Tribute today to Eugene Patton (1932-2015) better known to the world at large as “Gene, Gene, the Dancing machine”.
Gene was a brief phenomenon of the late 1970s on The Gong Show. A heavyset African American man in a track suit and fisherman’s cap, he would come out and do a very minimalistic dance, always to the same show bizzy vamp. The comedy (for me) always arose from the fact that it was about the very least you could present on a stage and call entertainment. Yet done with joy and perfect confidence as though it were the greatest act in the world.
There’s actually a bit of backstory to it. Gene was a stagehand on the show. He started coming out as a warm-up act prior to taping. Eventually Chuck Barris put him on the program. In the end, he was a permanent feature of every single show, closing out the program over the closing credits.
This is why television exists:
For more on show business history, please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous. And please keep an eye out for Vaudeville in Your Living Room: A Century of Radio and TV Variety, coming out from Bear Manor Media November, 2023.
(Travalanche) 