Indians are on the moon!
Okay, not Indian people 鈥� but a lander and a rover from India touched down on the moon鈥檚 south pole this month. The victorious feeling must have matched what Americans were feeling in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. We鈥檝e all seen the black-and-white images that were beamed across the globe that July 20. Apparently, NASA accidentally from that day, transmitted from the moon to what鈥檚 now Johnson Space Center.
Which brings to mind another piece of 1969 video, unearthed last month.
Before the multiverse of channels and streaming services we have today, the record for shortest-running program was held by 鈥淭urn-On.鈥� On Feb. 5, 1969, ABC aired the first episode of the fast-paced half-hour comedy starting at 8:30 p.m. It didn鈥檛 even make it to 9 o'clock in some parts of the country.
You might be thinking, 鈥淜abir, why are you telling us this?鈥�
Well, first off 鈥� I can鈥檛 hear you. Second, the most notorious preemption was right here in Cleveland. Ironic, since the guest host was Tim Conway from Willoughby/Chagrin Falls. And Clevelander Mel Stewart was in the cast.
Some background for those who aren鈥檛 Googling 鈥渢imconway鈥� or 鈥渕elstewart鈥� right now: From 1968-70, the top-rated show on television was NBC鈥檚 鈥淩owan & Martin鈥檚 Laugh-In.鈥� Essentially a vaudeville revue dressed up in psychedelia, it launched the careers of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin, among many others. Flush with success, the show鈥檚 creators proposed an even faster-paced program. Yet both NBC and CBS passed on the concept.
ABC, a distant third, gave producer George Schlatter a 16-episode commitment for 鈥淭urn-On.鈥� With nothing to lose and much to gain, the alphabet network put the show in the time slot for 鈥淧eyton Place,鈥� a primetime soap that aired multiple times each week. It was so popular in its early years that it even inspired a parody, 鈥淧arma Place,鈥� from Cleveland鈥檚 own Ghoulardi. By the spring of 1969, the show was winding down, and ABC used its Wednesday timeslot for 鈥淭urn-On.鈥�
Viewed today, it feels like you're watching very short TikToks running back-to-back-to-back for a half hour. (I鈥檓 sure there are people who do just that, but I tend to avoid them.) There was no audience or laugh track, just bursts of audio from a Moog synthesizer to punctuate the action. The whole show was supposedly "programmed" by a computer and had no structure. The credits ran throughout the half-hour, popping up on screen between short sketches about love, money, war and race.
鈥淎s it came across the country, it was being canceled,鈥� . 鈥淲e had the coming out party and the cancellation party 鈥� very economical because it was all in one evening, and then gone.鈥�
What happened? Producer George Schlatter blames it on one network affiliate, Cleveland's WEWS.
鈥淭here was a guy in Cleveland who wanted ABC to keep 鈥楶eyton Place鈥� on the air,鈥� he said. 鈥淗e got on the phone and called all the affiliates and said, 鈥楾his is terrible; we have to get rid of it.鈥欌��
That guy was Don Perris, the longtime general manager of WEWS who eventually rose to become president of the E.W. Scripps Company. His daughter, Kathy, doesn鈥檛 recall the 鈥淭urn-On鈥� dust up, but said her father definitely had his finger on the pulse of what Cleveland audiences wanted.
Mark Rosenberger, chief content officer for 蜜桃导航, worked with Perris in the 1980s and said he was widely respected throughout the company.
Perris followed up the preemption of 鈥淭urn-On鈥� with an infamous telegram to ABC that read: 鈥淚f your naughty little boys have to write dirty words on the walls, please don鈥檛 use our walls.鈥� Kathy said that definitely sounds like her father鈥檚 quirky style of writing. Within days, ABC placed the show on hiatus, later buying out Schlatter's contract with a clause that he not rerun "Turn-On." It's all in his new book, 鈥淪till Laughing: A Life in Comedy.鈥�
"I just wish I'd had a chance to meet him before he died," Schlatter said. "He sure made us famous by making us infamous. The jokes were not dirty, they were not provocative. They were bawdy. They were unusual."
Schlatter said the cancellation even led 鈥淟augh-In鈥� writers to switch to Cleveland jokes once NBC suggested fewer ethnic jokes on the show.
鈥淚 immediately wanted to do jokes about Cleveland,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat is funny about Cleveland? I don't know. I've never been to Cleveland.鈥�
But my writing about the program today does not do it justice. Its reputation over the past 54 years largely sprang from the assumption that the jokes were all sexually suggestive. Schlatter has even repeatedly cited one sketch, in which a woman is frantically trying to get a birth control pill out of a vending machine, as being the most problematic.
Legendary writer, and Cleveland-native, was then reviewing television for the Los Angeles Free Press. He briefly mentioned 鈥淭urn-On鈥� as ABC鈥檚 attempt to 鈥渃ash in鈥� on 鈥淟augh-In.鈥�
鈥淚t wasn't that it was a bad show, it was that it was an awkward show,鈥� he wrote.
However, written descriptions are no longer necessary since the show鈥檚 鈥� unseen outside of the Paley Center for Media 鈥� was uploaded to YouTube last month. A with Robert Culp is also now online.
Gary Necessary, chief of operations for George Schlatter Productions, said the company was 鈥渘ot thrilled鈥� when the episodes got out.
鈥淕eorge has been very stringent with not letting the clips out,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e love YouTube and have several things there.鈥�
That does not, however, include additional episodes of 鈥淭urn-On.鈥� Schlatter said Sebastian Cabot, Joey Heatherton and Davy Jones were slated for the next, never-filmed episodes.
Their names might mean bupkis to anyone actually young enough to spend a half-hour watching TikTok. Yet I can see a direct link from the fast pace of 鈥淭urn-On鈥� right through early MTV and then into videos like the ones on social media which, fittingly, has resurrected the show after decades of obscurity.
Had 鈥淭urn-On鈥� been stored by NASA, we might never have seen it again.
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