead and narrate it.
Yeah.
This movie that's going to come out, maybe there's another way I can ask you about this, the movie that's about to come out after Christmas.
Yeah.
Great time to release any movie, by the way.
When we go to this movie, have you seen it?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you've seen it.
OK, good.
So when we go to this movie, Should we imagine other than a little bit of no doubt literary, you know, license, which I'm sure they took, that most of what we're seeing has great basis in truth?
Well, I don't... I would suggest that you didn't...
That you don't think of it as any literary license, one way or another.
I think you just go to see the film and walk out after it's over and say to yourself, you know, could that be?
Or could that not be?
I think you judge for yourself.
That's the way I'd want it.
I'd want everybody... Yeah, but we've got you to tell us.
I mean, should we imagine that what we're going to see in that movie has basis in truth?
I can't tell you that.
I mean, I can't discuss that.
In other words, you're telling me, is it true?
You're asking me to answer the question, is it true?
No, no, no.
I wouldn't tell my wife if it was true or not.
No, I'm just saying that I'm asking whether there's some germ of truth in it.
Some basis of truth in it.
Oh, Art, I love your show.
I love you.
I can't tell you about that.
Um, I'm sorry.
Then when you wrote the book, which I haven't had an opportunity to write yet.
Oh, you've got to get it.
I will.
I'll send one to you.
Actually, you know what?
I'd love to have an autographed copy.
I'll send you one tomorrow.
Would you really?
Or today, actually.
Will you really?
Absolutely.
Alright.
You know what, then?
We're coming up on a break, so what I'll do is I'll pick up the phone during the break and I'll give you my private address, alright?
I'll take it.
I got pencil ready.
Good.
Stay right there, Chuck.
Chuck Barris.
is my guest.
Actually, as you listen, you've got to admit, a very, very, very complex man.
Pretty wild stuff.
Tomorrow night, by the way, Steven Greer Then, uh, Friday night, Saturday morning, Dr. David Jacobs, uh, who's also a pretty complex, in fact, those are complex men, all of them.
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
Well this is Coast to Coast AM.
Confessions of a dangerous mind.
But once again, Chuck Barris.
Chuck, that really is a very, very intriguing...
Title for you know, even a book or a movie or whatever confessions of a day.
Do you think that you have a dangerous mind?
Oh, I think yeah, I do.
I think a lot of people do I think probably you might It's hard to say who doesn't who doesn't but you do You know art, you know, I'm afraid it's like 24 and I'm afraid I'm getting kind of sleepy but here's the thing you think I think that as I get weaker I I'm going to say things that I don't want to say.
Oh, that's good.
And I think maybe, is that an ulterior motive?
Yeah, that's right.
We slowly put you in a different state until finally you blurted it all out.
That's what I was thinking here during the break.
Well, let's talk about a dangerous mind.
What do you mean by a dangerous mind?
A dangerous mind?
Yeah.
I'm not a big psychoanalytical whatever, it's just that everybody, I'll speak for myself, you have these thoughts, I mean I have these thoughts, they're imaginative, sometimes they're full of fantasy, sometimes they're, you know, they're dangerous in a sense that they could They could cause havoc to friends and loved ones and strangers and they couldn't.
I mean, it's all in perceiving certain things that are happening and how you, you know, you react to them.
Don't you think so?
You know the old saying, I could kill that guy.
That's right.
You know, or I'd break his head off or something in a moment of anger.
Absolutely.
Who knows, you know, what people are thinking.
Don't you think it goes with a very creative mind, Chuck, that very creative minds, type A personalities, these are all, you know, they lend themselves toward also dangerous and dark thinking at times.
Well, you know, you can't tell.
I mean, sure, I agree, but I think, you know, they could be mentally...
Uh, problematical, I guess you would say.
For instance, like, we had a guy on a gong show whose act was making, pressing a plate glass, a clear piece of glass against his face and making these wild, strange faces, which were very funny.
And, uh, the guy was a demolition expert, a Vietnam veteran.
Uh, wacky and was sent to a, a VA mental hospital.
And, and, uh, you know, threatened my life because, uh, he felt that I ruined his career.
Really?
Imagine that career of pressing your face against glass.
And then you... But the point is that, you know... Did you gong him?
He was gonged, and that's why he claimed that I was... Ruined him.
So, who would have known?
There's a nice little guy standing there, pressing his face against glass.
This guy has a dangerous mind.
Um, they're all over the place, unfortunately.
You seem to get a lot of threats.
Oh yeah, you know.
You know, um, uh, I guess because, in a sense, I mean, the con show dealt with a certain amount of the lunatic fringe.
I mean, these people were creating acts.
I mean, there was a, a, uh, the huge, the The majority were just terrific, but there was this fringe group that were creating these funny acts from these mentally whacked out minds that went up on the stage, and they were funny, or they were, you know, they were gongable or what have you, and they were arable.
But they came from very strange minds.
And the group, the Storm Troopers, or whatever we used to call the kids that saw the The first wash of people that came in, they were just, you know, some of them were really dangerous.
And in that sense, I think there are a lot of dangerous minds wandering around.
Yeah.
Very, very unusual people.
Yeah, you're right.
I mean, in my audience as well, the great majority of them are quite literate, quite Um, I'm interested in learning the truth about the kind of things that we talk about here, but there's also, of course, the lunatic fringe.
They're always there, and so if you deal with them, at least in part, you tend to get threatened a lot, and you have to be very careful, because it could go to more than that.
It could be more than a threat.
You could get You could get killed.
