George Schlatter’s ‘Turn-On’ Returns After More Than 50 Years

Success breeds imitation. So, it was no surprise that ABC wanted its own version of NBC’s then red-hot Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In care of Turn-On, a half-hour sketch comedy from Laugh-In creator George Schlatter. Billed as “the first computerized TV show,” Turn-On had no sets except for a white backdrop, where sketches generated by an artificially intelligent computer would be acted out. The writing staff included Albert Brooks, the first host was Tim Conway, the cast included Teresa Graves and Chuck McCann, and the official start date was February 5, 1969.

ABC ordered 13 episodes of Turn-On and the highly anticipated debut was supposed to feature two back-to-back episodes.