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i'm in the deathly afraid of pie crust camp, and this seems very doable - and not scary at all :)

Making a flour pie crust from scratch is well and good, but some pies are better with a graham cracker crumb crust, like key lime pie.
I have a great recipe for coconut custard pie, from Cook's Illustrated. It calls for a Nabisco Barnum's Animal Cracker crumb-and-coconut crust, but I do it with a chocolate-coconut crust instead. Who can resist the combination of chocolate and coconut?

6 oz. Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers
8 tbsp. unsweetened shredded coconut
1-14 oz. can coconut milk
9 tbsp. granulated sugar
5 large egg yolks
6 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp. vanilla extract
whipped cream topping

Position oven rack in lower–middle position and preheat to 325°F. Combine the chocolate wafers, 2 tbsp. coconut, 1 tbsp. sugar, and a pinch of salt in the food processor. Pulse until crumbs are finely ground. Melt 4 tbsp. of the butter and cool slightly. Combine the crumbs and the melted butter in mixing bowl, and work together with a fork until mixture resembles wet sand.
Using the bottom of a ramekin, press this mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9" pie plate. Blind bake 15 min. @ 325°F, remove from oven, and cool to room temp on a wire rack, while you prepare the filling.
Combine 5 tbsp. coconut, coconut milk, whole milk, 8 tbsp. sugar, and the remaining 3/8 tsp. salt in a medium saucepan, and bring to a simmer over medium–high heat, stirring occasionally. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, cornstarch, and 1 tbsp. sugar. Temper the egg yolks by slowly drizzling the hot milk mixture into the eggs, a little at a time while whisking constantly. When the egg mixture and milk are fully incorporated, return mixture to saucepan and cook until thickened and mixture reaches boil, whisking constantly, about 1 min.
Off heat, whisk in remaining 2 tbsp. butter and 1 tsp. vanilla until smooth. Pour hot filling into cooled pie shell. Press plastic wrap directly against surface of filling and refrigerate pie for at least 4 hours to set.
Place remaining 1 tbsp. shredded coconut in a small, dry frying pan and toast over medium heat until golden brown. Reserve to garnish the finished pie.

To serve, top pie with fresh whipped cream, and sprinkle the toasted coconut.

Where I live they don't stock chocolate cookie wafers. Seriously. Can you believe it?!! I ended up using chocolate teddy grahams.

@reubensandperrier: I second the Teddy Graham-based crusts.

One of the best chocolate pie crusts for ice cream or cream cheese based pies is fresh, homemade brownies, smooshed together with some melted butter, and pressed by hand into a pie plate. Fill this with a mixture of good vanilla ice cream, chunky peanut butter, and fold in some whipped cream then freeze. Shave some good chocolate over top and serve. I've gotten some rave reviews with this one.

Gosh, it really isn't that hard to make a decent pie crust -- and it certainly shouldn't take very long. In fact, one reason many crusts fail is that the baker spends too much time working the dough, which makes it tough. This chocolate crust sounds fine for the dough-averse, and it would go nicely with a cherry filling as suggested, but it's never going to be the kind of rich, flaky crust that complements a peach or apple filling with its taste and texture. Crust is no more a mere vehicle for pie filling than pasta is a vehicle for sauce! Give the homemade crust a few more tries; the saying "easy as pie" wasn't intended to be oxymoronic.

Gastronomeg - I just did a search and it seems they have been discontinued. They used to be in the baking aisle right next to the boxes of graham cracker crumbs.
Bummer!!!

@ieatgoodfood: This breaks down the measurements for many gooey substitutions. For a peanut butter gooey, for example, you'd use a chocolate cake mix for the "crust" part and a cup of peanut butter for the gooey. Everything can be gooey cake-ified!

not that i am defending this recipe because i don't even like pumpkin, but i will say i made the barefoot contessa coconut cupcakes last weekend and they were just as bad in terms of contents -- OVER a box of powdered sugar (including the frosting), a box and a half of cream cheese, two bags of sweetened coconut, and nearly two boxes of butter if i recall. delicious if you forget what's inside! ;)

How would you substitute the other items you could make this with? Like say peanut butter or strawberries and bananas? Are there alternate recipes lurking around here somewhere? I am not a huge pumpkin fan, but these sound wonderful.

I made regular ones this weekend. I used 3/4 of the amount of suggested sugar and I bet you could use even 1/2 the amount and they would still be very decadent.

I have made the pumpkin gooey butter cake many times...although I prefer some of the other flavors that I have made. Has anyone ever made the gooey butter cookies. they are great and everyone loves them.