Yeah, you can.
I mean, that's not unusual in, I guess, in show business with all those variations.
In general, yeah.
You open your doors up, you know, to the public in this kind of offbeat, weird sort of way.
Like, what kind of ridiculous thing can you do on our show that'll be funny?
And one of the things that used to amaze me is when they got to me, And they were still really not arable.
I would just talk to these people and say, you know, what possessed you to think of this act?
I mean, why did you think this would be arable on coast-to-coast television?
I was just amazed at their thinking.
Well, do you think it's generally true that a large segment of the population, or at least enough of the population, will do anything at all To have FaceTime on television or whatever?
Yes, I do.
I don't know what great percentage that is.
It's a small percent.
Why do you think that's so?
It's your 15 minutes.
And it's your 15 minutes.
It's that strong desire of everybody to be, to let the...
You know what I think it is?
I always thought it was, I always thought it was everybody wants to let their friends,
their family, the people they associate with, the guys at the office, see them on television,
see themselves on television in some form or other.
and and uh... it it just five minutes ten minutes before they can live off
that for a long time because it's just something that happens in their life that they remember
i guess and i think that you know people lies deal cheat and do anything they can
to get on television we had people do the dating game where we're on a wanted list
What?
I mean, a guy was, you know, a bachelor.
One of three bachelors was wanted by the police for some crime or something someplace he couldn't resist.
Oh, brother!
Going down and crying out for television.
So what if I go to jail?
It'll be worth it.
So it's, you know, it's not unusual.
And I don't think it's so wrong.
I think everybody just wants to do that.
I mean, every contestant that ever did our shows generally loved it and remembered it as having a lot of fun.
I love doing this program.
When I'm doing the program, when I'm actually doing the program, it's the love of my life.
It's my soul getting buried.
I just, I, I'm in a zone.
And I love it, but I hate what comes with it.
I don't like the fame.
I don't like the celebrity.
People try to interview me all the time, and I tell them to go climb a tree.
I don't do interviews.
I want a private life.
I don't want my private life intruded upon.
And so, I love the show, and I hate what it brings.
You understand that, I guess, don't you?
Yeah, I sure do.
Yeah, I know, buddy.
You know something?
It's wrong.
It's wrong for us, for you or for me, to feel that way, I believe.
Probably.
Paul Newman, I read somewhere, I don't know if this is true or not, doesn't give autographs, he just refuses.
And I decided at one point I would be like Paul Newman, I would refuse to give these autographs because they're just so annoying.
Yeah.
And I was walking along 5th Avenue one day, and this guy walked up alongside me, and he said, can I have your autograph?
And I said, no, I don't give autographs.
And he said, I have a pencil and paper right here.
We have to do a sign.
And I said, no, I don't do that.
Yeah.
I felt him drift away and drift away.
And then he was gone.
And about two seconds later, I thought, oh, the hell with that.
And I turned around.
And he was gone.
And he just wasn't around.
And I really felt badly about it.
So I think there's something inherently wrong about Yeah.
of hating the stuff that comes with your celebrity.
It's, you know, nobody told you to go do that.
Nobody told you to make your radio program.
But you're doing it, and what you take with it, you should really be able to enjoy it.
Now, I don't know if I can go back and do it, but that's what I think you should do.
Have you ever thought about that?
Going back and doing it again?
I mean, you could.
My God, you know, if I didn't know that you were in your 70s, to me, you sound like you're in your 30s or your 40s to me.
Now, that's probably a trained voice staying with you.
I don't know what it is, but you don't sound like you're your age.
Well, I don't know if I look it either.
I think that's all well and good, but...
Going back and doing that stuff, I would never do television again.
Really?
I don't think there's anything that I would do again that I did except write.
Because writing, at least you're by yourself, you're alone, you don't have any bosses telling you what's good and what's bad.
You don't have any conflicts and stuff like that.
And that I can deal with.
But going back to, you know, I tried it.
I went back once and everybody, all the people I spoke to about half my age, they looked like kids.
They didn't know.
I mean, I was kind of like some fossil.
I was out of it.
Or as they said, I was out of the loop.
Yep.
And it wasn't any fun being out of the loop.
And I also had this feeling that That they thought I was old.
And that's not a great feeling.
And who wants to go through that again?
Besides, you need another kind of personality for that.
You gotta be ready for that.
I couldn't go up there and do that what I did before.
Be the crazy man again?
No, no way.
When you wrote the book, because I've written four now, when you wrote the book, you have to relive it.
I mean, it makes you relive it.
Even if you don't put it all in the book, just thinking about it to write the book makes you relive it, right?
Yep.
How did you do with that?
Well, that's not easy.
I mean, it can put you through moods.
Yeah.
You know, the good parts, that's great.
You get a big kick out of doing it.
The bad parts, It's tough.
It's tough.
And sometimes, you know, it's a masochistic thing.
I think writing in general is masochistic.
I think anybody who wants to go live that kind of life, you should let them go.
Don't try talking to them.
It's a ridiculous thing.
You're alone.
Life is going by outside your window while you're sitting there writing these books.
And these books seldom get read.
You know, you're dealing in television, you're dealing in 20 million people in the audience, you're dealing in books, you're dealing with 30,000 books.
It's like, it's almost ridiculous.
After two years, and sometimes you don't even get them published.
But the point is that you're reliving, you're creating a life that's not yours, and you're living it vicariously through your book, and that's kind of, that's kind of odd.
