Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Turn-On, which aired on ABC in 1969. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
The year was 1969 and ABC wanted to appeal to the counter-culture. That’s really the only explanation for Turn-On, an experimental collection of absurdist comedy sketches that premiered during prime time and was cancelled by many affiliates before the show even ended. Produced by George Schlatter and Digby Wolfe, Turn-On was an attempt to revolutionize television but audiences — many of whom tuned to ABC that night to discover that the nightly serial Peyton Place had been pre-empted — did not want the revolution.
Episode 1.1
(Dir by Mark Warren, originally aired on February 5th, 1969)
Turn-On opens with two men walking up to and sitting down at a huge computer console. One of them explains that the computer will be programming the television show that is about to air. He tells the computer, “Tonight’s guest star: Tim Conway.”
Suddenly, out of thin air, Tim Conway materializes in front of the computer and announces, “Good evening, ladies and gentleman, and welcome to Peyton Re-place.”
So, less than a minute into the show, Turn-On had already predicted AI. In all fairness, that’s no small accomplishment.
The rest of the show is series of quick skits, all of which take place against a white background:
A woman appears in front of a weather map and says that they cannot do the weather report for Hong Kong.
This is followed by Tim Conway dressed as superman and getting a gun pointed at him by a Fidel Castro.
A woman in a rocking chair sings “I got rhythm, I got rhythm,” while an audience sitting below her appears to try to stare up her short skirt.
A commercial for tired eyes ends with Tim Conway wearing elaborate eye makeup.
A black man glares at a white man and says, “Mom always did like you best.”
A woman in a sarong plays a tuba while a stuffed hippo puppet listens. The woman laughs.
A busty woman stands in front of a brick wall, wearing a blindfold. A soldier tells her that the firing squad has a last request.
A dancer twirls across the screen.
A swastika-shaped table appears on screen. “You are now looking at table at the Paris Peace Talks,” an announcer tells us.
A military office tells another officer that he doesn’t think “Major Burns is stable enough to lead a platoon.” “You’re right,” the other officer replies, “make it a regiment.”
We’re only two minutes into this and I’m already …. well, I’m not turned on. I’m bored, to be honest. All of the quick-cutting and the prophetic references to AI cannot change the fact that none of this really that funny. I imagine the show’s defenders (and there are a few) would claim that this is all meant to be absurdist humor but actually, it’s a bit bland. The jokes may be designed to appeal to what was then the counter-culture but the delivery is pure vaudeville.
The show continues. A black woman appears on a park bench and says she feels guilty for lying around when she could be out shopping somewhere.
A man with a mustache tries to sell a cereal that is soaked with mescaline. “Your family will say it’s wonderful.” Okay, that made me chuckle.
On a screen divided into four squares, two women talk about a vulgar boyfriend. A cardboard cut-out carrying a sign that reads, “God Save The Queens” wanders by. Ha ha, “Queens” …. get it?
An old woman on a motorcycle announces, “It’s time to Turn-On!”
It’s time for the opening credits! OH MY GOD, ALL OF THAT WAS JUST THE PRE-CREDIT SEQUENCE!?
This is followed by a fake commercial for Bufferin Aspirin (which actually did sponsor the first episode of Turn-On), in which Tim Conway is beat up at a maypole. “It’s Bufferin time!” an announcer says.
Back the computer, the men have conversations like, “Are you a hawk or a dove?”
A woman asks Tim Conway if he loves her and he says that he does after she re-assures him that she’s a “smoking, jaded radical.” The little cartoon figure walks by with a sign that reads “Keep the baby, Faith.”
A policeman runs through a park. “Hello, young lovers,” he says, “wherever you are!”
The busty woman from the firing squad sketch appears sitting on a divan and says that, “Mr. Nixon, as President, now becomes the titular head of the Republican Party.” An announcer says, “Ladies and gentleman, The Body Politic.”
Tim Conway appears a samurai. “Down with haya education!” says the sign of a cardboard cut-out who speeds by on a motorcycle.
A man announces that the nuclear bomb test has been moved up to 8:30 a.m., so as not to inconvenience the people who are evacuating.
And it just keeps going and going.
“Where is the capital of South Vietnam?” one man asks. “In Swiss bank accounts,” is the reply.
Tim Conway appears to say that, due to student unrest, high schools should be shut down “in the interest of education.”
A woman in a graduation gown throws a grenade.
The man with the mustache announces, “Girls, I want to be a friend to your feet.” A cardboard cut-out walks by, carrying a sign that reads, “E. Eddie Edwards is a pervert.”
While this is going on, the opening credits are still playing out and we discover that Albert Brooks helped to write this episode.
