The Gong Show Makes a Much Needed Return to TV

Before we had American Idol, where we spend weeks at the start of each season being amused by the no-talents and crazies who don’t make the cut, and long before the wacky talents aired every summer on America’s Got Talent, there was the grand daddy of them all: The Gong Show.

Hosted by Chuck Barris, the Gong Show had a few talented people hoping for a good rating, interspersed between strange and horrible acts performed by sometimes marginal people. And just for pure entertainment purposes they threw in regulars like The Unknown Comic, who told corny jokes in a cheesy suit, with a bag over his head, and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine:

Comedy Central will be reviving The Gong Show, and updating it for the 21st Century, with Dave Attell as the host. The show will debut on July 17.

According to Attell, whose last gig with the network was Insomniac with Dave Atell, “Stars will be made; feelings will be hurt.”

Sounds like a winner to me.