Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
In 1968,Rowan & Martins Laugh-Inwas the envy of the Big Three networks.
Naturally, ABC wanted a piece.
In a randy wink to their earlier success, they named this new endeavorTurn-On.
They produced two episodes ofTurn-Onprior to its premiere 50 years ago on February 5, 1969.
The second episode never saw the light of day on public airwaves.
Shows canceledafter one episodeconstitute an elite cadre of shame, extraordinary in the swiftness of their demise.
To nosedive and crash by the first commercial break, however, is historic.
Planes crash, but there is only one Hindenburg.
He lived to test the suits and thrived on making executives sweat.
(The sexual revolution, the civil-rights movement, and the antiwar movement all got thumbs-up.)
I could do anything, Schlatter recalled in a 2010video interview, and the arrogance of power took over.
Im cocky now, but 40 years ago, with a 50 share?
Thats how we soldTurn-On.
(Neither Schlatter, whos 86 today, nor his team responded to Vultures interview requests.)
Across all mediums, sex commanded most of the conversation.
The premiere broadcast in February 1969 was, to put it modestly, an immediate meltdown.
He took it, andTurn-Ondissolved into myth.
It remains one of the most blithely anti-Semitic things Ive seen from the American TV industry.
That said, I cannot claim that I did not laugh.
But that leaves plenty at which you or I wouldnt bat an eye.
At another, the Edenic serpent muses, Hey, I couldvegiven Eve the appleandthe Pill!
Everything outside of that dichotomy is outright incomprehensible.
At least, thats how it felt in 1969.
Posterity, on the other hand, has a strange way of favoring the bold.
If the Minow of 1961 had gotten an eyeful ofTurn-On, he wouldve had a thrombosis.
InTurn-On, the pearl-clutchers saw a chilling vision of a future without modesty or virtue.
They were, at most, half-right.
But on a 1977Laugh-Infeaturing icon of aw-shucks goodness Jimmy Stewart, it barely registered.
Same goes for the extreme navel close-up.
In his capacity as a profaner, Schlatter was a prophet.
As a satirist, he was a relic.
The curious case ofTurn-Onillustrates the complete reversal thats taken place regarding which art makes which people mad.
The show was built around the impulse to shock, and not all shock is created equal.
