Turn-On is an American surreal sketch comedy series created by Digby Wolfe and George Schlatter that aired once on ABC on Wednesday, February 5, 1969.
Schlatter and Ed Friendly, who had previously been the producers of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, were contracted by Bristol-Myers to develop the show, and provided it to ABC for a projected 13-week run after it was rejected by NBC and CBS.
Co-creator and production executive Digby Wolfe described it as a "visual, comedic, sensory assault involving animation, videotape, stop-action film, electronic distortion, computer graphics—even people.
"[8][9] After the program aired, a WEWS spokesman claimed that the station's switchboard was "lit up" with protest calls, and Perris derided Turn-On as being "in excessive poor taste".
[7] George Schlatter would later accuse Perris of actively lobbying other affiliates prior to the broadcast to force a network cancellation after objecting to it replacing Peyton Place on the Wednesday night schedule.
[10][11] At the same time, WAKR-TV in Akron, Ohio—the Cleveland market's other primary ABC affiliate—did not receive any negative phone calls but their general manager criticized the show's "questionable taste".
He compared the show negatively to the comedy of Dean Martin, Laugh-In, and the Smothers Brothers, which the executive described as "absolutely beyond belief ... awfully blue", but were popular and less controversial because unlike Turn-On, "they're funny".
[16] The magazine quoted a source who lamented Turn-On's lack of a regular host or interlocutor: "(T)here wasn't any sort of identification with the audience -- just a bunch of strangers up there insulting everything you believe in."
[17] This announcement came after the following week's TV Guide went to press; it published a listing for the scheduled February 12 episode, which would have starred Robert Culp and then-wife France Nuyen as hosts.
The controversy led ABC to reject a pilot written by Norman Lear, stating that the lead character was "foul-mouthed, and bigoted", out of fear that it might anger its affiliates again.