Last year, I noticed that game show producer and host Chuck Barris died. Hardly anybody knows who he was. Of course, I didn’t know him personally, and I don’t think I ever saw his most famous creation, The Gong Show. But like most kids in America in the 1960s and early 70s, I watched a fair amount of network television, including The Dating Game. I loved the décor.
Comedian Pat Paulsen (left) made a guest appearance on the Dating Game in Sept 1968.
When I was a little kid, I confused game show creator Chuck Barris with custom car designer George Barris; their names often showed up in TV show credits. I thought they were the same person. Both were in my aesthetic sights. I reasoned that the guy who created the very mod Dating Game also designed a custom car for The Munsters. The Dating Game set revolved and had sliding curvy walls and abstracted pop flowers. Everybody was good looking. And over on The Munsters, almost everybody was hideous. It was all TV all the time. I wasn’t discriminating.
The Munsters’ Koach. Photo credit: Bahooka (Own work) Creative Commons 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Somehow, both of these men named Barris got intertwined with my growing queer sensibilities, which were tied to the aesthetics of cars and spaces. I loved watching The Dating Game because I got to look at men, hear their responses to silly questions, and then shop them. Most of the questions contained sexual innuendoes that I picked up at some level. It also looked so contemporary, so far away from the brocade upholstered sectional couches and damask curtains of my parents’ house. George Barris was involved in the design of the Green Hornet’s Chrysler and Batman’s Batmobile. In my memory, these cars were tied to my budding desires for the Green Hornet and Batman’s sidekick Robin. The customized fantasy cars merged with the attractive TV characters.
The Green Hornet’s Black Beauty. Photo: Petersen Automotive Museum
Van Williams and Bruce Lee, 1966.
George Barris’ Batmobile from the 1966 TV show, ‘Batman’ starring Adam West and Burt Ward.
But then Chuck Barris went on to The Newlywed Game with Bob Eubanks, who didn’t have the appeal of The Dating Game host Jim Lange. Despite some now-famous lines about the weirdest place couples made whoopee, I loathed the show, especially the set. When you look at the clips now, you have to laugh at the leisure suits and bad orthodonture. The backdrop was frilly and ugly, like a cheap wedding gown. No thank you.
The Dating Game host Jim Lange.
I turned to game shows when there were outrageous comedians. Paul Lynde felt like a bitchy soul mate. I loved the big grid and spiral staircases on Hollywood Squares. And there was the even more brilliant Charles Nelson Reilly, who also appeared on Match Game. (Richard Dawson from Hogan’s Heroes—which I was forbidden to watch—was the host.) When I watched the 2006 documentary The Life of Reilly about the comedian, something clicked.
ABC television special, The Paul Lynde Comedy Hour.
Although a limited number of TV stations were available when I was a kid (six, if I remember correctly), the glowing screen was ubiquitous in the evening. My parents called it the Boob Tube (they were not referring to breasts) and only approved of the PBS station. I was using TV to advance my individual consciousness, my as-yet unrealized queer self. Perhaps a slightly tacky one.
Watching Charles Nelson Reilly was like witnessing someone who might have the keys to the castle. I wanted to be witty and quick and wear big scarves. It wasn’t until I saw the film based on his one-man show, The Life of Reilly that I understood something so simple that was at the center of my life: humor defuses pain. Design touches it up. Other cultural heroes of my youth included queer eccentrics like Rex Reed and Truman Capote. Indeed, the only book I ever stole from the high school library (oh the guilt!) was The Short Stories of Truman Capote. I thought, “They will never miss this! It was meant for me.”
Charles Nelson Reilly
They were all meant for me. Truman Capote, Charles Nelson Reilly, Paul Lynde, Rex Reed, Chuck Barris, and even George Barris. They all gave me some joy in my youth. I still love miniature cars and ribald humor. No, I don’t think the Barrises were queer. And they would probably be surprised to know that they helped one along.
