Does the world really need a “Gong Show” revival? I wouldn’t have thought so at first, but when you throw in the fact that the host will be Dave Atell, the viability of the program picks up a bit…so much so, in fact, that I remained interested in checking it out even after I discovered that it was a Happy Madison production. I haven’t seen a full episode of the show yet, but we were able to check out a collection of clips from upcoming episodes, and I must say that I laughed a lot…possibly too much, really, given that some of the acts that were spotlighted were decidedly less than highbrow (not that that’s really a problem for a certain percentage of the Comedy Central audience), but the funny bone wants what the funny bone wants.
When Comedy Central’s Lauren Corrao indicated that “this is not your father’s ‘Gong Show,’ she couldn’t have been more right; this is definitely a series that has no intentions of shying away from anything too odd or disconcerting, as evidenced by Atell’s response to the question about his favorite acts that he’s seen thus far.
“Well, we have the whole gamut,” said Atell, “from a unicycle act to the more raunchy, odd-cabaret cabaret act. So the acts that I enjoy the most are the raunchy vaudeville acts, but, you know, it’s up to the judges, so I guess unicycle beats queefer.”
Awesome.
When asked about the worst acts to date, Atell seemed legitimately bummed to nominate a guy whose attempts at beer pong fell horribly flat. “We had a kid on who was a beer pong champion, and he for some reason could not do his beer ponging that day,” he said. “I hate to make the kid a huge example, but he hits a ping-pong ball into a beer cup…and in fraternities, that’s, like, real bragging rights. And he’s really good at it. It’s just that, on that day, it didn’t work out. And, you know, I thought that was kind of like the best thing for the show…like, to show a guy who’s supposed to do this intricate beer pong (where he) bounces off a chair, off a parrot, all this intricate stuff, and it didn’t work. And, you know, I thought that was hilarious.”
The judges on the show thus far have included Adam Carolla, Andy Dick, Triumph the Comic Insult Dog, Dave Navarro…in other words, a bunch of Atell’s friends, for the most part. “I think what works best on this show is to have funny guests who get it, who get that talent has really nothing to do with the show,” explained Atell. “It’s about a party. It’s about people coming out, doing their thing. We run the gamut of comics that I know to people you’ve seen in other shows who were in the rock world, in the movie world. I think it works best when we have a variety of judges.”
In case you’re wondering, yes, Atell does have the blessing of Chuck Barris. “We wanted to make sure that Chuck was cool with us doing this show because it was his, and he was the original creator,” said Doug Robinson, producer of the show. “And he was psyched that we were doing it and said he was writing a book. And we asked him if he wanted to do anything with it, and he wished us luck, but he said he was writing his book and to have fun with it.”
This pleased Atell considerably, since Barris is one of his television heroes. “I love his stuff,” he said. “I grew up on his shows, not only ‘The Gong Show,’ but, like, ‘The Newlywed Game’ and all that stuff, ‘$1.98 Beauty Pageant.’ I love his stuff. I think that he really did kind of break the mold. And the CIA thing, whatever, that just makes him more of an interesting character. If, down the road, he wants to come on, that would be great.” A beat. “He should just send us a tape.”
Those who want to appear on Atell’s “Gong Show” shouldn’t expect a major cash payout for their trouble, however. “I guess the running joke is it’s my weight in gas or my weight in porn or whatever,” he said, with a laugh, “but, yeah, it’s a low prize. It’s not one of these life-changing prizes like on ‘Deal or No Deal’ or anything like that, because you all know picking the right number is a super skill. You’ve got to be touched; the heavens have to be involved in that. But I think the people that do come on just want to perform. And that’s kind of the cool thing about a low cash prize. But we do pay them cash. There’s no big fake check or anything like that.”
Also coming to Comedy Central in the very near future is “The Chocolate News,” starring David Alan Grier. When I talked to Adam Carolla recently, he cited Grier as one of his most dependable guests, someone who’s always ready to go and prepared to be funny, and although lord knows I’m not Adam Carolla, he’s always struck me the same way: I can’t think of many occasions when I didn’t get a laugh out of one of his appearances, no matter how bad the film or show might otherwise be. Based on the clips I’ve seen of “The Chocolate News,” the potential seems to be there to keep that reputation intact, though it’s hard to offer a definitive opinion without a full episode to view.
The first thing that struck the critics about the panel for “The Chocolate News,” however, was the fact that Grier was the only black guy on it!
“I can explain, sir,” said Grier. “These two gentlemen are octoroons and…” At that point, he snorted. “No, we have African-Americans on our staff. These are the guys I’ve known a very long time. Fax and I went to college together. We worked together, Fax (Bahr) and Adam (Small) and I were on ‘In Living Color,’ and these are the guys I really wanted to write with, you know. So it all comes through me: I’m African American. It’s all good. We’re going to ‘chocolate it up’ more.”
A bit later, Grier went into a bit more detail on the matter. “We have other African American writers on the staff,” he reassured the audience, “and it’s kind of when we talk about these ideas, I think I more than these guys have said in
certain ideas and going in areas where I think, ‘Dude, this is not going to play to black people.’ It doesn’t really get that deep. It’s just, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work or not.'”
The series looks to be a little bit “Daily Show” and a little bit “Chappelle’s Show,” and when someone made the latter comparison, Grier said, “I would love that $50 million,” inspiring Corrao’s instant response, “We’re not going there again.” After the laughter died down, however, Grier declared, “I don’t think that the style, the concept, the way we are presenting this show, has anything to do with Dave Chappelle. My name’s Dave. His name’s Dave. I think he’s brilliant. It’s just a different style. I think after the success of (Dave’s) show, a lot of people tried to emulate that, and it just didn’t work. His show is unique in and of him. So we’re just trying to do our own thing.”
Fair enough. But given the clips show Grier not only serving as host but playing various other roles in various sketches, the “Chappelle’s Show” comparison certainly isn’t a hard one to make. Nor is it particularly untoward to see “Daily Show” similarities, given its news-magazine format…but, surprise, Grier downplayed those similarities as well.
“I think ‘The Daily Show’ is more based on real events and topical humor,” he said. “It’s done every day, gathering all of that absurd stuff from that day in the news and flipping it. Our stuff is all written, really, and I think the style of the show was…when I pitched it to Lauren and we talked about it, it was more ‘Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel’ on HBO. Longer pieces more in that style. More human.”
After seeing the clip which was aired before the panel, which featured Grier as a gangsta rapper doing a thoroughly obscene commercial for the No Child Left Behind Act, it’s no wonder than someone asked him how far he plans to go with the show.
“As far as we can,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I mean, I think…there’s two things. You can have comedy, and if you offend no one in the room, to me, that’s like you’re not doing your job. But in the other instance, it is not I or our intention to offend. It’s to really, really make people laugh. And the way I like to laugh and on shows like ‘In Living Color’ was, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m watching this. How did this get on?'”
Will “The Chocolate News” live up to those levels of comedy? We shall see.
