Turn-On is an American surrealsketch comedy series created by Digby Wolfe and George Schlatter that aired once on ABC on Wednesday, February 5, 1969. Only one episode was shown partially before being pulled from ABC's airing schedule, leaving another episode unaired. The show has since been considered one of the most infamous flops in TV history, with significantly low initial ratings and negative critical reception.
Turn-On's sole broadcast episode replaced the Wednesday episode of Peyton Place - in fact, it was even referenced on the show itself, where, in the opening, Tim Conway refers to the show as "Peyton Re-Place". Among the cast were Teresa Graves (who would join the Laugh-In cast that fall), Hamilton Camp, and Chuck McCann. The writing staff included Albert Brooks. The guest host for the first episode was Tim Conway, who also participated in certain sketches. Schlatter and Ed Friendly, who had previously been the producers of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, were contracted by Bristol-Myers to develop the show, and provided it to ABC for a projected 13-week run after it was rejected by NBC and CBS.
Premise
The first and only aired episode of Turn-On
Turn-On's premise was that it was "the first computerized TV show", according to its opening sequence; the show had no sets except for a clinical white backdrop, where sketches generated by an artificially intelligent computer would be acted out. Unlike the generally appealing humor of Laugh-In, Turn-On was oriented around off-color humor and "focused almost exclusively on sex as a comedic subject",[1] using various rapid-fire jokes and risqué skits. Co-creator and production executive Digby Wolfe described it as a "visual, comedic, sensory assault involving animation, videotape, stop-action film, electronic distortion, computer graphics—even people."[2] Sounds created with Moog synthesizers were used in lieu of a laugh track, representing the computer's laughter. The program was also filmed instead of presented live or on videotape; in a style of presentation that was novel for the time, several sketches and jokes were presented with the screen divided into four squares resembling comic strip panels. The production credits of the episode were inserted at random intervals after the first commercial break, instead of conventionally at the beginning or end.
Reaction
When initially presented to CBS, a network official stated that Turn-On was "so fast with the cuts and chops that some of our people actually got physically disturbed by it."[3] Tim Conway has stated that Turn-On was canceled midway through its only episode, so that the party that the cast and crew held for its premiere as the show aired across the United States also marked its cancellation.[4][5] A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Conway later claimed that the Cleveland ABC affiliate, WEWS-TV, replaced the show after the first commercial break and utilized an "emergency protocol" of a black screen with live organ music.[4]
Ten minutes into Turn-On, WEWS general manager Donald Perris called ABC's headquarters by telephone to notify that they would no longer air the show[6] and sent to ABC president Elton Rule[7] an angry telegram: "If your naughty little boys have to write dirty words on the walls, please don't use our walls. Turn-On is turned off, as far as WEWS is concerned."[8][9] After the program aired, a WEWS spokesman claimed that the station's switchboard was "lit up" with protest calls, and Perris derided Turn-On as being "in excessive poor taste".[7] George Schlatter would later accuse Perris of actively lobbying other affiliates prior to the broadcast to force a network cancellation after objecting to it replacing Peyton Place on the Wednesday night schedule.[10][11] At the same time, WAKR-TV in Akron, Ohio—the Cleveland market's other primary ABC affiliate—did not receive any negative phone calls but their general manager criticized the show's "questionable taste".[7]
After seeing the episode, several stations in the later western time zones decided not to broadcast the show at all, including Portland, Oregon's KATU, Seattle, Washington's KOMO-TV, and Denver, Colorado's KBTV, which stated: "We have decided, without hesitation, that it would be offensive to a major segment of the audience."[12] Viewers of Little Rock, Arkansas's KATV, which disliked the show but decided to air it, "jam[med] the station's switchboard" with complaints.[8]Dallas, Texas ABC affiliate WFAA elected to air the show on the following Sunday night at 10:30 local time, to an overwhelmingly negative response.[13]
Both The New York Times and the Associated Press gave the show poor reviews.[8] An ABC executive stated that "creatively, Turn-On didn't work". He compared the show negatively to the comedy of Dean Martin, Laugh-In, and the Smothers Brothers, which the executive described as "absolutely beyond belief ... awfully blue", but were popular and less controversial because unlike Turn-On, "they're funny".[14] After Turn-On's cancellation TV Guide called the show "The biggest bomb of the season". It stated that both CBS and NBC had rejected the show due to its perceived lack of quality, and that its sexual content was an important reason why viewers rejected the show.[15] The magazine quoted a source who lamented Turn-On's lack of a regular host or interlocutor: "(T)here wasn't any sort of identification with the audience -- just a bunch of strangers up there insulting everything you believe in."