Now, again, Do you think that if that which you will not talk about tonight had truth in it, that writing a book and getting it published would put you in a safer place once it got published, once it was out there, once it was public, once it was all laid out, sort of, that it would be safer for you?
No, I never even considered that.
No, huh?
No.
I never thought about safe or unsafe.
I never considered anything like that.
It just was something I had to get out of my system.
I put it down, and it's out there.
And that's it.
You know, the consequences?
If sometimes if I would stop to think about consequences of things that I've done, from hosting shows to whatever, it would scare you to death.
I'm sure it would.
Where were you when the whole thing with Dick Clark and the ABC scandals and the Palin All of that occurred.
I was out of work, and I was really unemployed.
I was out of work for about six months.
It was a long stretch for me to be, you know, out of work.
And I got a job.
I kept going around the network.
Of course, I had been in a management training program at NBC, and I went around.
I had a kind of a background that I could try to sell, but I couldn't get a job.
So I went to ABC one day, and that's just when the scandals hit.
And they needed somebody to go down and bird dog Dick.
They needed ABC's solution to the problem of payroll and all that.
So Dick wasn't accused of anything.
They just wanted to make sure he was protected so they could say they had done something.
And I was the guy they hired to send down to him.
What was your job?
My job was to watch Dick.
It was the silliest thing you ever heard at the time.
You were supposed to watch him?
Well, I mean, what were you waiting for?
Some envelope to get, you know?
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
My job was to be there when Dick started his working day, till Dick finished his working day, and just see that everything was perfectly legitimate.
So, if called upon, you could go in front of some committee somewhere and say, hey, I watched it, you know, every day, all day long, nothing ever happened, I can assure you.
That's right.
And then somebody would say, well, how about night when you went home?
But then I wouldn't know what to say.
But that was neither here nor there because I didn't question it.
I needed the job.
You needed work.
You bet.
So, you know, I got that job.
And then Dick and I became friends because Dick knew that, you know, that this was a life preserver to a certain extent.
And we remained friends for, I don't know, almost 50 years, I guess.
and that's where I was during that whole thing.
Do you remember the game show Scandals?
Oh very well, I was working at NBC at the time.
I was in their management training program and I remember when Vin, what was his name, Vin?
Oh, the $64,000 question.
Yeah, he went down for the count and I saw him, his face was pure white that night that he was,
I think he was being nailed that night.
I remember it was at NBC.
Did you see the movie Game Show?
Yeah.
Do you think that was representative of roughly the way it came down?
Yeah, I think so.
The only thing I didn't like about that is it sort of made heroes out of the guys that were throwing the shows.
I think that's basically, from my limited knowledge, I was one step up from a page.
I think that was about the way it was.
Did you know what was going on?
No, not at all.
No rumors?
No, not a bit.
But I don't know why I would, because I was way down the ladder.
I didn't know.
I just knew where to take, you know.
I imagine it was bad days at Black Rock there, huh?
Oh, it was bad days in every place because, you know, all the game shows were off the air.
And then that followed after that, the record scandals, and then a lot of DJs lost their jobs.
It was a bad time.
Well, in your shows, the shows you did, the Dating Game, particularly the Dating Game, how much of that was All rehearsed.
I mean, was there?
You know, nothing was ever rehearsed.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Nothing on any of my shows was ever rehearsed.
I mean, do you remember what anybody had said?
Here'd be a great line.
No, Art, remember, I came from the networks.
I came, I was a veteran of the payola scandals and of the game show scandals.
Yeah.
And, and, and I knew as a, as a, as an entrepreneur, as CEO of my company or whatever, that I had to be Perfectly clean because I saw what happened to people that weren't.
And I didn't want to lose my shows or lose, you know, my start in the industry.
So I was perfectly, perfectly clean.
And a dating game, they never, not one thing was rehearsed.
In a dating game, not one thing was rehearsed.
And I remember once NBC had two FBI guys checking out game show producers.
Really?
Hold it right there.
Hold it right there.
We're at the top of the hour.
Listen, I know it's four o'clock almost where you are in New York and so I always give my guests an opportunity to either bail or stick out the final hour.
Can you stay the final hour?
Oh, jeez.
I hope I don't fall asleep on you.
Yeah, well... I'll try.
Maybe you'll sort of drift off into some little land.
Alright, Chuck.
I'll stay right there.
Hold on.
Chuck Barris.
Dating Game Gong Show.
And That Other Life.
He's my guest right now.
And, uh...
You know, this is good bumper music.
You think about it.
You listen to it very carefully.
It's all about people and why people do things.
The kind of things they did on those shows.
And I don't know what the answer is, but they do them.
Sweet dreams are made of tears.
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas.
Everybody is looking for something Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to...
The End The End
The End Rechart bell in the kingdom of nine.
From west of the Rockies dial 1-800-618-8255.
East of the Rockies 1-800-825-5033.
Call 1-877-520-55033.
First time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
Or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1222.
To reach out on the toll-free international line, call your AT&T operator and ask them to dial 800-893-0903.
This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the premier radio network.
It is indeed my guest is Chuck Barris.
Dangerous Mind, what do you think?
You've had quite a chance to listen to it tonight.
Do you detect in the edges of what Chuck is saying that that just might be true?
I do.
What do you think?
Well, first of all, you've seen the movie yourself, so give me your impressions of the movie.
Oh, it's great.
I mean, it's really good.
Really?
It's hard for me to be really objective because all I'm really concerned about is is how the audience perceives me. Sam Rockwell plays me, a
young new actor, and he's remarkable.
