Television series

The Gong Show

Other titles called The Gong Show: the 2017 series (ABC).

The Gong Show is delirious, anything-goes talent chaos where contestants perform increasingly unhinged acts before a giggling panel who can gong them offstage. Chuck Barris hosts with bemused exhaustion. It's pure seventies absurdism: no standards, no shame, just beautiful weirdness. For anyone who loves things that shouldn't exist but somehow do.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy shows where the joke is the sheer nerve of the format, like a wobbly amateur act being cut off by a gong while the host plays it completely straight.

Skip it if you want sharp writing or a through-line; this is a parade of unrehearsed acts, and the rhythm can feel repetitive when you watch a stretch of it back to back.

What it asks of you: Each episode runs about half an hour and moves quickly, so you mostly need to be willing to sit with odd, uneven performances and let the absurdity build.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Hollywood Squares1966

A game show built on celebrity personalities rather than actual stakes, where the fun comes from watching famous people riff and misbehave. Pure charm and gossip-adjacent glee.

But The format is repetitive—it's the same tic-tac-toe game over and over. If you need plot momentum, this will feel like treading water.

The Hollywood Squares poster

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In1967

Fast-cut sketch chaos with the same anti-establishment spirit and refusal to respect format. It's anarchic, colorful, and genuinely strange in ways mainstream TV had never attempted.

But The jokes are very much of their era and many haven't aged well. The pace can feel exhausting rather than exhilarating on a long watch.

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In poster

Hee Haw1969

Another variety show with that anything-goes sensibility, built on absurdist sketches and pure performers having visible fun. The banjo energy is completely different but the spirit is the same.

But It's deeply country, deeply corny, and if corniness makes you uncomfortable, this will test your patience hard.

Hee Haw poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Gong Show

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail1975

Both are anarchic variety works that believe the form itself is funny—that watching something weird happen matters more than whether there's a payoff. Neither respects the genre it nominally occupies.

British absurdism at its peak: a film that refuses to finish its own scenes, breaks its own rules, and treats comedy as something that can shatter conventional structure entirely. It's performance chaos given a feature film's budget.

But It's intellectually funny in a way that requires you to appreciate the *deconstruction* as much as the gags. If you need punchlines to land clearly, Python's structural comedy won't satisfy you.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail poster
More like this (6)

Friday the 13th: The Series1987

SNL's oddball sibling, weirder and less polished, with a genuine sense that anything could happen. The energy is closer to The Gong Show's anarchic DNA than SNL's locked machinery.

But It's patchier than SNL and some sketches are painful. The show was cancelled for on-air debauchery, which tells you something about its inconsistency.

Friday the 13th: The Series poster

The Kids in the Hall1988

Sketch comedy that's truly strange and committed to bits that go nowhere obvious. It has the fearlessness to be genuinely ridiculous without winking at the audience.

But Canadian sketch comedy is very dry. If you need big laughs and clear punchlines, this will feel deliberately obtuse.

The Kids in the Hall poster

The Muppet Show1976

Variety chaos with the same 'what on earth is happening' energy, but with felt and comedy chops. Fozzie's jokes are bad on purpose, like the show's entire operating principle.

But The puppetry can feel slow if you're impatient. Some sketches genuinely don't land, which is part of the charm but not everyone's cup of tea.

The Muppet Show poster

Match Game2016

Absurdist word-fill comedy where celebrities riff on ridiculous premises. The humor is broad and the panel's reactions are the actual show, very much in Gong Show territory.

But It relies entirely on sexual innuendo and seventies sensibilities. That joke structure feels tired now and some of it reads as just crude rather than clever.

Match Game poster

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both explore the moment performance becomes untethered from meaning—where the *act itself* becomes the point. Both are about people putting themselves out there with no safety net.

A film about the madness of artistic performance where reality fractures into performance. The form is chaotic, nothing resolves cleanly, and the ambition to show *everything* makes it feel alive and unstable in your hands.

But It's difficult, dark, and existentially depressing. Beautifully so, but if you came for fun and zaniness, this will feel like watching someone's breakdown, which it is.

Synecdoche, New York poster

Pee-wee's Big Adventure1985

Both are driven by a commitment to the *weird act*—to characters performing strange things unironically. Neither is interested in explaining why something is funny; they just do it and let you catch up.

Tim Burton directing Pee-wee Herman in a film that's genuinely unhinged, packed with bizarre characters and tangents, where the plot is secondary to the sheer strangeness of what's onscreen. It captures that anything-goes energy in narrative form.

But Pee-wee is an acquired taste and his shrieking voice and manic energy will grate on you if they don't immediately charm you. The humor is very specific and there's no backing down from it.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure poster

People

Cast

Writing

Recommended by

The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, What's My Line?, The Hollywood Squares, Celebrity Family Feud, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Showtime at the Apollo, Hollywood Squares