Chuck Barris'' sole purpose through his teenage years in Philadelphia concerns promiscuity but he is unsuccessful. Inspired by a television advertisement he moves to Manhattan to become an NBC page. He dreams of becoming famous in television but is eventually fired. Chuck moves back to Philadelphia and becomes Dick Clark''s personal assistant on American Bandstand in 1961. There he writes the successful ''Palisades Park'' song with Freddy Cannon and falls in love with a woman named Penny Pacino. Chuck is given permission to pitch the concept for The Dating Game at the American Broadcasting Company (ABC); he receives $7500 to create a television pilot for the studio. However ABC abandons The Dating Game in favor of Hootenanny. Chuck then struggles with his life and ends up in bar fights. He is noticed by a man named Jim Byrd a CIA agent who recruits Chuck as an assassin. Returning from a mission in Mexico Chuck finds that Penny has conformed to the hippie movement. Meanwhile ABC de