When I was young(ish), the standard by which all other TV disasters were measured was the cancellation of "My Mother the Car" after just six (I think) episodes. It seems positively quaint today, when shows are yanked after the first episode or even before the pilot is aired, to think that making it only to show number six would qualify as a disaster.
After 40 years, George Schlatter's catastrophic flop "Turn-On" is all but forgotten, I guess. IMDB says the show was cancelled 10 minutes into its first and only airing on Feb. 5, 1969.
I watched that show. They might have canceled it after 10 minutes, but the whole thing ran. The only scene I remember was a vending machine that contained birth control pills along with candy bars. I guess that was enough right there. I vaguely recall that Tim Conway was in the show, but my memory can't be trusted.
Tim Conway talks about "Turn-On" in a clip on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8bjZVhNZT8 Apparently the show ran its entire 30 minutes in some markets, was yanked mid-broadcast in others, and not even shown on the West Coast. As I recall, I didn't wander down to the TV room in the dorm that night, so I missed it altogether.
That, Bill, and Central Time broadcasts were fed at the same time as Eastern Time, so it would be extraordinarily troublesome for a station to pull it mid-show, even if some did.
It really wasn't much if any racier than LAUGH IN, but ABC was squeamish, if less so than the affiliates.
Um, yeah...there have been much more disastrous things than many of these...my goodness, SEINFELD's increasingly creepish and unfunny characters and situations, after Larry David left the series, were perfectly rewarded by the finale, which harkened back to the series actually good days.
The (continuing) FCC crackdowns on PBS and others were much more far-reaching and uglier than nearly all of this, including the Malfunction.
Perhaps sadly, there were thirty episodes of MY MOTHER THE CAR, rather long for a single season even in the mid-'60s.
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When I was young(ish), the standard by which all other TV disasters were measured was the cancellation of "My Mother the Car" after just six (I think) episodes. It seems positively quaint today, when shows are yanked after the first episode or even before the pilot is aired, to think that making it only to show number six would qualify as a disaster.
I don't know when it was yanked, but I think I watched every episode.
I loved that show too. Or maybe it was "Car 54, Where are You?" Can't remember.
After 40 years, George Schlatter's catastrophic flop "Turn-On" is all but forgotten, I guess. IMDB says the show was cancelled 10 minutes into its first and only airing on Feb. 5, 1969.
I watched that show. They might have canceled it after 10 minutes, but the whole thing ran. The only scene I remember was a vending machine that contained birth control pills along with candy bars. I guess that was enough right there. I vaguely recall that Tim Conway was in the show, but my memory can't be trusted.
Tim Conway talks about "Turn-On" in a clip on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8bjZVhNZT8 Apparently the show ran its entire 30 minutes in some markets, was yanked mid-broadcast in others, and not even shown on the West Coast. As I recall, I didn't wander down to the TV room in the dorm that night, so I missed it altogether.
Thanks for the link, Fred. I was living in Austin, which was a hippie-dippie town in those days. No wonder it wasn't pulled.
That, Bill, and Central Time broadcasts were fed at the same time as Eastern Time, so it would be extraordinarily troublesome for a station to pull it mid-show, even if some did.
It really wasn't much if any racier than LAUGH IN, but ABC was squeamish, if less so than the affiliates.
Um, yeah...there have been much more disastrous things than many of these...my goodness, SEINFELD's increasingly creepish and unfunny characters and situations, after Larry David left the series, were perfectly rewarded by the finale, which harkened back to the series actually good days.
The (continuing) FCC crackdowns on PBS and others were much more far-reaching and uglier than nearly all of this, including the Malfunction.
Perhaps sadly, there were thirty episodes of MY MOTHER THE CAR, rather long for a single season even in the mid-'60s.
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