Conway said in 2008 that Turn-On was "way ahead of its time. I'm not sure even if you saw it today that maybe that time has also passed."[4] Bart Andrews, in his 1980 book The Worst TV Shows Ever, stated that Turn-On was actually quite close to the original concept for Laugh-In. "It wasn't that it was a bad show, it was that it was an awkward show," concluded author Harlan Ellison, a fan of counter-cultural comedy and a TV critic for the Los Angeles Free Press in 1969.
On February 7, ABC announced that Turn-On would go on hiatus. Instead of the scheduled February 12 episode, the ABC Wednesday Night Movie (The Oscar, itself an infamous flop) would start 30 minutes early.[16] This announcement came after the following week's TV Guide went to press; it published a listing for the scheduled February 12 episode, which would have starred Robert Culp and then-wife France Nuyen as hosts.[8][2] Finally, on February 10, the show was formally canceled. By this time, WEWS, KBTV, and KATV all told ABC that they would not air the show again; with several other affiliates having already turned it down, it no longer made financial sense to air it.[8] ABC received 369 calls of complaint during the show and 20 calls that supported it;[3] by comparison, the network received 1,800 protest calls several weeks earlier after preempting the Wednesday Night Movie for an address by President Richard Nixon introducing his cabinet appointees.[6] Network officials told sponsor Bristol-Myers that the show was unacceptable and Bristol-Myers ordered Schlatter and Friendly to end production.[3] Many assumed the show's title was itself an implicit reference to Timothy Leary's pro-drug maxim, "Turn on, tune in, drop out".
The network eventually replaced Turn On with a revival of The King Family Show focusing on the Four King Cousins. The controversy led ABC to reject a pilot written by Norman Lear, stating that the lead character was "foul-mouthed, and bigoted", out of fear that it might anger its affiliates again. CBS liked the pilot, picked it up as All in the Family, and began airing it during the 1970-71 midseason.[17][18]
In 2002, Turn-On was ranked number 27 on TV Guide's 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time.[19]What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History ranked it at number 25.[20]
Both completed episodes are available for public viewing at the Paley Center for Media.[21] They were also made available for viewing on YouTube on October 9, 2023, along with clips from the unfinished third episode.[22]
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In is an American sketch comedy television program that ran for six seasons from January 22, 1968, to March 12, 1973, on the NBC television network. The show, hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, originally aired as a one-time special on September 9, 1967, and was such a success that it was brought back as a series, replacing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. on Mondays at 8 pm (ET). It quickly became the most popular television show in the United States.
The year 1970 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of notable television-related events in that year.
A laugh track is an audio recording consisting of laughter usually used as a separate soundtrack for comedy productions. The laugh track may contain live audience reactions or artificial laughter made to be inserted into the show, or a combination of the two. The use of canned laughter to "sweeten" the laugh track was pioneered by American sound engineer Charles "Charley" Douglass.
Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway was an American actor, comedian, writer, and director. Conway is perhaps best known as a regular cast member (1975–1978) on the TV comedy The Carol Burnett Show where he portrayed his recurrent iconic characters Mister Tudball and the Oldest Man. Over his career he received numerous accolades including five Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999 and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2002.
WEWS-TV is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC. It has been owned by the E. W. Scripps Company since its inception in 1946, making it one of three stations that have been built and signed on by Scripps. WEWS-TV's studios are located on Euclid Avenue in Downtown Cleveland, and its transmitter is located in suburban Parma.
