Our Chuck

A thread on Matt Ottinger's board sprayed a surprising amount of venom at schlockmeister Chuck Barris. Of course, Chuckie made a career of getting venom spit at him, but Matt's board is so traditionalist. I figured anything as old as Chuck's shows would be pretty much immune from criticism.

I figured wrong. Several posters took turns dumping on the one Chuck Barris show I liked a lot, Newlywed Game. Yeah, Gong Show was mostly an embarrassment and Dating Game was kind of a bore. But Bob Eubanks kept the newlyweds at each other's throats enough to make me reasonably happy.

The posters at Matt's place didn't like the dumb answers from so many of the newly hitched. Gee whiz, guys, such stupidity made the show. When the stereotypical blonde didn't know what "urban" meant, Newlywed Game rocked, with a large assist from Eubanks. (By the way, I like the French subtitles on the YouTube clip. Makes everything seem even stupider somehow.)

At this point I could launch into my usual lecture on how game shows should be at least a little dumb and cheesy. But I'll skip it today.