At one point in the 1970s, a man named Chuck Barris controlled (as creator or host) more than 13 hours of network television every week. The wild-haired former TV exec had such a knack for twisting the traditional game-show format that his handiwork flooded America's homes daily, from The Dating Game to The Newlywed Game.

But it was The Gong Show that became the most enduring creation of "Chucky Baby" and, essentially, the end of his career. This outrageous, crowd-pleasing E! True Hollywood Story tells of a silly, scandalous reality show--decades ahead of its time--and its brilliant host with a host of other problems.

When the show began in 1976, it was just another of Barris' many hits: an amateur-hour spoof in which contestants were encouraged to be awful and then "gonged" from the stage. The, uh, talent included plump ladies playing tubas, comedians wearing barrels, upside-down banjo players and on and on. But as the train-wreck appeal grew, stars were forged: Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, the Unknown Comic and most of all, Barris, the painfully shy creator who became a different man in front of the camera.

But did the experience--from wild success to flaming failure with The Gong Show Movie--send him over the edge? As this Story recounts, after the show's demise, Barris published a surreal "autobiography" in which he claimed to be a CIA assassin. (It's now the George Clooney flick Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.) He sold his company and dropped out of Hollywood. He escaped to France for a decade, battled cancer and lived far from the mad masses he once entertained.

From Barris' wars with network censors to his surging status as a cult god, this Story takes you inside one of television's most unusual shows--and minds.

All that is coming right up on E!, but warm up first with our facts and figures on The Gong Show.