I think he's great. George Clooney directed it and stars in it. I think George did a marvelous
job and tells a good story. The bottom line for me is when the picture is over I'm proud of it.
There's nothing about it that I'm ashamed of or anything like that. I think it's just plain
outright entertaining. That's all there is. I've been getting great critical reviews from
the early critics. I think it's a great film. I think it's a great film.
I think everybody's going to enjoy it.
Gee, the critics are being nice to you?
Yeah, it's not a change.
You know, that's what I mean.
Things change.
Actually, I mentioned the movie.
It was Quiz Show, not what I thought.
It was Quiz Show, wasn't it?
Yeah, the Quiz Show.
Yeah, that's right.
And so you think that was pretty accurate.
Boy, that must have been one horrible time at the network.
Do you remember once it hit what it was like there?
Oh, yeah.
Well, it was more or less like that picture depicted it.
It was completely pandemonium around the networks.
They were just crazed with what to do and what not to do and how to cover their backs.
Various programs were expendable because they weren't billing that much.
Others they wanted to keep but they didn't know how to go about keeping it.
It was bedlam.
People had their careers ruined.
Some of them came back but it took them years to get back.
Well, then along came finally, you know, who wants to be a millionaire and a lot of other shows now, and so they're back.
Yeah, they are.
You think there's a possibility of...
The same kind of problem cropping up again with a new crop of game shows?
I don't think so.
I mean, you know he had that, who wants to be a millionaire and stuff like that, but I don't think so
because I think now, because of that, I think there are safeguards that are watched,
disclaimers and standards and practices, personnel that just watch the networks carefully
to see that that just doesn't happen again.
Now I'm watching, I'm a reality TV watcher and so is my wife, we both watch it
and there's several of them we do like, but what I'm noticing is, here's the current trend Chuck,
just me, you're really not watching anything, and that is they're going further and further
and further and further.
It's some of these game shows put people in actually fairly dangerous
but perhaps somewhat controlled conditions.
But one of these days, there's going to be something awful that's going to happen.
I have this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
And I wonder if you've seen that.
I mean, they're pushing it really to the edge with these shows now.
Well, I haven't seen the shows.
I know what you're talking about, like Survivor and things like that.
But the thing that amazes me now, the thing that I'm a tad scared about, is the direction it's going as far as taste and, you know, For instance, there's a show that I've heard talked about called The Will, and it's where opposing members of the family are fighting each other over a will of some dead member of the family.
As a premise of a TV show?
Unquestionably.
I mean, that's it.
And it goes further and further toward that.
Years and years ago I predicted or said and I was being really facetious and more jokingly that in the end
You know executions were going to be Televised because that's the ultimate and and and the
ultimate game show and my That I had devised only as a gag only as a joke, but it got
finally Attributed to me as a as a real idea. I really wanted to do
was a game called greed which there was but that's not The one I wanted to in which which
which is a great way to get started.
You know, a little boy and his dog would come out and the contestants would sit down to see how little money they would take to shoot the dog.
Now, that's in front of the little boy.
Now, that's, you know, horrendous.
But that's the direction I thought television was going.
And you can't tell me that a program that argues, two families arguing over the will of somebody deceased... Well, it's not that far away then, is it?
They're doing autopsies in England.
I mean, they're doing a show in which somebody performs an autopsy.
Now, how far away is that from that horrendous idea I had, you know, years ago?
Well, maybe we're like the Romans.
Maybe American television is like, you know, the Coliseum days in Rome.
Well, I don't think it's just American television.
I think most of these ideas of these reality shows came from Europe.
Actually, I think that's right.
They did, didn't they?
I mean, Big Brother, I think, began.
Survivor, and Millionaire, and all those shows.
They're basically European ideas.
And they have worse.
I mean, there are shows in Europe, game shows, that I don't even know, I couldn't describe, that are further out than that.
Really?
Yeah, but, you know, it's the violence.
You know, I'm not approved.
I think anybody would probably agree to that, but the violent direction that some shows are going is, to me, amazing.
You know, just mind-boggling.
Well, there's one called Fear Factor.
Have you seen that?
I saw the preview.
I saw the teaser for it.
Well, it's one of the ones that keeps going a little further each time.
It's like it's going to be a little more dangerous, a little more dangerous.
And I realize I keep controls, you know, I got tables on people and stuff like that, but it's getting pretty far out there.
OK, so go back 100 years to when I was doing this treasure hunt show and the lady fainted and I didn't know whether she died or not.
I was wondering in my mind at about 20,000 miles a second whether it was good that she
did or bad that she did.
I mean, do we show it or do we cut away from it or whatever?
And then move forward to where there actually, you know, is it the motive of a show that's
pushing its contestants to the point where there's a life that's at risk?
Yeah.
Is that on purpose?
Is that something that the networks are sophisticatedly trying to do?
I don't know, but in my little opinion, it is.
Well, I mean, look, we've got police shows that do nothing but show chases that end either with disfigurement or death.
And I don't know what the premise is that we get away with that, but that's what we show.
I mean, it's exciting, and that's what people seem to want to see.
And again, begs the question, you know, about, I guess, us.
You know, it's all ratings.
And imagine a show that has a fatality and the potential of another fatality following it in maybe, you know, the weeks to come.
Yes.
I can't... I can't...
I cannot believe that that would not be a huge rating booster, and that show would get enormous ratings, with the potential of tuning it in some night and seeing somebody die.
And if what you're telling me is, too, where these shows like The Survivor, whatever shows you're mentioning, are pushing contestants to the point where they're really risking, they're getting a little more dangerous, a little more dangerous, that, to me, would be a logical conclusion.
