THE GONG SHOW MOVIE: America's most definitely not got talent

If this film were a contestant on the titular tv show it would be gonged off long before it got to the end of its act.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this film but it certainly wasn't what I got.
I'll let you into a guilty secret. I love The Gong Show.

I got addicted in the late 1980s when it was finally screened on British tv as a late afternoon filler. Chuck Barris was a new kind of game show host - somewhere between bizarre (with his crazy outfits  and cornucopia of hats pulled low across his brow) and intensely annoying (that constant hand clapping/slapping when he was talking) - and the show itself was like nothing I'd seen before; a mix of chaos, truly atrocious amateur talent, and third tier celebrity judges (Jamie Farr, Rex Reed, Jaye P. Morgan, Rip Taylor et al) who gamely inserted themselves into the nonsense.
And then there was Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. He was my absolute favorite. A large African-American guy who wasn't a contestant but popped up regularly to stop the show with thirty seconds  of pretty bad disco dancing.
Every show worked to this same formula and it was immense fun to watch. I think it was the stupidity of it all that really appealed to me.
I'd heard that Barris had made a film version of the show in 1980 but had no luck in tracking down a copy until just recently. When I finally got my hands on it all I could think was "fantastic! a feature film length version of The Gong Show!! Let me at it!!!"
I didn't really think about the challenge of translating a 25 minute tv game show punctuated by commercials into an uninterrupted 90 minute feature. I didn't consider how the extra length would dilute the intensity of the original.
However Chuck Barris did, but his solution was less than ideal.

His film (he wrote, directed, starred in it and composed most of the songs) takes us behind the scenes of the tv show to give us a week in the life of Mr Barris. And what an eventful week it is!
Chuck is burning out on the pressure of auditioning dozens of acts every day, and fulfilling the network's demand for new shows each week, while getting constant harassment from people wanting to get on the show, and from network executives who insist the show is getting out of hand - too wild and too dirty.
It's affecting his sleep, his lovelife and his will to continue. He hates his life and the all-consuming monster that the hit show has become.
THE GONG SHOW MOVIE aspires to a surreal semi-documentary style but it's punctuated by too many flabby moments of nothing interesting happening to really engage. Barris is likeable enough but there's too much of him off-set interacting with dull characters and not enough about the show itself.
Most of my favourite moments from the tv show are included (including Gene Gene the Dancing Machine) but they're very brief and served only to remind me how much like the tv show this film isn't.
It was unrealistic to expect the film would simply be an extended version of the tv show, and perhaps Barris's approach is the right one. It's an interesting curio and one that I'm glad I invested the time in watching, but it's left me desperate for a Gong Show tv marathon and I can't find a channel to satisfy my craving!