Turn-on

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).

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.

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.

..a woman going to a Candy/Cigarette looking machine, putting in some money, and when the thing she was waiting for didn't come out, she started kicking, punching, and shaking the machine. Then they zoomed in on the machine, and a sign on it said "The Pill", and then the "Please stand by" sign came on. The whole family started to think it was another report on Vietnam interrupting the show, or maybe some other new on shooting at a college or something like that, but it was just the show had been canceled. I'm not sure what they put on for the rest of the hour, all I know is they TURNED OFF "Turn On" minutes after it started. It had to be the most short lived program I've ever seen.