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!

After watching and writing about the only aired episode of this show, I thought I was done with Turn-On.

However, after I published last week’s review, my friend Mark informed me that there was a second episode.  It never aired, even though it was listed in the official schedule before the pilot was so universally despised that ABC announced the show’s cancellation before the episode had even ended.  However, the second episode is available on YouTube and …. well, I am a completist.  As much as that first episode gave me a migraine, I felt an obligation to check out the second episode and see what direction that show would have followed if it hadn’t been abruptly canceled halfway through its premiere.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the second episode of Turn-On!

Episode 1.2 “Episode #2”

(Dir by Mark Warren, unaired, though originally scheduled for Febraury 12th, 1969)

The second episode of Turn-On! opens much like the first.  Two computer technicians sit behind the console that will be programming the next 30 minutes.

One of them asks, “What do you think would happen if (George) Wallace had been elected president?”

“The Mason-Dixon Line would now be the Canadian border,” the other replies.

(The joke’s on him.  The Mason-Dixon line moved up to Boston, even without Wallace in the White House.)

The technician turns a key.  Robert Culp and Mel Stewart appear, standing against a white background.

“Why can’t I ever get the girl?” the black Stewart asks.

“There are some things the public isn’t ready for,” the white Culp replies before running off with a young black woman.

A few second later, Culp reappears, sitting behind an anchor desk and sign that reads, “Register communists, not firearms.”  Culp reads a news story, announcing that a man was shot by a “38 caliber communist.”

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” a voice asks.  “I do,” Theresa Graves replies.

A woman plays a trombone while sitting on artificial turf.  “I play even better on grass,” she says.

An astronaut attempts to enter a toilet stall, just for a voice to say, “I’m sorry, you have reached a disconnected toilet.”

A bunch of Klan members sit in a theater and look bored.

Mel Stewart plays with an abacus.

A man with a waxed mustache says that he just read Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  “I’m going right out to buy a greenhouse.”

Mel Stewart is sworn in as “the first black Justice of the Supreme Court.”  (Uhmm …. hello?  Thurgood Marshall anyone?  He’d been on the Court for two years at this point.)  After administering the oath to Stewart, a judge shakes his hand and says, “Congratulations, boy.”  Stewart does a double-take while silly sound effects play.

A cartoon tank rolls by, with a sign that reads, “Go home, everyone!”

“It’s time to Turn-On!” an old lady on a motorcycle declares.

The man with the mustache introduced tonight’s hosts, Robert Culp and France Nuyen.  Culp and Nuyen toss a bomb back and forth.

Mel Stewart paints a Campbell Soup can but is told by a Renaissance art critic that, “You are too ahead of your time.”

An executive has a tantrum at his desk.

A boss is told that his son has been bothering everyone in the office.  “Boys will be boys!” the boss.  “He’s also asking everyone why we don’t have a union!”  “Get rid of him.”

Mel Stewart appears behind a desk, announcing that you should never put “an unqualified man in office just because he’s black.”

A woman in a tattered dress complains that her detergent is hungry.

A cardboard monk carries a sign that reads, “Sanctify Fanny Hill.”

A policeman announces that muggings are down from last year and that the muggers need to try harder.

The man with the waxed mustache appears in a bridal gown and reads a letter from a woman wanting to know why men have not been molesting her like they have her friends.  “Your time will come,” he says, “Wear a tight sweater and hang out in a seedy neighborhood.”

A cardboard priest carries a sign that reads, “Candid Camera Bugs Confessionals.”

Robert Culp appears as a anchorman and says that the Commission’s Report on Civil Disorders is so shocking that another commission has been appointed.

“Money is the only that means anything you!” a wife yells at her husband, “What about love!?”  “I love money,” he replies.

(At this point, Turn-On‘s humor basically just feels like scrolling a neurotic communist’s twitter timeline.)

A blonde woman (who is introduced as being “The Body Politic”) says that she is forgiving the president.

A Southern gentleman says that “We will oppose integration by burning crosses and all other lawful means.”

Robert Culp plays a doctor who tells Mel Stewart that he’s dying and then gives him a cigarette.

“Does your wife believe in the pill?” a voice asks.  “My kids sure don’t.”

“This little piggy went to market,” a cop says as he plays with a corpse’s toes in a morgue.

A naked man (seen from behind) paints a clothed woman.

A cardboard monk carries a sign that asks us to “Pray for Rosemary’s Clooney.”

Hamilton Camp wears a straight-jacket and announces that all public assemblies have been banned in the name of free speech.

Two Depression-era bank robbers rent a car from Robert Culp.

An old woman cut-out carried a sign that reads, “Get a lot when you’re young,” which really isn’t bad advice, to be honest.

The Body Politic woman says that she’s opposed to “unilateral withdrawal.”

“Due to an oversupply, there’s a shortage!” Hamilton Camp declares.

Robert Culp, as the anchorman, says that the city council had to postpone discussion on absenteeism due to a lack of a quorum.

“I got the job!” Mel Stewart tells France Nuyen.  “I thought they didn’t hire people of your race,” Nuyen replies.  Stewart whispers, “I lied.”

“IBM plays monopoly,” reads the sign being carried by a cardboard cut-out.

A psychiatrist tells his patient that it will cost $500 for him to help her break her dependence on her father.  He suggests that she borrow the money from her father.

And it just keeps going and going.  There’s an extended sequence of people having dumb conversations while facing each other nose-to-nose.  At one point a cardboard cut-out carries a sign that announces, “The Wages of Sin Are $2.00.”

Robert Culp brags about how he cured himself of vanity.

And so it goes until eventually, the computer is turned off and the episode ends.

This unaired episode was actually a slight improvement over the episode that actually did air.  A lot of this is because Robert Culp, with his longish hair and snarky delivery, was a better fit for the show’s sensibility than the more straight-laced Tim Conway.  (Conway often seemed confused by his episode’s humor while Culp, on the other hand, comes across as being someone who appreciated a good “grass” joke.)

At the same time, for all the quick cuts and two-line skits, there was an odd blandness to this episode and one could already see the pitfalls that would have appeared if the show hadn’t been canceled.  For all of the show’s attempts to be hip and unpredictable and random, it ultimately all felt a bit formulaic.  By the end of the second episode, the abrupt cuts to people looking shocked or smiling at the camera felt just as hackneyed as the laugh tracks that appeared on other television shows.  What is shocking once is amusing twice and boring the third time.

Anyway, that’s it for Turn-On!  It’s a show that was definitely a product of its time and, as a history nerd, I appreciate it as a time capsule.  But it’s also easy to see why audiences in 1969 were not exactly turned on by Turn-On.

Next week, we’ll start in on a show that aired more than one episode!