# Turn On (1969 comedy series that totally flopped) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** talk-variety-show\ **Created:** [June 26, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377 "2024-06-26T22:30:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2024, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/21 "2024-06-30T19:35:23Z")
No doubt. I re-watched on and it was terrible. But _Laugh-In_ was innovative because it moved at a pace far faster than anything else on TV. Now everything does, so it doesn’t seem particularly original. Sure, most of the jokes were bad, but there were so many of them. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/22 "2024-06-30T21:10:14Z")
You bet your sweet bippy! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/23 "2024-07-01T00:51:21Z")
Forced myself to watch it again (I saw it when it premiered). God, it was awful. The jokes weren’t funny. At All. The electronic music was obtrusive and did not help at all. The lack of a laugh track meant the attempted jokes fell like rocks (even a bad sitcom can get a few laughs from the track). No one showed any personality. The repeated joke of Tim Conway making his one phone call was obvious and unfunny the first time, and repeating it only made it die on the screen. The only funny thing was that some stations cancelled it halfway, when the worst sexual innuendo came after that point. There were some good people in the cast (Chuck McCann and Hamilton Camp), but they were given nothing to do. Really awful. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/24 "2024-07-01T17:23:35Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I suspect if any of us stumbled upon _Laugh-In_ for the first time in 2024 it would seem just as bad or worse than this. At least _Turn On_ is trying to push the socially acceptable boundaries of TV for the time The 1970s sitcoms, Mary Tyler Moore, All In The Family, MASH etc weren’t around in the late 1960s. Smothers Brothers was, but here are the top rated comedy/variety shows of 1968-69: 1 - Laugh-In 2 - Gomer Pyle 4 - Mayberry RFD 5 - Family Affair 7 - Julia 8 - Dean Martin 9 - Here’s Lucy 10 - Beverly Hillbillies 11 - Red Skelton 11 - Bewitched 14 - My Three Sons 15 - Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour 19 - Green Acres 23 - Ed Sullivan 24 - Carol Burnett 24 - Jackie Gleason 26 - I Dream Of Jeannie 27 - Smothers Brothers 28 - Lawrence Welk 30 - Doris Day Show Are there other shows on this list that you would be busting a gut over, saying wow, how fresh, how original, how hip? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/25 "2024-07-01T18:17:05Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Are there other shows on this list that you would be busting a gut over, saying wow, how fresh, how original, how hip? Without the lubrication of nostalgia, I don’t think many would still be laughing at those shows. For people my age (61) those shows are associated with the best time of the day as children (between the end of school and dinner). _Turn On_ does not have that advantage. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/26 "2024-07-01T19:53:40Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > made it about 7 or 8 minutes. It was bad. It went too fast. The credits popping up here and there were distracting. The sign carriers who went across the bottom of the screen typically had nothing to do with the sketch being shown. And what was with the guy with the plastic hair? > > In short, it wasn’t anything that I’d want to watch, even as a kid. The guy with the plastic hair was a scuzzy pitchman who was supposed to show up every episode to promote some dubious and ethically questionable good or service. Basically, he was a proto-Irwin Mainway/E. Buzz Miller. That’s my guess since they only aired one episode. The sign carriers were _Turn-On_’s version of the animated airplane banners from _Laugh-In_. I was only four years old when this show aired so I obviously didn’t see it because it was past my bedtime. My guess is the sex jokes probably sank it. Today the jokes are ridiculously mild but it was probably too much for America to handle on primetime television in 1969. Another thing I noticed is how tired the material was. Of course, that would be obvious from a 2024 perspective but I wouldn’t be surprised if the original viewers who were not shocked by the sex jokes thought the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/27 "2024-07-01T21:06:17Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Are there other shows on this list that you would be busting a gut over, saying wow, how fresh, how original, how hip? Turn On sucked… but your commetn isn’t really fair to a lot of the shows in the lost. Some of them are true sit coms: I never busted a gut at Family Affair, but it was a good show. Same with My Three Sons. And love it or hate it, but Green Acres was most definitely original. Knowing you’re a character in a TV show was pretty cutting edge back then. Lawrence Welk was not a comedy show. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/28 "2024-07-01T21:55:08Z")
I’m 60, and for me, that was “Gilligan’s Island.” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2024, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377/29 "2024-07-02T07:09:02Z")
A friend of mine who had apparently seen the show once described it to me as “potty humor.” Maybe I set my sights too high, but I didn’t think it was all that smutty. Dumb and pointless and amateurish, yes. But only mildly risqué, if that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turn-on-1969-comedy-series-that-totally-flopped/1003377.md?page=1)