Well, because ratings are the name of the game, and the show that has the biggest numbers of homes gets the biggest advertising budget, you know, and it goes on and on and on from there.
It makes sense.
One of, it wasn't Survivor, but it was an offshoot of Survivor, and a man on a bike trail did a flip and had a branch of a tree go right through his chest.
You know, he could have died, and they showed that, and I'm presuming that had he died, they'd have shown that.
Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it in a million years, and I don't know whether that would have been a cause of jubilation in the networks.
I mean, this sounds awful, but maybe it's because I'm tired, but I still think that networks Their race for ratings and their greed for ratings are pushing shows to the point where it would be acceptable.
There are certain acceptable reasons for a death to happen on television.
That's incredible.
You know?
Yeah, that's incredible.
Was it like that?
Was it politics?
I mean, I watched Quiz Show fascinated with the politics of the network.
Was that depicted reasonably, do you think?
Oh, it's always been that way.
It's just that...
It's the same thing with me back in the 60s where I couldn't say Toilet Seat or Making Love.
Yeah.
The politics of language and of objectivity.
What are you trying to accomplish?
How are you going to get the biggest number of ratings?
The $64,000 question got enormous ratings and so they cheated to keep those ratings going.
This is an old shoe for For network television.
Anything for ratings, eventually?
In my opinion, yes.
Even death?
In my opinion, yes.
I'm in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
It's quite an honor.
you people in here and let them ask you questions. First time calling a line, you're on the air
with Chuck Barrett from New York. Hello. Hey, how's it going? I'm pretty good. Where are
you? I'm in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Okay. It's quite an honor. You know, every time
I watch a football team where a team's really poor at home, they always have people with
sacks over their heads. And it always reminds me back to when I was six or seven watching
your show with the guy that came out with a sack over his head.
Yeah, the unknown comic.
Oh, that was hilarious.
He was great.
Who was it?
He's still around.
His name is Murray Langston.
And the reason he wore the bag was he was a comic in L.A.
And he was trying to make his way a career and he was too ashamed to come on the Gong
show.
He didn't want his buddies to know that he was doing the show so he put a, he created
an act where he could come on with a sack on his head.
And he was hysterical.
He was really a funny guy.
And he could never take that sack off his head.
So he never was really known.
And when he did, he always had a sack underneath it.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay, thank you very much.
You know, this is something that I've wondered about, Chuck, with like 30 Seconds to Fame, which is sort of a modern version of The Gone Show.
It has to be true that some of those acts, and so I'll ask you about your show and The Gone Show, some of those acts, You knew well beforehand, absolutely flat out, we're going to be gongs.
Oh, no question about it.
Right?
Absolutely.
We, uh, remember the premise of the gong show was, you know, we went out, I went out to do a show of really good talent.
I couldn't find any.
All I found was bad talent.
So I decided why waste it and we'll do it the reverse.
We'll put bad talent on with a couple of good acts.
Uh, but we knew we would program acts that we were, Sure would be gone, but you know something Art, it didn't always work out that way.
Some accidents we were sure would be gone, they let go and it amazed me, but we certainly programmed them to be gone.
So every now and then they surprised you?
Yeah, but we never, we never, uh, we never fixed an act.
I mean, we took the act as it came, and we said, this is so bad, it's gotta get gonged.
You know, and we had a rule that they could only play, they could play for 45 seconds before they could get gonged.
That's where the other show does 30 seconds.
30 seconds to fame, huh?
So, because that established the act.
But once the 40 second time was up, those guys hit those gongs quickly, and we thought they would.
In 30 seconds of fame, I think they gave the contestant who wins $25,000 in the dating game and some of your other games, you didn't give great, giant prizes.
No.
And when your show became gigantic, when you could have afforded to give really gigantic prizes, I mean, you could have raised the bar on the prizes big time.
You really didn't do that.
How come?
Well, for instance, if you take the New England game, if we'd have raised the ante, Uh, above a washing machine or a refrigerator, those newlyweds would have killed each other.
They would have been, you know, literally manslaughter on a stage.
I mean, if we put a little yacht up there, a little sailboat or a new car, and some wife got the wrong answer, she would just be, it wouldn't be funny.
The only way to keep those people funny and to keep them light and cool was give them something that they could, you know, they were newlyweds, so give them a prize.
But if we got expensive, it didn't work.
On the Gong Show, we didn't care about, the money wasn't the point of the show.
We gave them like $120 if you're a winner or something like that.
I did a show called the $1.98 Beauty Show, which was a take off on beauty pageants.
We gave them $1.98 and a bouquet of dead flowers to the winner.
So prizes were to me, you know, not the reason.
You didn't have to do that.
We couldn't on the Newlywed Game.
I'm telling you the truth.
They would have really hurt each other.
They would have been so angry at each other.
God knows what they would have done.
But yet, they still come on and embarrass each other for cheap prizes.
You know something?
Marriage.
You know, we were right on the money as far as marriage was concerned.
50% of the couples that did the Newlywed Game ended up being divorced. I think in the country, it's not
far off from the norm. I think the country goes about the same way. I think 50% of marriages
end in divorce. I'm not sure about that, but in our show it was.
Did you keep stats?
In other words, fairly real?
Basically, we could.
At least we could do a medium statistical number that didn't have to be a huge number.
But you know something?
Most married couples do not respect each other.
And another aspect of it Is that most married couples, the couples that do have respect for each other, aside from love, but respect, never did the newlywed game.
