Turn-On | |
---|---|
Genre | Sketch comedy |
Created by |
Ed Friendly George Schlatter |
Starring |
Tim Conway (guest host) Teresa Graves Hamilton Camp Mel Stewart Chuck McCann Bonnie Boland Maxine Greene Ken Greenwald Debbie Macomber Maura McGiveney Robert Staats |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of episodes | 2 (1 episode unaired) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) |
Ed Friendly George Schlatter |
Producer(s) | Digby Wolfe |
Running time | 24–25 minutes |
Release | |
Original network | ABC |
Original release | February 5, 1969 |
Turn-On is an American sketch comedy series that aired on ABC in February 1969. Only one episode was shown, leaving one episode unaired, and the show is considered one of the most infamous flops in TV history.
Turn-On's sole episode was shown on Wednesday, February 5, 1969, at 8:30 pm ET. Among the cast were Teresa Graves (who would join the Laugh-In cast that autumn), musician and future Disney and Hanna-Barbera voice actor Hamilton Camp, and longtime children's show host, character actor, and voice artist Chuck McCann. The writing staff included a young Albert Brooks. The guest host for the first episode was Tim Conway.
The show was created by Ed Friendly and George Schlatter, the producers of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Bristol-Myers contracted with them to develop the show, and provided it to ABC for a projected 13-week run after NBC and CBS rejected it. A CBS official confessed, "It was so fast with the cuts and chops that some of our people actually got physically disturbed by it." Production executive Digby Wolfe described it as a "visual, comedic, sensory assault involving animation, videotape, stop-action film, electronic distortion, computer graphics—even people."