Gene Gene the Dancing Machine has died

March 14, 2015 8:08 PM

Eugene S. Patton, Sr., best known as "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine" on The Gong Show, has died at the age of 82. He had suffered from diabetes.

The Gong Show was a 1970s era talent show on which amateur acts would perform for a panel of judges. Throughout the run of the Gong Show Mr. Patton would be introduced by host Chuck Barris and dance on stage to the tune of Jumping at the Woodside by Count Basie and his Orchestra. Before appearing on the Gong Show Mr. Patton was the first African-American member of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, Local 33. Mr. Patton appeared as himself The Gong Show Movie and in the Chuck Barris biography Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

posted by Rob Rockets (39 comments total)

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posted by Rob Rockets at 8:09 PM on March 14, 2015

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posted by Going To Maine at 8:12 PM on March 14, 2015

Oh, man. Gene was the best. Hell, that whole show was the best tv.

Dance on, Gene.

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posted by Thorzdad at 8:17 PM on March 14, 2015 [6 favorites]

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(Jaye P. Morgan's tribute)
posted by parliboy at 8:24 PM on March 14, 2015 [5 favorites]

One of the sad ironies of Mr. Patton's appearance in Confession of a Dangerous Mind is that the "dancing machine" had lost both legs to diabetes.

Dance on, Gene.

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posted by jonp72 at 8:27 PM on March 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

Huh. He also worked as a camera man for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

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posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:30 PM on March 14, 2015

One of the ironies is that altho Patton was one of many stagehands to make it to the "wrong side of the camera" (we're not supposed to be seen most of the time), most stagehands I'm acquainted with are just as crazy, just backstage.
posted by nevercalm at 8:35 PM on March 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just saw a good profile of "Gene Gene" from 2003 here.

It was hard for anybody to keep a shred of dignity on The Gong Show, but Gene Patton did it.
He danced like nobody's watching, even when everyone was.

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posted by oneswellfoop at 8:38 PM on March 14, 2015 [8 favorites]

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posted by ursus_comiter at 8:58 PM on March 14, 2015

It's hard to believe there once was a time where we had shows like The Gong Show make it to the air. But it did, and I'm happy to say I was there to see it. RIP, Gene.

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posted by JoeZydeco at 9:16 PM on March 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

Mark Evanier, writing in 2006, about being on set one time when Gene danced:

I've been on many TV stages in my life. I've seen big stars, huge stars — Johnny, Frank, Sammy, Dino, Bob, you name 'em. I've seen great acts and great joy, and if you asked me to name the most thrilling moment I've witnessed in person, I might just opt for the Gong Show electrifying Stage 3 for all of 120 seconds. Maybe it was because it came so totally out of nowhere that it stunned me but everyone, including the stone-cold sober people, was suddenly just so…happy. There was something very, very invigorating and enjoyable about being in the midst of all that sudden happiness, however frivolous it may have been.

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posted by Shmuel510 at 9:21 PM on March 14, 2015 [18 favorites]

Gene:an artist. Chuck:a genius. I miss the world that allowed that show to be. Man, Murray Langston. Back when you could be funny without a bunch of idiots crawling all over your back about it. The Unknown Comic is the funny version of Sean Connery vs. Trebek. WHERE ARE THE COKED-UP MILLIONAIRE HOSTS WHEN YOU NEED THEM?
posted by umberto at 9:33 PM on March 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

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First clip I ever liked on YouTube.
posted by furtive at 10:09 PM on March 14, 2015

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For Gene.

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For the lines of cocaine I imagine everyone else associated with that show was doing. Man, the 70's were just fucking strange.
posted by mosk at 10:27 PM on March 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Shmuel510, I think your remark encompasses it: I have rarely seen a live television experience that was so insanely and universally HAPPY, however coke-fueled or whatever it was. Just a beautiful thing to witness. Chuck is a maniac and unlauded genius in happifying people, whatever his foibles may have been. One of the best live performance experiences of my life. And he did that every day. Awesome.
posted by umberto at 10:47 PM on March 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

Gene meets my strict "lived a good life" criteria. Rest in peace, dancing machine.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:52 PM on March 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

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posted by dougzilla at 11:08 PM on March 14, 2015

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posted by trip and a half at 11:38 PM on March 14, 2015

Confession: I've never really been clear on what the Gong Show was or why it existed.

This clip... did not clarify that any.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:41 PM on March 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

But everyone involved sure did seem to be having an excellent time.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:47 PM on March 14, 2015

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posted by Spatch at 11:50 PM on March 14, 2015

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posted by Smart Dalek at 12:34 AM on March 15, 2015

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:      STUFF     :
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posted by bicyclefish at 1:25 AM on March 15, 2015 [11 favorites]

"everyone involved sure did seem to be having an excellent time"
Yep, that's pretty much what it was and why it existed.

It took the format of a "talent show" that had been done a hundred times before, loosened everything up until it almost fell apart, threw in some elements just for the hell of it (including the little 'dance break' by Gene, one of the show's stagehands) and laughed all the way to... well, it never was popular enough to be a big money maker, but it was notably weird enough that everybody knew about it.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:50 AM on March 15, 2015 [6 favorites]

To be honest, something about Chuck Barris always made my skin crawl. Something about the dude seemed a little creepy.

Anyway, RIP Gene.
posted by darkstar at 2:39 AM on March 15, 2015

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posted by shibori at 2:41 AM on March 15, 2015

The Gong Show and The Muppet show played back to back on my local TV station in the late 70's. 7-8pm daily, I rarely missed it. Best TV ever, and last good TV until maybe the Sopranos? Chuck Barris was a true genius who really understood the medium. Then he comes out decades later and says it was all CIA! The guy had layers.

