Turn-On

I was a teenager in the Los Angeles area when it aired in its entirety.

It was heavily promoted (hyped) and being rebellious I had to watch. My parents were not upset but more stunned. As in, "What the...." A blend of topical humor of Laugh-In infused with the DNA of Ernie Kovacs led to a bad reaction -- the grafting did not take and resulted in chaos and convulsions. And not convulsions of laughter. It was not offensive, just alien. I was irritated by the continuous drumming or scatting or some annoying audio underlay that was more annoying that a continuous laugh track.

Creative is was. Entertaining it was not...unless you find train wrecks entertaining. Glad it was archived. Oddly, one of the few details I recall was that Sebastian Cabot was going to be the guest host the next week. I pondered if he knew what he was getting himself into.

Yes, this one definately aired on ABC...I remember watching that one episode broadcasting out of New York in 1969. I was only ten years old at the time, so I wouldn't have understood much, if any, of the sexual innuendo. Although I wasn't completely green, having managed to view part of Jane Fonda's Barbarella a few months earlier, after the kiddie classic The Christmas that Almost Wasn't.

From all the commercial hype leading up to the show I was expecting--no, hoping for--another "Laugh-In," which was the most talked-about series on TV during the 1968-69 season and Goldie Hawn the most talked-about new star. "Laugh-In" was my favorite show at that time, and figured two of the same was better than one.

Which was what nobody got. I remember this being one of the most lame excuses for a prime-time show I had ever seen. My older sisters and I weren't horrified by the content so much as bored and disappointed.

When it didn't come back the following week, I was surprised yet not surprised. I never saw a show disappear that quickly, no matter how bad. And yet I wouldn't mind seeing this again...if only to re-confirm what I thought then.

I (believe it or don't) saw blips of this on a Japanese sampler of "Comedy Shows From Around The World." I don't know where they got the clips from however.

Setting a record for the fastest cancellation is this show's only mention in most cases. It's "Laugh-In" with the raunchy humor turned up a few notches. Teresa Graves is even in it.

The rapid (and I do mean RAPID) fire humor looked like Monty Python on crystal meth. Too fast for most. And the double-entendres put off sponsors and censors. Big surprise there. The music was the WORST thing about this. That probably single-handedly prevented anyone from even caring if this got nixed.

That said, the networks made a mistake by not trying to give it another chance. It probably could have been great. But the producers goofed and the censors were too tight.

My personal fave joke? Sexy girl in front of a firing squad. "Miss, instead of you getting a last request, we would like to make a last request." Wink-wink.

Anyone got this on video? Drop me a line if you do.

The producers of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" tried to outdo themselves with this ABC show, which had rapid-fire visual effects (sometimes lasting seconds). It was supposedly comedy produced by a computer monitored by two technicians. (In those days before effective videotape editing, it was produced on film to support those rapid cuts.)

The show got many complaints for its "dirtiness", which to my memory consisted of guest star Tim Conway saying something about "damn kids" and a one-minute silent bit with Conway's and a cast member's disembodied heads bobbing around on a black screen, with big glowing neon letters spelling "SEX." The show was cancelled the next morning by ABC, which I believe is still the record holder for a TV show cancellation.

When Tim was doing chat shows in the 70s, the discussion would always include a comment like, "You've been on a lot of TV series." Tim would then respond by listing every show he was on, and then the number of episodes before it was cancelled. And then he would say, "Turn-On. Cancelled after one show."

Legend has it the head of ABC programming actually decided to cancel it the moment it ended. At the time, ABC was still the distant third-place network. The hope was that George Schlatter could give ABC a counterpart to NBC's LAUGH-IN and CBS' SMOTHERS BROTHERS. Too bad the material was just not there. I was 12 when I watched this. None of my family was interested on it, so I watched it in my bedroom. I remember thinking it was odd. I don't recall laughing much at it.