I was a Dating Game Chaperone

It wasn’t TV at its finest, but for a brief few years it was TV at its most successful.  When “The Newlywed Game” and “The Dating Game” appeared in the mid 1960’s, they made creator Chuck Barris a wealthy man.  They ended their network runs in 1973 and 1974 respectively, but in 1978 returned in first-run syndication. 

The syndicated shows were produced at KTLA in Hollywood and I was lucky enough to be assigned as head page at the tapings (where I’d recently had the chutzpah to ask for raises on behalf of all the pages, from $2.50 an hour to $3.50 an hour…my first real stab at salary negotiations).  I got to know the production team well, and on October 11, a few months after my graduation from CSUN, I was offered my first full time job in television.

From my journal, October 11, 1978:

                Got a call at 1:40pm from Ellen Metzger, and I knew right away what was up.  She asked me “how would you like to work for us?”  She asked me to come down (to their offices in Hollywood); I did, and met with Mike & Ellen, and Steve Friedman.  They told me about the job.  It’s called “banditing,” a lot of phone work calling people to come down and be on the show…60 hours or more a week.

                Mike asked me what it would take for me to live (monetarily).   I told him I need $210 a week, and he said okay (bandits start at $185 but they know I’m a hard worker).  We shook on it…I start Monday morning!

What I didn’t write but clearly remember is that October 11 was Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and I dithered a few moments before agreeing to go in to see them.  I actually had asked Ellen if I could come in the next morning, but she signaled that they wouldn’t be happy with that, which in retrospect portended what working hours and days and weeks would be like for me over the next year and a half.

Barris had four shows on the air at the time, and two different staffs each worked on two of them.  On the other side of the office was the staff that produced “The Gong Show” and “The $1.98 Beauty Show.”  I worked with the team on “The Dating Game” and “The Newlywed Game.”  Over the course of the year, there would be three months of working exclusively on one, then alternating with the other, calling and booking contestants. It was easy booking “Newlywed Game” contestants; we had the city’s marriage certificate rolls to use as leads.  “Dating Game” was much tougher.

In another entry I’ll share how I went from being a “bandit” to becoming a game show writer, and share some of the horrendous yet somehow enjoyable reviews my work received in the Los Angeles Times and other publications.  For now, how I became a “Dating Game” chaperone.

From watching “The Dating Game” on television as a kid in the very early ‘70s, I remember with fascination hearing the prize trip announcement at the end of each game which always began with “You and your Dating Game chaperone will be whisked away to…” with the ending of that sentence ranging from a local night on the town to an exotic trip to somewhere in Europe, Asia, or South America.  Now that I was on the staff, I found out who these mysterious people chaperoning the dates were…my fellow staff members!

As a member of the staff I now had the opportunity to chaperone dates myself.  I was told not to expect the exotic location assignments that go to senior staff…I’d have to work my way up to that.  But it didn’t matter to me.  I was happy to start anywhere.

That “anywhere” was San Francisco, on March 17, 1979.

From the memo sent to the Dating Game couple a week before their date:

                Dear Ed & Melody,

                You’ll be meeting your “DATING GAME” chaperone, Doug Friedman in front of the PSA Airlines Ticket Counter on Saturday, March 17, 1979 at Los Angeles International Airport no later than 8:30AM.  Your schedule is:

                DEPART LOS ANGELES VIA PSA #223 AT 9:30AM

                ARRIVE SAN FRANCISCO AT 10:30AM

                You’ll take the airport transit bus to the Downtown Terminal – Reservations for lunch are at…

The memo continued with details about lunch, a tour of the city, dinner, and a late flight home that evening.

A few days prior to the trip, when I met with our Date Coordinator Susan Bossie Ello in the office, I was given a large wad of $1 bills for tips, and found out that the couple I was chaperoning were both in their mid 30’s.  It hit me as a bit odd; I was a 21 year-old kid chaperoning a couple at least a dozen years older than I!

