Turn-On

If LAUGH-IN, today, dates very badly (how many of us find jokes about figures from the LBJ and Nixon period funny today?), TURN-ON lacks the variety of the comic skits that makes parts of LAUGH-IN funny even now. It was only 30 minutes long, and it's running connection was briefly shot scenes of two or three men in a booth running the projector and special effects. It wasted some talented people, including two favorites of mine, Hamilton Camp and Chuck McCann. In fact, the "best" memory I have of this terrible show was of McCann, as a cop on the beat at a lover's lane in the country, looking through car windows with a flashlight, singing, "Hello Young Lovers" as he did so. That was the show's best moment.

The Museum of Television and Radio actually have two episodes of Turn On (though one is slightly misfiled). This show is one of the most surreal pieces of television I have ever witnessed. Shot entirely on a white sound stage with no sets and no laugh track, the gags are faster than rapid fire and rather cutting edge for the time. The credits (which feature many names not listed here, including Albert Brooks) run for the entire duration of both programs! Other episodes shot for this program (but never aired) included guest shots from Sebastian Cabot and the Monkees. Robert Culp is the special guest on episode two. All I can tell you is that most descriptions of this program in books or on the internet are from people who have never actually seen this thing - it isn't so much a Laugh In rip off, as it is what might happen if the Fox network tried to spice up the Laugh In concept. With skits about foot fetishes and birth control it may still be a little much for the meek. I recommend it to any '60s pop culture fanatic (though the first episode will give you a headache from the incessant Moog synthesizer music, which is played non-stop).

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.

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.

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.