ABC
Networks tried all sorts of wild and outlandish ideas in the 1960s as they attempted to wrestle audiences’ attention away from their rivals. This was the decade that gave us “My Mother the Car,” the show for which Jerry Van Dyke turned down “Gilligan’s Island” and which had him talking to his deceased mother via a car radio. The ’60s also gave us Sally Field as a flying nun and sitcoms such as “The Hathaways” which featured a trio of trained chimpanzees who were treated like human children by their suburban “parents.”
It was during this era that ABC decided to debut its surreal sketch comedy series “Turn-On,” and when I say “series,” I mean single episode. The show was so poorly received that it was yanked off the air after its debut installment in 1969, and rumors have since emerged that it became the only series in TV history to be canceled while it was airing.
