I just watched Turn-On, the fastest cancelled prime-time TV show ever.

It’s February 5, 1969. At the time, one of the most popular TV shows on the air was NBC’s hour-long comedy series Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, a program full of amazing comedy, trippy visuals and biting satire. This program was not only Monday night destination TV, it was a show that defined what television comedy could do.

The program’s creator, George Schlatter, was asked by the rival network ABC to create a Laugh-In comedy derivative for their network. And he came up with one. A program called Turn-On, which postulated a half-hour of comedy that was filmed in a white void, all programed by a computer. Thirteen episodes were ordered, and on February 5, 1969, the program debuted.

The plan was to air Turn-On as a mid-season replacement for the popular prime-time soap opera Peyton Place, and then once Turn-On ended its run, Peyton Place would return to that timeslot. But when people who were expecting to watch the salacious soap opera saw Turn-On instead … well, it wasn’t a pleasant encounter.

The story goes that ABC’s Cleveland affiliate not only pulled the program off its system IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIRST EPISODE, the station’s representatives called other stations and told them about what to expect from Turn-On. By the end of the night, Turn-On went from a promising new show on ABC to the fastest-ever prime-time TV cancellation in history. It’s now part of a list of shows that were so poorly received they were cancelled after only one night – programs like the game show You’re In the Picture, the romantic comedy Emily’s Reasons Why Not, and the musical drama series Viva Laughlin.

However … producer George Schlatter has not only restored the broadcast episode of Turn-On – featuring guest star Tim Conway – he also recovered the second, unaired episode – and has released them to YouTube. And you can watch them now. The aired episode is below.

Holy shit. This is what aired in 1969?

Now there’s an argument that this show was way ahead of what ABC thought their audiences could handle for a comedy variety program. And remember, American television hadn’t experienced comedy shows like Monty Python’s Flying Circus or Saturday Night Live yet. And theoretically, the shows most similar to Turn-On in terms of surreality and humor would have been The Ernie Kovacs Show and That Was The Week That Was, and those programs were distant memories by 1969.

As for the show itself – for every powerful laugh-out-loud zinger on the program, there were at least three or four jokes that fell flat. And that’s not even counting the marginalized one-liners that could have used the touch of Sergio Aragones.

Now if the show had survived to a second episode … this would have been the next to air. The guests on this program were France Nuyen and Robert Culp, and they get thrown into this surreal 30-minute adventure.

One of the things I can say about Turn-On is that while the humor is biting and the satire is sharp, there are still moments in the two episodes that have aged like milk in the desert. Racial jokes, homophobic jokes, and sexist jokes are scattered throughout the broadcast. One could argue that the show’s content certainly was a component of its time, but we didn’t need a joke about the first black Supreme Court Justice being congratulated by being called “boy.” No we did not.

In other words, here’s what I can say about Turn-On.

I understand its humor and where it was headed.

And I understand why it was cancelled.