Dollar signs appear on the screen, followed by “Yen.”
“Do you believe in capital punishment?” a woman asks Tim Conway. “Only as a part of a rehabilitation program,” he replies.
A cop whistles while a purse snatcher attacks an old woman. “Sorry,” the cop says, “we’re on strike.”
The Castro look-alike announced that he has suspended the constitution and dismissed the Senate and he will rule by decree “to prevent the overthrow of the government.”
A gun fires.
Having been convicted of murder, Tim Conway uses his one phone call to order some fried chicken. A toy plane flies overhead with a banner asking, “Why not fly United?”
And it keeps going (and I should add that, 10 minutes in, the opening credits are still flashing on the screen).
A woman is angry when her drunk cop husband returns home.
A question mark appears on the screen, followed by a close-up of a woman’s eyes.
A cop eats a newspaper.
Hamilton Camp wears a straight-jacket.
A plane flies by with a banner that reads, “The Amsterdam levee is a dyke.”
Tim Conway does a commercial for deodorant.
A mugger says, “Your money or your life!” and is handed a Life Magazine. (*sigh* That did make me chuckle.)
A copy of Playboy is tossed on top of issues of the New York Times, Time, and Ramparts. “It’s our job to expose,” a voice says.
A cop tells a prisoner to get his hands back in the cell.
A blonde woman smiles.
Tim Conway says that his son will not get a ride to school. He can take a taxi. Cut to an illustration of a teenage boy carrying a taxi. (Again, I smiled. So, that’s three laughs in fifteen minutes, for those keeping track.)
The woman on the divan says that the California Highway Patrol says that women obey traffic laws better than men. “The one exception? Failure to yield.”
An ugly woman with flowers in hair laughs.
Tim Conway smokes a cigar and says his friend Chauncey is much to valuable to be President of the United States.
The dancer appears.
A woman shows off a tattoo of a cat staring at her navel.
A red light bulb shatters.
A cardboard cut-out holds a sign reading, “Stamp out mass production.”
Tim Conway tells a student to “Shut your dirty mouth.”
Tim Conway performs a ballet.
Two women discuss whether they should try to be more seductive while a cardboard airplane flies by with a banner reading, “Free Oscar Willie.”
A woman says she and her husband make love “Two times for him and eight tenths for me.” Tim Conway says that his wife doesn’t understand the new math.
Hamilton Camp appears, dressed as a monk, and announces that Moses was spoken to by a burning bush.
“Only thou,” a bear says, “can preventeth forest fires!” (That was the fourth chuckle that this show got from me.)
Tim Conway offers a rich black man a shoe shine.
Tim Conway tells a married couple that their silence indicates that they are bored.
A cowboy complains about Moses marrying an Ethiopian woman.
“What are we going to do about inflation?” one woman asks. “Well,” another replies, “I’ve been taking the Pill.”
The woman then gets birth control pills from a candy machine but — uh oh! The machine’s not working!
A hotel clerk promises to send a bible up to “Mr. Gideon.”
A group of cowboys talk about their protective attitude towards “our womenfolk,” while cardboard cut-out walks by with a sign that reads, “We refuse the right to provide refuse to anyone.”
Tim Conway tells a man that, if his wife appears to be “out of sorts,” that “you have to understand …. it’s hostility!”
The word “Sex” appears on screen for five minutes while Tim Conway and a woman stare at each other. The Pope briefly appears.
A woman plays Taps.
A cardboard monks wanders by with a sign reading, “Break glass and pull lever.”
A snake puppet says, “I could have given you the Apple and the Pill.”
Tim Conway turns off his TV.
The computer guys turn off their computer.
The show finally ends.
Of course, for much of America, the show ended after ten minutes. That was the moment when many of the local affiliates, responding to calls from people demanding to know what they were watching, stopped showing Turn-On and instead put on whatever local programming they had in the archives.
Turn-On was an experimental show and an attempt to do something that had never been done before on television. In many ways, it predicted both AI and the future of comedy. That’s all great but the show itself, for all the quick cuts and the weird humor, was actually pretty dull. Over the course of 27 minutes and a hundred jokes (and I didn’t include all of them in my review), I laughed a total of four times. The show attempted to be subversive but it ultimately came across as being the “Hello, fellow kids!” meme come to life.
Turn-On was cancelled after one episode and has since regularly been described as one of the worst shows in the history of television. I don’t know if I’d got that far, as there a lot of bad shows out there. That said, I am glad that I only had to watch and review one episode.
Well, that concludes Turn-On! Next week, we’ll look at a new show!