The Carol Burnett Show is an American variety/sketch comedy television show that originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 279 episodes, and again with nine episodes in fall 1991. It starred Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, and Lyle Waggoner. In 1975, frequent guest star Tim Conway became a regular cast member after Waggoner left the series. In 1977, Dick Van Dyke replaced Korman but it was agreed that he was not a match and he left after 10 episodes.
Harvey Herschel Korman was an American actor and comedian who performed in television and film productions. He is best remembered as a main cast member alongside Carol Burnett, Tim Conway and Vicki Lawrence on the CBS sketch comedy series The Carol Burnett Show (1967–1977) for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
KUSA is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KTVD. The two stations share studios on East Speer Boulevard in Denver's Speer neighborhood; KUSA's transmitter is located atop Lookout Mountain, near Golden. In addition to its main studios, the station also operates a secondary studio and news bureau on Canyon Avenue in Fort Collins.
The Jackie Gleason Show is the name of a series of American network television shows that starred Jackie Gleason, which ran from 1952 to 1970, in various forms.
The "rural purge" of American television networks was a series of cancellations in the early 1970s of still-popular rural-themed shows with demographically skewed audiences, the majority of which occurred at the end of the 1970–71 television season. In addition to rural-themed shows such as Mayberry R.F.D., The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres, the cancellations ended several highly rated variety shows that had been on CBS since the beginning of television broadcasting. CBS saw a dramatic change in direction with the shift, moving away from shows with rural themes and toward more appeal to urban and suburban audiences.
John Albert Riley Jr. was an American actor and writer. He was known for playing Elliot Carlin, a chronic psychology client of the main character on The Bob Newhart Show, and for voicing Stu Pickles, one of the parents in the animated Rugrats franchise.
Ferris Bueller is an American sitcom television series based on the 1986 John Hughes film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The show stars Charlie Schlatter in the title role. The series debuted on August 23, 1990, on NBC and was canceled within its first season, a few months after its debut with only 13 episodes aired, due to its poor reception. The show was produced by Maysh, Ltd. Productions in association with Paramount Television. Hughes was not involved in the show's production.
Ernest Earle Anderson was an American radio and television personality, horror host, and announcer.
Kids Say the Darndest Things is an American comedy series that was based on a feature segment of the same name on Art Linkletter's radio and television program, House Party. Linkletter hosted the segment on the program's CBS television adaptation from 1959 to 1967. The network later resurrected the segment in the form of hour-long specials, hosted by Bill Cosby, that aired on May 16 and November 14, 1997, and then as a weekly series from January 9, 1998, to June 23, 2000. A revival of the program, hosted by Tiffany Haddish, aired on ABC from October 6, 2019, to January 19, 2020; after its initial cancellation, the series moved to CBS, its original network, airing for one additional season from May 5 to June 23, 2021.
The Morning Exchange is an American morning television program that aired on WEWS-TV in Cleveland, Ohio from 1972 to 1999.
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George Schlatter is an American television producer and director, best known for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, founder of the American Comedy Awards, and author of Still Laughing: A Life in Comedy.
The Oldest Man, sometimes referred to as Duane Toddleberry, is a recurring character from comedy sketches featured on The Carol Burnett Show. The character was created by Tim Conway during his run on the show and is noted for Conway's performance of slapstick and ad-libbed humor. The character has been revisited in Conway's live comedy tour with fellow actor Harvey Korman from 2003 until Korman's death in 2008, twice on The Queen Latifah Show between 2014 and 2015, in a sketch in the Motion Picture & Television Fund, and also in the collector's edition DVD titled Together Again, which includes new sketches starring Tim Conway and Harvey Korman in their classic roles from The Carol Burnett Show.
↑ Doan, Richard K.; Finnigan, Joseph (May 17–23, 1969). "The Show That Died After One Night: The Inglorious History of 'Turn-On,' a $1,000,000 TV Disaster". TV Guide. p.6.
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