3’s a Crowd: Controversial Game Show of the 70s
These days gameshow hosts, like Steve Harvey, will fake a surprised face when a contestant gives a non-PG answer to a question that was obviously looking for a racy answer.
“We asked ‘Name something phallic that gets bigger on men’ you said… Penis!”
But back in the 70s, it wasn’t much better. Game shows were pushing the line on what was acceptable for their timeslots and often played dumb when things got out of hand. In fact, in 1979, a gameshow called 3’s a Crowd was so controversial it collapsed a media empire… and a few marriages.
C’mon down… Chuck Barris!
Charles Hirsch Barris was born in 1929 but since this isn’t a biography let’s skip the boring stuff. After graduating from Drexel University in Pennsylvania, Chuck wanted to dip his toes in the entertainment business and worked as a page for NBC in NYC.
Eventually ending up working for Standards-and-Practices for ABC and writing a few songs, he was promoted to the daytime programming division for ABC in Los Angeles. Here’s where Chuck discovered the game shows being pitched basically sucked and told his bosses he had better ideas.
Chuck was told to put up or shut up so he left his job and formed the production company Chuck Barris Productions in 1965. Luckily he was a bit more creative at game show concepts than he was at naming companies. One of his first ideas was the game show The Dating Game which became an immediate huge hit in 1965.
You’ve definitely seen The Dating Game or a derivative of it before. It revolves around a bachelor or bachelorette asking three people they can’t see, a series of questions. In the end, the bachelor/ette chooses one of the three and they go out on a date paid for by the show.
The show was such a hit that celebrities partook as well. Barry Gordon, Steve Martin, Lee Majors, and even Adam West at the height of Batman’s popularity were all contestants.
“Contestant #2 would you support me if I fought crime at night in… let’s say… a bat-suit?”
Following the success of the show, over the course of the next 15 years, Chuck produced and/or created The Newlywed Game, The Parent Game, The $1.98 Beauty Show, The Gong Show (which he hosted), and a bunch of others.
Many of these shows would end and come back a few years later with slight tweaks. Chuck had created a game show empire and was referred to by some as The King of Game Shows.
Sure, some would say most of his shows had the same basic premise with a new paint job and added nothing to innovate the medium but, they were popular. He was basically the Dick Wolf of his time, the same amount of creativity but a lot less murder.
What is… 3’s A Crowd?
By 1979 Chuck Barris had 3 shows on the air but he felt like he needed another. You might be asking why, but I just learned that Law & Order: Organized Crime, which is a spin-off to Law & Order: SVU, which itself is a spin-off to Law & Order, has started a third season… so the answer is money.
Chuck’s brilliant new idea was a show called 3’s a Crowd and with the tagline “Who knows a man better, his wife or his secretary?” you knew it was going to be a bumpy ride. Here’s how the show worked; host Jim Peck asked three male contestants questions, usually personal questions, related to their wives and secretaries.
The secretaries were then brought out to guess what the men answered, each correct answer was one point. Finally, the wives were brought out to also guess what the men answered, receiving a point for each correct guess as well. The team with the most points would split a thousand dollars.
Just so you can understand the types of questions asked, the first question on one of the only handful of episodes was “When it comes to sex with your secretary, have you been holding yourself back or letting go?”. All three contestants in that episode said they were holding themselves back.
When the secretaries came out it was a different story for two of the contestants. Patricia, the secretary for contestant Jesse, said he’s been letting himself go and it was at that point Jesse realized he fucked up.
“Are those cameras on?”
When his wife Charlene was brought out and she was told of Patricia’s answer, the words divorce came up extremely quickly which drew laughter from the crowd. Though that episode didn’t end in a fight, there was another episode that did. 3’s a Crowd was essentially the precursor to shows like Jerry Springer.
From what I could find 3’s a Crowd was said to have caused up to 12 divorces though I couldn’t find any actual proof of these claims. In one interview Chuck claims his shows had a 50% divorce rate but that was across all his shows.
Host Jim Peck claimed some relationships ended as soon as the cameras were turned off with some ending between commercial breaks. From what I’ve seen, I completely believe it.
Most of the episodes are available on Dailymotion with multiple clips available on Youtube which clearly show the discomfort of all guests. From the episodes I watched, every contestant, wife, and secretary looks uncomfortable, confused, or trying their best to force a smile.
Survey Says… Canceled!
To no one’s surprise, not even Chuck’s, people started protesting the show almost immediately. Groups considered feminist and those considered conservative both join hands, possibly for the first time ever, and demanded the show be taken off the air.
Feminist groups felt the show demeaned the professional achievements of secretaries while conservative groups felt the show gave adultery a positive spin and demeaned traditional family values. The public backlash caused several sponsors to distance themselves from not just 3’s a Crowd, but also The Newlywed Game, The Gong Show, and The Dating Game.
Ratings quickly plummeted for all 4 shows as well. In an interview with The Television Academy in 2010, Chuck says the Vice-President of ABC came to his office and canceled all four shows in one fell swoop.
“Yea, no, I see the problem.”
3’s a Crowd was replaced by another Chuck Barris Productions show called Camouflage but that failed to garner any ratings and was also canceled. In 1980, for the first time since 1965, Chuck Barris Productions had no shows on the air.
Chuck was so ashamed and disheartened, he hid away and locked himself in his home in Malibu for an entire year before moving to France. Meanwhile, in an attempt to return to the air in 1981, Chuck Barris Productions revived the game show Treasure Hunt but Chuck had no involvement in its production and it lasted only a year.
Chuck’s Final Answer
In 1984 Chuck returned to the United States and formed Barris Productions Inc., reviving some game shows and effectively getting them on air. People seemed to mostly forget about the 3’s a Crowd incident and his revived shows did pretty well in ratings.
What caught most people's attention was Chuck’s new autobiography called Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. In the book, Chuck claimed he worked for the CIA in the 60s and 70s as an assassin so you can see why, when people heard it was an autobiography, they all said, “hold up, what?”
That gong mallet wasn’t red when he started…
Though Chuck was coy about whether the book truly was an autobiography, he did eventually admit it was all made up in an interview with the Today Show. Years later in 2002, as the book was turned into a film directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell, Chuck returned to being coy about whether it was true or not.
Following the success of Barris Productions Inc., Chuck sold the company in 1987 and retired from television. His company was eventually bought by Sony who revived a bunch of the shows including 3’s a Crowd in 1999 although this version pitted significant others with best friends so it was less controversial. It was canceled a year later.
Chuck Barris passed away on March 21st, 2017 of natural causes having not only dipped his toes in the entertainment business but completely plunged into it and altered its course.
Quick Facts
Host Jim Peck reportedly hated the show and the concept. A few sources I could find say he refused to speak with any of the contestants and, during commercial breaks, would stay locked in his dressing room
While 3’s a Crowd caused ratings to fall all across the board for Chuck’s shows, The Gong Show and The Newlywed Game were already struggling. 3’s a Crowd was the final nail in the coffin
Chuck wrote a sequel to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind called Bad Grass Never Dies in 2004 where he continues the story of his life as a CIA assassin after his shows were canceled
The CIA has denied Chuck has ever worked for them and called his claims ‘ridiculous’
