An ad for the show in TV Guide
February 5, 1969: The sketch comedy show Turn-On airs on ABC. It was intended as a weekly series. It didn't make it to a 2nd week. Worse than that: It became the 1st American TV show ever canceled during its 1st episode.
Previously, 2 American TV shows were canceled after just 1 airing. On October 31, 1948, CBS aired The Dennis James Carnival, a variety show. The premise is that it was a show-within-a-show: Host James was trying to honor his uncle's memory by keeping his carnival going. Viewers didn't buy the premise, and the show was quickly shelved.
On June 25, 1951, CBS aired the quiz show Who's Whose. Four celebrity panelists tried to guess which of 3 male contestants was married to which of 3 female contestants. It didn't work, and it, too, was removed from the schedule after just 1 airing. Neither show was offensive, they just didn't work.
The title "Turn-On" was based on psychologist and LSD advocate Timothy Leary's line: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." The show was created by Ed Friendly and George Schlatter, who had produced Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, which had debuted on NBC a little over a year earlier. Production executive Digby Wolfe described it as a "visual, comedic, sensory assault, involving animation, videotape, stop-action film, electronic distortion, computer graphics -- even people."
But, having accepted Laugh-In, NBC rejected Turn-On. So did CBS, where an official confessed, "It was so fast with the cuts and chops that some of our people actually got physically disturbed by it." Besides, CBS didn't need its own Laugh-In: They'd already had, and canceled, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
Turn-On's premise was that it was produced by a computer. Now, why would a computer be trusted with comedy? In the 1990s, after IBM proved that a computer could beat a world champion at chess, somebody wrote, "Someday, a computer will be able to write poetry, but only another computer will be able to appreciate it."
Distinguishing characteristics of the show were its use of the Moog synthesizer and a lack of sets, except for a white backdrop. Unlike Laugh-In, where the subject matters was varied but included veiled references to sex, Turn-On "focused almost exclusively on sex as a comedic subject," using various rapid-fire jokes and risqué skits, but, unlike Laugh-In, no laugh track.
The show was also filmed, instead of presented live or on videotape. Several of the jokes were presented with the screen divided into four squares resembling comic strip panels. The production credits of the episode appeared after each commercial break, instead of conventionally at the beginning or end.
The writing staff included Albert Brooks, who had already begun to make a name for himself as a standup comedian. (And he was born with the name Albert Einstein. He renamed himself after comedian Mel Brooks, a friend of his father's.) Among the castmembers were folksinger Hamilton Camp, comedian Chuck McCann, and black singer Teresa Graves.
Like Laugh-In, the show was meant to have a guest host each week. For the premiere, at 8:30 PM Eastern Time, on February 5, 1969, the guest host was Tim Conway, who had already become known as part of the casts of The Steve Allen Show and McHale's Navy.
The show was a disaster. WEWS-Channel 5 in Cleveland had their switchboard lit up with protest calls, and station general manager Donald Perris, saying the show was "in excessive poor taste," refused to return to the show after its 1st commercial break: For over 45 minutes, they used their emergency procedure, a black screen with live organ music.
In effect, Perris had canceled the show during the 1st episode. He sent an angry telegram to ABC president Elton Rule: "If your naughty little boys have to write dirty words on the walls, please don't use our walls."
KBTV-Channel 9 in Denver (which is now KUSA, and an NBC affiliate) released a statement saying, "We have decided, without hesitation, that it would be offensive to a major segment of the audience." KOMO-Channel 4 in Seattle also chose not to show it at all. And WFAA-Channel 8 in Dallas decided to air it in a "death slot," the following Sunday night, at 10:30 local (Central) time, so that as few people as possible would watch. They still got an overwhelmingly negative response.
On February 7, ABC announced that Turn-On would go on hiatus. Three days later, the show was formally canceled. Instead of the scheduled February 12 episode, the ABC Wednesday Night Movie (The Oscar) started 30 minutes early. 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 his then-wife France Nuyen as hosts. The network eventually replaced Turn On with a revival of the overly-wholesome The King Family Show.
What happened? Had American culture shifted that much in the one year and change since Laugh-In debuted? Was the culture now demanding less Laugh-In and Mod Squad, and more Walt Disney and Lawrence Welk? Did the election of Richard Nixon as President signify that much of a change, to the point where Middle America was no longer willing to accept it?