So we had couples that coming in, you know, only the minority really, you know, had a great love or respect for each other.
The others didn't care.
They were young, they were newlyweds, and it was a really condemnation of marriage in a sense.
Did that work on you?
No.
My own, whatever problems I had were my own.
The whole point of marriage to me was that these kids were getting married.
They weren't just taking it that seriously.
It's a serious thing and you've got to really You know, it's a fragile situation.
These kids never thought about it as being fragile.
Isn't that interesting?
Very quickly, Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Chuck Bereslow.
Hi Chuck, this is Dave and Christopher.
I was wondering, the flavor of the shows that you put together were so different then.
that it seemed like a very original idea. Is it possible that they were created actually
No.
No.
by the company as a vehicle for use further down the road to get their operatives?
No. No, the programs are only created by me and I was trying to just get on, I was trying
to get into television with a television idea.
I had come from a background at the networks of game shows, and I was trying to think of something that would, would, could get me a, you know, a show on the air.
And the only thing I could think of that was different from what they were doing was something that was spontaneous.
Yeah, yeah, but you can see though, that the company would look at your program and say, They're sending people all over the world.
They're sending people maybe even to Moscow, or whatever, and with chaperones.
Gee, we could provide a chaperone.
Now, a company might do that, huh?
Well, if you read the book and see the movie, you'll answer those questions.
All right.
Hold on, Chuck.
We're here at the bottom of the hour already.
Chuck Barris is my guest.
A TV legend, to be sure.
I'm Mark Bell from the high deserts.
We'll be right back.
I'm gonna go get my phone.
I'm gonna go get my phone.
I can't go back.
I can't stay for life.
Without you, so long.
Oh, baby.
Don't go.
Thank you.
Once again, from New York, where it's crawling up on five o'clock in the morning, here is Chuck Beres.
I can't believe I'm still here.
Really?
Well, it's not that hard to do.
Are you kidding?
This has really been fun.
I mean, I can't believe I've been on for this long.
Is there any one word or several words you would sum up your whole career with when you think back on it now?
That's a good question.
I don't know why lucky comes into it.
My first word that comes out is lucky.
and it's just been, I'm gonna write that down and think about it.
My first word comes out as lucky.
Prep.
I feel like luck and preparation and something else.
I can't remember right now.
There is always challenge.
Well, it's always timing.
I understand what you're saying.
It's luck, preparation and timing.
I've just always, for the most part, been able to hit on those things.
You know, you can get the luck and the timing, but you better be prepared.
So if I could sense that I was coming up on something like that, I would prep for it.
But then again, it can twist on you.
It can change and your timing can go right off.
I've noticed that a lot of artists say luck, and they actually carry a little bit of guilt
about the amount of success they've had.
But they're usually wrong about that luck part, his talent.
Usually it's talent, it's really talent, but they don't think of it that way.
Well, yeah, I know.
I never felt that.
I never felt guilty about anything like that.
You know, I think when you work hard and get You can get that.
The luck and I think and timing are almost the same thing.
Wanda in Escondido writes on the computer to me, Hey Art, tell Chuck I watched all his shows and I loved them and most of all the gong show and I'll bet he was laughing all the way to the bank while the critics were blasting his shows.
That's true.
You were?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
That's absolutely true.
They were blasting the shows and I was going to the bank and That offset the blasting.
Yeah, that offset the blasting.
Alright, on my international line, you're on the air with Chuck Barris.
Where are you calling from, please?
Calling from Busan, Korea.
Good evening.
Well, hi there in Korea.
Korea.
It's a good morning for all of you.
Early morning for others.
Yes, sir.
Alright.
I'm just giddy as a school girl right now because I'm talking to two people that my mother considered to probably be the most dangerous minds in America.
She blames Chuck personally for destroying the innocence of my youth and you, Art, for the things I would discuss at the dinner table in high school.
I was born in 1969, so if you're 7, 8, 9 years old, you don't want to ask your mother what making whoopee means.
It's not a pleasant result.
From that day, the newlywed game was outlawed on our television.
I had one anecdote that I wanted to share that just locked me into the gong show as a youth.
I used to run home to watch whatever cartoon was on and occasionally drift over the channels and catch some of the gong show.
I loved Murray Langston.
The guy was responsible for some really idiotic things I did as a child that my parents, again, didn't approve of.
But the one day when I just said, I've got to watch this.
Screw cartoons.
I'm on the gong show.
I can't remember exactly the details.
There was a woman.
In a Native American outfit of some sort with a vest and a feather, I remember.
She was doing a dance and had literally nothing on underneath that vest.
She got gonged and I remember JP Morgan saying, this time do it without the vest.
Yeah.
From that, now I had to watch The Gong Show every day of my life after that.
I always thought that fans like yourself, who were really loyal to our program, were a little odd.
Not twisted a little bit, but good.
I liked it, you know, but I could always tell they were just a little different than everybody else.
Well, right.
Wes of the Rockies, you're on the air with Chuck Beres.
Hello.
Yeah, hi, gentlemen.
Hello.
I'm probably a little bit odd, too, for having to bring this one up.
It's okay.
My girlfriend and I laughed so hard last time.
I asked Chuck, well, I think the most embarrassing time in his experience on the newlywed game was, I think, Something to do with having to change the format of the cards after that.
Maybe it had to do with Whoopi, and where Whoopi was the most weirdest place.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Can we hear that one one more time, just for old time's sake?
Not on this show, you... No, Art, please.
No!
Well, just add a little bit of it, or I'll be fine.
Alright, alright, alright.
