{"id":73729,"date":"2023-08-20T09:55:10","date_gmt":"2023-08-20T14:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=73729"},"modified":"2023-08-20T09:55:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T14:55:13","slug":"dead-on-arrival-turn-on-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=73729","title":{"rendered":"Dead on arrival: Turn-On (1969)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By JOHN BILLINGER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A phrase I\u2019ve heard often is you can\u2019t sell a product ahead of its time. That in itself has been proven various times, and there have been many examples — such as the 1934 Chrysler Airflow, the Amiga Computer and today\u2019s subject: the 1969 comedy series Turn-On<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show has gone down in history as one of the biggest flops in the history of television, mainly because it was canceled after just one episode, received numerous call-in complaints and on one station, was pulled off-air in the middle of the pilot. The second episode, which was already made, never aired, and both episodes went unseen for decades until last June when they were uploaded to Youtube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show was created by Ed Friendly and George Schlatter, creators of the 1968 to 1972 comedy series Rowan & Martin\u2019s Laugh-In<\/em>, which had been a big hit. It featured humor that was considered taboo and groundbreaking for the time. Naturally, for their next show, they wanted to kick it up to 11. Their goal was to make a sketch show that would make viewers at home as uncomfortable and disoriented as possible. The result was Turn-On<\/em>, which had the premise of being a show that was created by a computer (so basically they predicted AI-generated media). The pilot was rejected by CBS and NBC before getting picked up by ABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first episode was hosted by Tim Conway and premiered Feb. 5, 1969. Describing what happens in each sketch would be a challenge even to the most intellectual of viewers. Each one is around 30 seconds long, plays out on a white background and usually features some sort of comedic visual or phrase centered on either then-current political issues, race, gender, religion and a whole bunch of sexual innuendos. In fact, it was the amount of innuendos that got the show in trouble. Several stations refused to broadcast the show and the ones that did received numerous call-in complaints.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One station based in Cleveland, WEWS-TV, pulled the show off-air 10 minutes into the program and replaced it with a black screen accompanied by organ music for the remaining 20 minutes. The general manager of the station even sent a message to ABC saying, \u201cIf your naughty little boys have to write dirty words on the walls, please don\u2019t use our walls. Turn-On<\/em> is turned off, as far as WEWS is concerned.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virtually every review of the pilot that was published in the immediate aftermath was negative. After that disaster of a premiere, Turn-On<\/em> was given a hiatus and eventually canceled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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