It's hard to say, because it's hard to see: Except for a few brief clips, I've never seen the debut of Turn-On. Unless you were watching it at the time, neither have you. I don't know if it's ever been shown again, anywhere, not even on nostalgia TV networks like TV Land, MeTV or Decades. It's never been released on VHS, DVD or Blu-Ray. If a complete copy of the debut episode, and the never-aired 2nd episode, exists anywhere, it's probably in a vault at ABC, or maybe at the Museum of Broadcasting in New York. So we only have contemporary reviews to go by.
Those reviews seem to suggest that, while Laugh-In had jokes about sex and the changing mores thereof, it also mixed in jokes about late-1960s drug use, fashions, politics, and popular culture in general; while Turn-On seemed to be one sex-themed joke after another. And the only thing that this aroused in viewers was their ire.
This was 1969, but it was also American television, which, then as now, was always a few years behind the times. America wasn't ready for a show that focused on that much on sex talk in prime time. Four months later, Dr. David Reuben, a psychiatrist, published a book titled Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). Most of America was not only afraid to ask about the things Turn-On was talking about, but furious that anybody was facing their fears and asking about it. Middle America didn't want to know.
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." Looking at comments on the brief clips available on YouTube, some people have compared it with more recent fare like Adult Swim -- but that's on pay cable, suggesting that prime-time TV, even after more than half a century of prime-time sex subjects, comedic and otherwise, from innuendo to showing couples appearing to get it on, still isn't ready.
Fortunately for those involved, Turn-On didn't destroy careers. Conway got his own sitcom in 1970, but The Tim Conway Show only lasted 13 weeks. In 1975, he joined the cast of The Carol Burnett Show, and remained a castmember for the rest of its run. He had another Tim Conway Show in the 1980-81 season, and remained a beloved comedian until his death in 2019.
Teresa Graves not only survived the bad comparisons to Laugh-In, she was hired as a member of that show's cast, replacing their original black female castmember, Chelsea Brown. She also lasted just 1 season. In the 1974-75 TV season, she starred as a policewoman in Get Christie Love!
Chuck McCann resumed his comedy career. He and Gilligan's Island star Bob Denver co-starred in a Saturday morning live-action kids show titled Far Out Space Nuts. He's probably best remembered for starring alongside Bill Fiore in commercials for Right Guard antiperspirant, where their adjoining houses shared a medicine cabinet: "Hi, guy!" And while Hamilton Camp never became a big star, he did become a regular guest star on sitcoms.
Since Turn-On, 5 other American scripted TV shows have been aired on the major networks, and canceled after 1 episode:
* October 30, 1996: Public Morals, CBS, about a New York Police Department vice squad. Too much "vice" was shown for anyone's taste, even after 3 years of ABC's NYPD Blue, whose character John Irvin, played by Bill Brochtrup, was brought in for this show, and then returned after this show was quickly canceled.
* March 22, 1997: Lawless, Fox, with former football star Brian Bosworth as a private investigator. This one wasn't offensive, it was just bad. The Boz couldn't act.
* December 8, 2000: Dot Comedy, ABC, an attempt to turn Internet humor into TV humor, that fell flat.
* January 9, 2006: Emily's Reasons Why Not, ABC, starring Heather Graham as a single career woman, who made decisions based on lists of reasons why, and why not. Another one that wasn't offensive, just bad.
* February 26, 2008: Quarterlife, NBC, an attempt at filler during a screenwriters' strike. Even under such difficult circumstances, the Peacock Network decided it wasn't worth it.
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February 5, 1969 was a Wednesday. Singer Bobby Brown and actor Michael Sheen were born on this day.
Baseball and football were out of season. There were 5 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 111-102 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.
* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Boston Celtics, 124-112 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Arena).
* The Chicago Bulls beat the Detroit Pistons, 120-108 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.
* The San Diego Rockets beat the Cincinnati Royals, 110-93 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).
* And the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 119-115 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.
There were 5 games played in the American Basketball Association:
* The New York Nets lost to the Miami Floridians, 111-99 at the West Palm Beach Auditorium in the Miami suburb of West Palm Beach, Florida.
* The Indiana Pacers beat the Denver Rockets, 125-109 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.
* The New Orleans Buccaneers beat the Kentucky Colonels, 114-108 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.
* The Dallas Chaparrals beat the Houston Mavericks, 120-116 at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas.
* And the Los Angeles Stars beat the Minnesota Muskies, 110-107 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
There were 4 games in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.
* The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Minnesota North Stars played to a tie, 5-5 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Ron Ellis scored a hat trick for the Leafs.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 7-2 at the Chicago Stadium. Phil Esposito had 2 goals and 2 assists.
* The Oakland Seals beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-1 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
* And the Detroit Red Wings, the Philadelphia Flyers, the St. Louis Blues and the Los Angeles Kings were not scheduled.
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