Barris Productions: Difference between revisions

'''Barris Productions, Inc.''' was a television production company that was started on June 14, 1965 by Chuck Barris as "'''Chuck Barris Enterprises, Inc.'''". The very first series was an unsold pilot called ''People Pickers'' and the first hit series was ''The Dating Game''. On October 28, 1968, Barris took his production company public. After the cancellation of ''Treasure Hunt'' in 1982, Barris left to move to France. He returned to the United States in 1984 and formed a distribution arm called "[[Bel-Air Program Sales]]" in October and syndicated his classic series: ''The Dating Game'', ''The Newlywed Game'' (for ABC reruns), ''The Gong Show'', ''3's A Crowd'', The ''$1.98 Beauty Show'', and ''Treasure Hunt'', among others. '''Chuck Barris Productions, Inc.''' was renamed to "Barris Industries, Inc." in 1981. He created ''The New Newlywed Game'' in 1984 and airing on ABC during Valentine's Week. However, it would become a first-run syndicated program during the 1985 season.  

In 1985, Chuck Barris formed an ad-sales barter called "[[Clarion Communications]]" with Steve Mathis, which was later renamed to "Barris Advertising Sales" on April 8, 1987, Bel-Air Program Sales became "Barris Program Sales" the same year, and the production arm Chuck Barris Productions to "Barris Productions". In 1987, Barris was burnt out and left to move back to France and sold his shares of Barris Industries. In December 1987, Barris Industries under the ownership of movie producer Burt Sugarman and Giant Group, Ltd. announced a merger with The Guber-Peters Company. The merger was complete in 1988 to form "Barris/Guber-Peters". On March 31, 1989, Burt Sugarman sold his 24.4% stake in Barris Industries to Frank Lowy, who owned Westerfield Capital Corporation and Northern Star Holdings, who also owned [[Network 10 National IDs (Australia)|Network 10]] of Australia (which was acquired in 2017 by CBS Corporation, now [[Paramount Global]]) for $34.5 million after Sugarman failed to take over Media General, Inc.  

On September 6, 1989, Barris Industries changed its name to "[[The Guber-Peters Entertainment Company]]", Barris Program Sales was renamed to "Guber-Peters Program Sales" and Barris Advertising Sales was renamed to "Guber-Peters Advertising Sales" and was headed by Peter Guber and Jon Peters. On September 29, 1989, the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company was sold to Sony Corporation for $200 million, a day after Sony acquired [[Columbia Pictures]] Entertainment. The GPEC sale was completed on November 9, 1989. On November 15, 1990, Guber-Peters Television was folded into [[Columbia Pictures Television|Columbia Pictures Television Distribution]]. Currently, the Barris game shows are owned by [[Sony Pictures Entertainment]] and distributed by [[Sony Pictures Television]]. However, Barris had an independent company known as the Chuck Barris Company since 1987. Unfortunately, Barris died on March 22, 2017, at the age of 87.

* Just the game show's theme or the show's ending theme playing or the announcer (Johnny Jacobs, Rod Roddy, or Bob Hilton) announcing "[[Title of the game show]] is a Chuck Barris Production! (in association with the American Broadcasting Company (Jacobs only with the ABC mention))" or "[[Title of the game show]] is a production of Chuck Barris Creations.".

* For the first season of ''The All-New Dating Game'', Bob Hilton says: "This is Bob Hilton speaking for The All-New Dating Game, a Chuck Barris Production!".

'''Availability:''' Extinct. It was last seen on the '60s & '70s versions of ''The Newlywed Game'' on GSN. Also seen on 1st & early 2nd season episodes of ''The New Newlywed Game'', ''Treasure Hunt'', season 1 episodes of ''The-All New Dating Game'', several episodes of ''3's a Crowd'', and the '60s & '70s versions of ''The Dating Game'', among other shows that had this logo whenever GSN decides to air any one of these series.