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posted by telstar at 2:57 AM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

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posted by teponaztli at 3:10 AM on March 15, 2015

I just remembered my personal two-degrees-of-separation from The Gong Show. And you're going to have to believe me on this; I have no documentation of it that has survived the years. But when I was doing writing and stuff for a certain Wacky L.A. Radio Guy, he was working for a station in a facility that housed the studios where several old-time radio network shows were produced. Well, in the 1970s, the station's owners didn't need all those production facilities, so they planned to relocate to a new place and sell the property. But before leaving, my Wacky Radio Guy wanted to do one final broadcast from their biggest studio which had a full stage and audience... but he wanted to do it as easily as possible, so he announced "The Last Great Radio Talent Show". For a week before the scheduled event, he 'pre-auditioned' people who wanted to participate on the air over the phone. When it came time for the show, I, and his other 'regulars' got to just sit in the audience and watch the show. With a little publicity push, every L.A. TV station had sent a news crew to record this "historic radio event". The whole thing was done very loosey-goosey and the assembled audience (free admission, of course, and we filled most of the studio's 400+ seats) provided plenty of laughter and applause. But then, with about 15 minutes left in the scheduled hour, Wacky Radio Guy's Assistant Producer approached me... it looked like they were going to be running short - could I come up with something to fill two minutes that looked like a talent act? Well, I looked at the crowd and the TV cameras and was about to panic and run away when I noticed something else: audio cables strewn across the stage. I said "okay, just give me an intro". So, a few minutes later, Wacky Radio Guy said "and now our next act is... Wendell?!?" (yes, I was using Wendell as a public alias way back then) "What kind of talent could YOU have?" "Well, I've kind of kept this private, but... I'm a skilled tightrope walker." The audience looked at this 50-pound-overweight college kid in corduroys and, as I expected, laughed out loud. "But my regular tightrope set didn't make it here, so let me just use these cables on the stage to do some "ground-level tightrope walking". More laughter. An engineer just off stage glared at me, scared I'd unplug the entire show. The room hushed and I began, walking gingerly along the cables with my arms in wire-walker position while scat-singing some circus-style music... "doot doot doodle-oodle doot deet dee..." Once across the stage and back and then I leaped (two feet) off the cables and went "ta-daaa!!" I never got more applause for anything I did publicly in my life. Well, that evening, at home, I scanned all the local newscasts to see how they covered the event... of course, it was usually in the 'end-of-the newscast-human-interest' slot, and none of the stations used any footage of me (I felt relieved...) until the last newscast, anchored by George Putnam, an L.A. institution (and partial model for Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show), the piece on his newscast ended and I had again seemingly dodged notoriety. But Putnam, who usually ended with a pompous patriotic declaration while saluting an in-studio flag (seriously!), broke format to say "I've been in this business, on radio and TV, for a lot of years, and let me tell you there are some things that are just better on radio." And then, while the credit crawl for the newscast ran, they showed most of the two minutes of my ground-level tightrope walking act. I was gobsmacked. The anchor who usually declared "here's to a better America" then points to the flag, had essentially said "here's to a better America" and pointed at Wendell. But the only opportunity this public display led to for me was a chance, a year later, to replace Wacky Radio Guy's Assistant Producer.

But what did this have to do with The Gong Show? Well, when I stated working fulltime for Wacky Radio Guy, he said to me... "you know that Gong Show thing Chuck Barris is now doing? He told me he got the original idea from hearing our "Last Great Radio Talent Show". He even talked about hiring me... but when we got to talking, there were a lot of things, like Gonging off the bad acts, that I just couldn't go for." "Well, did he ever mention my rope walking act?" "Uh, nope." I considered pitching the act to Barris and company - for about three seconds - then mentally filed it all under "Wendell's '70s Radio Anecdotes".
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:13 AM on March 15, 2015 [23 favorites]

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posted by heatvision at 3:23 AM on March 15, 2015

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posted by lapolla at 4:37 AM on March 15, 2015

. for Gene

Bonus links: Hillary Carlip and Oingo Boingo On The Gong Show.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:05 AM on March 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

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posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:29 AM on March 15, 2015

I've never really been clear on what the Gong Show was or why it existed.

i'm not sure if anyone in the show could explain that either - it was just a dumb parody of something like the ted mack amateur hour that quickly got out of control and became an amazing, goofy mess of insanity

this is the infamous act that did the gong show in (not exactly NSFW, but certainly not safe for 70s TV)

and gene, gene the dancing machine was the star of the show, the best act ever

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posted by pyramid termite at 5:34 AM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

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posted by Beti at 9:56 AM on March 15, 2015

Out of context, Gene Patton's little dance seems like such a simple thing, and yet it made millions of people happy. We should all be so lucky as to be able to do something like that.

The best parts of the Gong Show had the anarchic goofiness of a live action cartoon. And even on those days when there were mostly sub-par acts, it was worth sitting through them for the possibility of an appearance by Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, and the ensuing two minutes of fun.

I am no longer a religious person, but if there were such a thing as the Pearly Gates of Heaven, I'd like to think that when Gene Patton arrived, St. Peter opened those gates and hollered out, "It's Gene Gene the Dancing Machine!!" And now they are having a big party in heaven dancing like crazy to "Jumping at the Woodside".

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posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 10:07 AM on March 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:47 AM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

St. Peter opened those gates and hollered out, "It's Gene Gene the Dancing Machine!!"

You forgot the 'aaaaawwwwwWWWWWWWW!!!!" lead in, but otherwise, spot on.

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| EVEL KNIEVEL  | 
|     IS A      |
| CRASHING BORE |
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posted by eriko at 8:37 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

If anybody still reads the comments down here, another part of "The Gong Show" has recently passed away, bandleader Milton DeLugg.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:36 PM on April 8, 2015