You know, I think probably most people by now know what it is.
It was actually revealed on national television here.
I don't know.
The last several months, somebody did it.
Do you recall who that was, Charles?
I don't even know what you're talking about.
The most embarrassing moment.
That you made whoopee with your wife?
Let's not answer it here.
It's in the movie.
Go to the movie.
Oh, you do have it in the movie?
Oh, excellent.
I just want to clarify.
I just want to clarify, you know, when I said, you know, odd and I mean in a good way that
these people were just, I would see a gong show fan, I'd say that's somebody like, in
my own heart, they were just a little different than normal people.
Weird.
Oh, I'm totally weird.
I'm completely weird.
Maybe it's the only way you can do this kind of thing, I don't know.
Yeah.
Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Chuck Barris, hi.
Hey, good evening, it's a pleasure.
Where are you, sir?
I'm on top of the mountain in Highway 76 of Pennsylvania in the middle of a blizzard.
No kidding.
Listen on WABC.
Yes sir, I heard it was getting pretty nasty back there.
Yep, I'm gonna shut it down anytime.
I wanted to ask, this is kind of interesting, my uncle is a starving actor out of the Ben Bard School in Los Angeles and he was on the dating game and I believe that he said that he was paid to be on and then later Um, he was on The Gong Show and also received some compensation for that.
I was wondering, did you guys just pull starving actors out to act as fillers sometimes?
Yeah, you know, something, uh, we never went out and, you know, put anybody on the show because they were a starving actor, but it did give Starving actors and a lot of opportunity for for jobs because if they were an actor they got paid scale you know they got paid whatever they're after or sag or something and we did and we pay up which always is a pleasure to me because you know a lot of guys got their start and then and really got their food you know for a while we're doing some of our shows it helped
A lot of starving actors out there, huh?
Oh, there are.
There are.
There were.
So then you really, and still are, so you really did help them out.
Well, it was always kind of nice.
I mean, I don't know if we really did it on purpose, but when we found out that, you know, the guy would come up to us, or the girl, and say, you know, thanks a lot, that was really great.
And then if we knew they were available, we'd try to put them on another show.
Oh, that's great.
That's really great.
So there was some interaction between shows?
Oh, yeah.
You know, we were never allowed to use the same act twice on a show.
Or the same person twice.
But, but, but, if you got a really good one, there wouldn't be any... Well, it didn't have to be the same show.
They could go... Well, sometimes if they get married, come back and do a new... If they had a crazy act, they'd go on a gone show.
They were intertwined.
Oh, boy.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Chuck Beres.
Hello.
Hello, hello, hello.
Yes, sir.
Where are you?
I'm in Fredericksburg, Virginia, below the Mason-Dixon line.
There's four inches of snow in a cotton-picking area.
It is really colder than blue blazes.
I don't believe I'm doing this, and my kids are going to be embarrassed when their 78-year-old dad runs.
The most eclectic radio show I have ever heard.
It is eclectic, yeah.
I'll tell you, and I have my own show for seven years.
I thought it was pretty good, but nothing like yours, Art.
This is fantastic.
Oh, thank you.
And Mr. Barris.
Yes, sir?
How, no, what would you suggest to an individual today to help them find a way to get into The TV or the radio media, besides stepping out of the box.
And remember the fact that we're only two places we can be in the world.
One's in heaven, one's in hell.
We are not in heaven.
Therefore, with the other place availability, And the open-mindedness that is permeating our country, what would you suggest for that young person?
Alright, well, you know what?
Even a better question, or a better way to ask it is, would you even suggest to anybody Uh, Chuck, that they get into broadcasting, whether it be radio or television or the performing arts.
What do you say to somebody like that?
Do you warn them?
Well, you know, it seems to me, yeah, I warn them because it's a tough... I can't think of anything tougher than being an actor or in the performing arts and auditioning.
I couldn't do that in a million years if you put a gun to my head.
I just don't have the...
the wherewithal to withstand rejection like that.
But I mean even going to do what you did.
I mean, if somebody said look...
Yeah, but times were different then.
I mean, not that they're...
you know, it's impossible to get work now.
But in those days, show business was run and television, movies were...
by a lot of show business people.
And they were more prone to take their chances with people.
Nowadays, the companies are run by lawyers and accountants and businessmen.
If I was going to get into show business today, I'd go in as a lawyer or I'd go in as something like that.
Your chances of success are far greater and your openings are much more.
But because if you look around, the venues are closing down and there's really not, you know, not that many.
In one sense, the cable is burgeoning with new ideas.
So that's probably where I'd go.
I'd probably try to find myself, link myself up with some cable company or cable station and get my start there.
You'd warn them, though, about the path.
I mean, it's one hard, hard path.
A lot of heartaches and more losing than winning.
Oh, you're not kidding.
All right.
Well, to the Rockies, you're on the air with Chuck Bereslow.
Hi there, Art.
This is Dave over the hill from you here in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas, yes.
Hi.
Hi.
Great pleasure to talk to Chuck.
Read his book about a year ago.
Really, really enjoyed it.
Oh, thank you.
I thought it was really offbeat and a great read.
Question whether or not it's going to be as faithful, will the movie be as faithful to it?
Will characters like the Popsicle twins be in it?
No, the Popsicle twins aren't in it, but most everything else is.
Charlie Kaufman wrote the script and George Clooney directed it and they kept it.
Really kind of faithful to the book.
It was kind of surprising to me because sometimes those things take another left hook.
But they stuck close to the book.
Were you close to the movie while it was scripting?
No.