That trip itself was unremarkable.  The most interesting thing I wrote in my journal at the time was that Melody, a gorgeous Pan Am stewardess, gave me a “nice kiss” after we said goodbye at LAX. Throughout the day I sensed that she was more interested in me than in the man she’d chosen as her date!

My third trip (I’ll get to the second trip after this…always save the best for last), eight months later, was to a less interesting place…San Jose.  The rule on the show was that if one person chooses not to participate in the date, the other may bring a guest of his or her choice.  In this instance, the man (Richard) kept postponing the trip, annoying the woman who picked him to the point where she finally backed out.  It had been Richard’s plan all along to bring someone else.  I found out he had been engaged to his girlfriend at the time he was on the show.

From my journal, November 3, 1979:

                Rented a car, which we weren’t supposed to do, but there’s nothing that’s close in San Jose.  After getting lost a few times, we ended up at a movie theatre (saw “10”)…back for dinner upstairs in the hotel restaurant upstairs, running up a $110 bill, including a 1976 bottle of Pouilly Fuisse.  After visiting the lousy disco at 94^th Aerosquadron, we got lost looking for another.  Richard spent the night in Susan’s adjoining room (they’re engaged…what the hell)…I stayed up until 4:30am watching a Bing Crosby movie alone (On overnight dates the male chaperone always shared a room with the male contestant, but as I wrote at the time, “what the hell…”).

It was my second trip as a chaperone which was the most memorable…the one around which you could write a disaster movie.  San Francisco again, this time a two night trip staying at the Hyatt on Union Square.  I’ll let my journal speak for itself.

From my journal, September 7, 1979:

                After lunch, drove to LAX to leave as a Dating Game chaperone on a trip to San Francisco with Gary and Lori, the most ungracious, ungrateful two people I’ve ever had to know.  The whole thing started with drinks at LAX.  I should have known then that they’d never stop drinking.  A one hour delayed flight, dinner at our posh hotel (they put napkins on our laps!), after dinner disco until 3am in the St. Francis Hotel.  The hallmark of our stay so far…drinks, drinks drinks.

From my journal, September 8, 1979:

                While yesterday was fairly tolerable with these two abominable people, today was the worst.  This guy Gary is a lush.  Two Heinekens before breakfast on room service, two at breakfast; he bought a six-pack on the way to the stables where we went horseback riding on the beach.

                Gary is getting to be an even bigger asshole, ordering a bottle of champagne at dinner after I told him not to (I had snuck off to the men’s room), more beers and by the end of dinner he was drunk as a skunk, telling me he was going to sleep with Lori and not to stop him.  She didn’t want to be alone with him and when I told him he couldn’t he became very hostile.  Back at the hotel, more arguments, and all the time with Lori there she kept encouraging him (“I want to go dancing, stay out all night,” etc.), then when she was alone with me would say “keep him away from me.”  Gary is now furious…”nowhere did it say I couldn’t sleep with her,” “what if the tables were turned and it was you?” “I’m going to try as hard as I can and if she’s willing, there’s nothing that you can do to stop me!”  Finally they ditched me and went out by themselves, where she must have told him she wasn’t interested, because he was back in the room in an hour.  I had asked the house detective rough him up when he got in, which he did. “Why did you have him do that,” he muttered as he stumbled into bed.  By this time he was so drunk that he fell sleep immediately, while I watched “Blazing Saddles” on the closed circuit TV.  A long and very trying day as a Dating Game chaperone.

Early in 1980 all four of Chuck Barris’ shows were cancelled in a collective storm of negative reviews and advertiser boycotts about a fifth, “3’s a Crowd,” on which I also served as a writer (“3’s a Crowd” premise: Who knows the husband better…his wife or his secretary?”  Picture the Newlywed Game set with four sets of threesomes, the husband in the middle between wife and secretary). More on that adventure to come.

As for my “Dating Game” chaperone opportunities, Europe, Asia and South America never came.