Bankrate: Did your spending go up with your income?

Barris: I guess it did. I had a house in Malibu, Hawaii, I had a house in Hollywood, Calif., I had a couple of cars. Cars were the thing. I never had a car when I was in high school, and I would just work my way up the ladder. I wouldn't keep a car for more than 3,000 miles. It wasn't something that changed my life appreciably. Of course, those things were very wonderful to have, but I just don't remember doing much different than what I did.

Bankrate: Almost a decade later, "The Gong Show" came along, and for the first time you stepped in front of the camera.

Barris: Yeah. That came about because the host we had doing the pilot had no idea what the show was about and just couldn't get it. So eventually we got into a time problem where we needed to get this show on the air and the vice president at NBC said to me, "Either you do it or I'm going to get a replacement (show)." So I had that decision to make and I made it, but I knew all along that I was going to do it because, first of all, I'm a ham, and I wasn't going to lose my show for another show. So it was a nondecision.

But in retrospect, the decision was powerful and had so many offshoots that you could never really figure out whether I made a good decision or a bad one. One thing is, if I hadn't performed on that show and instead gotten the right guy to where I could have just stayed the producer, I think that show would still be on the air, because I wrecked it. Another thing is, no matter what I do the rest of my life I will always be the guy who did "The Gong Show."

Bankrate: How much of you did we see on camera? Were you being yourself?

Barris: No, I wasn't being natural. For the first year, I tried to be natural but it soon disappeared. I broke every rule on that show that I had always given to my game show hosts on my other programs. I always told them that doing five days a week can become very boring and you could find yourself being bored to death, so fight it. Just keep doing the show, because the audience just wants to see that. Then I went on the air and in about the second year, I started thinking this is the boring-est thing there is, so I would ratchet up my enthusiasm a notch, then another notch until I just lost it. It was ridiculous. I just blew it. I couldn't deal with it.

But then there is a time when I get tired of most everything. I work in 20-year cycles: I went to school for 20 years; I worked in television for 20 years; I've been writing for 20 years; now it's time to do something else. There was a time that came when I just got tired of doing "The Gong Show," it just was driving me nuts and that was that.