Not really.
I didn't have any reason to be.
I mean, it wasn't contractual or anything like that.
Charlie wrote the Charlie Kaufman wrote the script and George when he directed it he would you know talk to me and
it was more than welcoming me up there where they were shooting Montreux in California and Mexico but I never had
a real contribution in a sense that they they wanted to hear from me.
It was all there.
But they did come to you though?
Yeah, they did.
They weren't afraid to come to me and I was more than happy to help.
It must be something to have a movie done of your life.
It must really be something.
It's mind boggling.
There's no way to describe it really.
It's a totally internal thing and that's why I said earlier that it's hard to make a judgment on my part whether you know how good or bad the picture is because all I'm seeing in there and just in awe of the fact that This has come to life.
It's hard to really explain the feeling.
Let me try this question on you.
How much of that which you refused to talk about tonight will be in the movie?
Well, the stuff that I don't want to talk about, I still don't want to talk about.
No, I'm not asking you to.
I'm saying... I know, but you're asking it sideways, and it's OK.
I don't blame you.
Well, you saw the movie, so I mean, is there quite a bit... The movie's the same as the book.
You know, if you read the book, see the movie, you got the whole story.
All right.
First time caller on the line.
You're on the air with Chuck Harris.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi there.
Where are you?
I'm in great Northwestern Lower Michigan.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
This is great.
You know, great going back and remembering all this.
Love the unknown comic.
Love Jean Jean, the dancing machine.
Love the is so lonesome in the saddle since my horse died.
That was great.
Still is great.
Never, never had a clue that Chuck Beres was so big and responsible for so much.
That's all that stuff.
Oh, yeah.
And by the way, Art, thanks for the overnight show.
Great, live, interactive.
Oh, you're very welcome.
Just be listening to trash without this.
Haven't heard anything about Chuck's, you know, childhood background.
Oh, you know, you're right about that.
I suppose we should have done that right at the very beginning of the show.
Chuck, he's right.
Oh, it's a quickie.
I was brought up in Philadelphia, born and bred, raised there from, you know, zero to about 18 when I finished college.
And I just left college and I went to work as a trainee at NBC and I figured that's where the action was going to be in television.
That was back in the 50s and that was pretty true.
And I just rose from there.
You know, I just worked my way up from there.
It was really simple.
I had a great, great childhood.
I mean, I was out in the suburbs, balking with Pennsylvanians.
Is there anything, though, that was in your childhood, I mean, there usually is, that launched you to do what you did?
Not a bit.
Not a thing.
Not?
I mean, my father was a dentist.
My mother was a mother.
My sister, we didn't have any background in anything like this, you know, and I just went off.
I really didn't have any goals.
I didn't have any aspirations.
My family never pushed me in any way.
I wish they had.
Maybe in retrospect, I don't wish they had because it turned out pretty good.
Was your family shocked?
By your book and or do you think they will be shocked by the movie?
Well, both my parents are gone, but my parents wouldn't have been shocked if they were alive because they never got shocked.
Anybody in your family?
Well, yeah.
Yeah, my sister is and I'm close to my sister and I know she's shocked.
But my family, my mother and father were very They were kind of self-centered.
They didn't give me too much direction, and I don't think anything... I think they would have been pleased.
Definitely pleased, but, you know, nothing surprising.
My sister is practically in a coma.
She doesn't know what's going on as far as, you know, this is all a surprise to her.
You know, the stuff that I don't want to talk about.
In the modern world, do you think there's as much reason and cause... I mean, we are now post-9-11, of course.
Uh, that assassination is, uh, a justified action on the part of our nation.
That's a general question.
What was the question again?
Well, I said post 9-11.
Yeah, I follow.
Uh, is assassination a justified action?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
The President, I believe, today, uh, or yesterday, declared that the CIA is allowed to, uh, To kill Al-Qaeda.
There was an executive order 29333 or something like that, that Reagan instituted, that said there should be, there will be no more assassinations of foreign whatever.
But this has been apparently rescinded by the President.
I do believe it's a necessity.
It's got to be.
It's tit-for-tat.
I mean, you can't fight a war without this kind of stuff.
Well, it would appear as though we have an enemy who really doesn't want a lot from us, despite the fact that they're probably picking up on the Palestinian question.
That's not really the Central Corps.
They just want us dead, pretty much.
They want us to die, and there's, you know, there's no bargaining here.
They just want to kill us.
And so, I mean, I don't know how else you deal with somebody who wants to kill you other than to get to them first.
That's right.
Uh-huh.
Very quickly, because we're out of time, one last question.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Chuck Bereslow.
Hello?
Hi, we only got a sec, sir, so... All right, first, I just got to quickly say, Chuck, you're a genius.
Thank you.
And I think one of the shows, I don't know if you've mentioned it, that you've definitely influenced is the David Letterman Show.
Yeah.
I would say with you getting, you did have crew members, various crew members perform on your show, correct?
That's right.
And I know it's something Dave loves to do, just bring out, you know, see what you can find in just the regular people working around the office.
Yeah, well, David did our show as a judge.
He was a judge on the gong show in his early career before he really got started.
How about that?
And, uh, you know, NBC was kind of pushing him, uh, on various NBC programs, so he worked
as a, one of our judges, and I think, uh, I think he learned a lot on that show.
All right, listen, you're not going to believe this.
We're out of time.
Yeah, that's it, man.
We're done.
Let me shoot in quickly.
It was a pleasure.
It's really been a pleasure.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the book, the movie is all right there.
Everybody go check it out.
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