Turn-On

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.

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).

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.

I learned about this show a few days ago. Having read some of the amusing comments regarding this show on IMDb, I just had to go down to the Museum of Television & Radio in Beverly Hills to see what the fuss was about.

Oh wow. The trivia section here said that ABC canceled the show just minutes after the first episode began airing. Now that I saw that fateful first episode, they were doing 60s television a favor. Manic, disturbing, unnerving and psychotic are just some of the lighter adjectives that describe this show. By itself, the "rapid fire humor" was too rapid (the show cuts into too many skits into too little time) and not humorous enough (obvious double jokes, for one).

And yet the show was funny... for all the wrong reasons! While the jokes were hardly laughable (except perhaps the candy dispenser refusing to pop out The Pill; that was a real guff!), their execution certainly was. Mr. Conway tries, but he really doesn't belong here; "eye-candy" that isn't; a curious dog-cat-Muppet hybrid silently popping up with a bewildering stare after seeing a, um, "sex act"; oh, and let's not forget the "Body Politic". All of this is sardine-canned into thirty minutes to yield some of the most bizarre entertainment ever produced for television. Perhaps it should come with every sale of the Ludovico Machine. Indeed, the white background, extremely minimalist set designs and mind-frying Moog synthesizer music would make you think that Laugh-In was doing a little "in-out in-out" with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange!

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.