Turn-on

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!

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.

I didn't think it was funny either. It seemed very sterile and maybe a bit too fast-paced. The only bit I really recall is a ballet dancer spinning about and colliding with other dancers - which was almost funny. I believe another bit had the dancer falling into bed. It was a long time ago and the show was mostly forgettable. I don't remember it being 'dirty'. Maybe it was but it went over my head. Tim Conway was way out of place here. A complete waste. I, too, would like to see it again to make a more current judgment. It was probably conveyed to the audience improperly. The biggest problem may have been that there wasn't much banter ala Dan Rowan/Dick Martin. The show practically alienated from the outset.

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.

I (believe it or don't) saw blips of this on a Japanese sampler of "Comedy Shows From Around The World." I don't know where they got the clips from however.

Setting a record for the fastest cancellation is this show's only mention in most cases. It's "Laugh-In" with the raunchy humor turned up a few notches. Teresa Graves is even in it.

The rapid (and I do mean RAPID) fire humor looked like Monty Python on crystal meth. Too fast for most. And the double-entendres put off sponsors and censors. Big surprise there. The music was the WORST thing about this. That probably single-handedly prevented anyone from even caring if this got nixed.

That said, the networks made a mistake by not trying to give it another chance. It probably could have been great. But the producers goofed and the censors were too tight.

My personal fave joke? Sexy girl in front of a firing squad. "Miss, instead of you getting a last request, we would like to make a last request." Wink-wink.

Anyone got this on video? Drop me a line if you do.