Hehe - I just found this on the TLC website:

"George comes to TLC having recently emceed Game Show Network's Extreme Gong, an updated version of the classic '70s variety show The Gong Show."

GOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG!

-- Darren Friedlein (darren@dgfa.com), January 11, 2001

Answers

How about a big GOOONNNGGGG!!! for all the people who are still whining about George?

Let's move on people, the show is still great.

-- Brian Nicolucci (Kenzo@NoSpam.com), January 11, 2001.

I think we need to just give George sometime to get comfortable and to find his place in the show. He did not look TOOOO bad last night.

-- Donald Kichline (drkich@hotmail.com), January 11, 2001.

Well, I do have to say I had a couple of laughs. But his voice - accent - whatever is getting to be annoying. He is forcing an enthusiastic image and that isn't doing a whole lot to help.

However, I'm still enjoying the show just as much as before, even with the waste of time doing commerical breaks :)

Let's see - we're almost half way through the series, so he still has a few more episodes to go before final judgement!

-- Chris Rake (car@technologist.com), January 11, 2001.

I'm guessing from the replies that George was on last week as well? Sorry to whine a week late -- I missed last week's episodes, so this was the first I've seen of the US show. At least I don't feel as bad about having been away last week. :-)

The Gong thing was too poetic not to post. :-)

-- Darren Friedlein (darren@dgfa.com), January 11, 2001.

Having missed the last broadcast, my wife and I saw the new guy for the first time last night. After a few minutes she said, "scary that the think this is what would appeal to American viewers." Well said.

I'm all for giving the new guy a chance, and I really hope he grows into the role. And really, I do think he's capable of doing the job, I just don't think he's taking the right approach or presenting the right persona.

So, in the spirit of constructive criticism, and assuming that the show's producers occasionally take a peek at this board, I'm going to try to describe what I think he should be doing differently. I hope others will do the same. It's just too bad that so much time elapses between when the show is filmed and when we get a chance to comment.

So, anyway, to me the problem is that he doesn't seem to grasp that this is fundamentally an engineering challenge, not tractor pull. His target audience is intelligent and curious, or at the very least will like to think they are. Somehow he manages to convey with his phony uncritical enthusiasm and his good-ol'-boy mannerisms that he thinks we are a bunch of uncultured lowbrows who like to watch the show because we are impressed with anything loud and big and dirty: "Golly, Sally May, git a load a that there big ol' contraption! Haw! I'd sure like to have that up on blocks in front of my trailer! Git me a big ol' gun rack and a WWF sticker on it, that would show ma brother-in-law Leroy who's a mean ole sumbich! Yee Haw!"

I guess what I'm sensing is that this guy is taking down to us.

Cathy, of course, continues to do a great job. They should really have given her the lead role, especially since she's the veteran. I don't know whether they didn't because she's British or because she's female. Either way, they should be ashamed.

-- Eric (earsjohnson@usa.net), January 11, 2001.

Holy cow! I just re-read my comments, and they're rife with typos!

"scary that THEY think this is what would appeal"

not A tractor pull

TALKING down to us.

-- Eric (earsjohnson@usa.net), January 11, 2001.