Turn-On
Turn-On was an
American television series that aired for one day in
1969.
The show was created by
Ed Friendly and
George Schlatter, producers of
Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, and picked up by
ABC after it was rejected by
NBC and
CBS. Production executive
Digby Wolfe described it as a "visual, comedic, sensory assault involving
animation,
videotape,
stop-action film, electronic distortion,
computer graphics -- even people." The show's main gimmick was that it was produced by a
computer (although in reality this wasn't true). It featured synthesized music and was filmed on a white backdrop without any sets. The show consisted of various rapid fire jokes and risque
skits, for which there also was no
laugh track.
Turn-On's sole episode aired on Wednesday,
February 5,
1969. Among the cast were
Pat Paulsen (best known for his appearances on
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and his many comical runs for the Presidency),
Tim Conway (best known for his long run on
The Carol Burnett Show) and
Chuck McCann (longtime kiddie show host, character actor, and voice artist). Guests for the one and only televised episode included Senator
Hubert H. Humphrey (D.-Minn) and an animated
Daffy Duck.
In some markets, including
Denver, the show went to a commercial break and simply never came back. Many stations made the decision to never air it again immediately after the first episode finished. ABC pulled the plug completely within a week.
Some claim that the show was cancelled because it was too extreme for America's tastes at the time -- the only episode that aired featured, in roughly equal proportions, rapid fire gags with sexual innuendos that turned people off instead of turning them on, pastiche film clip sequences in extremely bad taste, and straightforward
non sequitur bizarreness. However writer
Harlan Ellison, who has long held a taste for the extreme and pushing the envelope, maintained that it was simply a very bad derivative of
Laugh-In.
Turn-On has been consistently called one of the most notorious flops in television.
*
List of television shows canceled after one episode*
Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos, a show also cancelled
during its sole broadcast.
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