Most Bizarre Shows Ever on Television.

[azumanga]

that Fox reality show where they strapped people into some sort of chair and tortured them
(don't recall the title)....both quite bizarre and very sick

The show was called "The Chamber".

ABC had a similar show at the same time, "The Chair".

[Tim L]

Incidentally, as part of a months old thread about the Paley Center on the Game Show Forums, we've been discussing Turn-On..Quoting from those forums A post I wrote Oct. 8, 2010


Here is a quote from UPI TV Writer Rick DuBrow's column Monday, February 10, 1969-An excerpt from the Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram:Courtesy Newspaper Archive

STATIONS IN Cleveland,
Denver and Little Rock, Ark.,
canceled "Turn-On" last
week. One station manager
wrote ABC:
"If your naughty little boys
have to write dirty words .on
walls, please don't use our
walls. It's all right to be racy,
but this is just plain dirty."

Though it doesnt say here, the station manager that wrote ABC was said to have been WEWS-TV 5 Cleveland Station Manager Don Perris..

[Hal Erickson]

Incidentally, as part of a months old thread about the Paley Center on the Game Show Forums, we've been discussing Turn-On..Quoting from those forums A post I wrote Oct. 8, 2010


Here is a quote from UPI TV Writer Rick DuBrow's column Monday, February 10, 1969-An excerpt from the Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram:Courtesy Newspaper Archive

STATIONS IN Cleveland,
Denver and Little Rock, Ark.,
canceled "Turn-On" last
week. One station manager
wrote ABC:
"If your naughty little boys
have to write dirty words .on
walls, please don't use our
walls. It's all right to be racy,
but this is just plain dirty."

Though it doesnt say here, the station manager that wrote ABC was said to have been WEWS-TV 5 Cleveland Station Manager Don Perris..

Legend has it that a couple of stations actually cancelled TURN-ON while it was on the air, pulling the ABC feed halfway through the 30-minute program. When doing my research on my LAUGH-IN book, I could find no concrete evidence that this really happened.
I have seen the only TURN-ON episode to be telecast. What was tasteless then is merely silly and dull today. Basic problem was the show had no real form, just gags being thrown at the audience.
They had actually filmed several episodes, and both ABC and the show's producers lost a lot of money when the show was axed after a single night. The negative reaction to the series caused ABC to take a pass on ALL IN THE FAMILY a year or so later.

[Eric Stein]

Don't forget one of USA Network's earliest programs, Night Flight. The four-hour weekly anthology featuring concert films and "B"/independent/short movies, as well as "avant-garde" music videos. It still lives on through its creator's website.

Then, there was a short-lived program in limited syndication around 1995 called "Weird TV," from the minds behind '80s-era low-budget commercials for Southern California's now-defunct Federated Group electronics store chain featuring radio talent Shadoe Stevens.

Last, but not least, was "Television Noir" - a show based in Phoenix which aired on a local commercial independent TV station - KAZT - back in 2008. It was basically a public-access show on commercial TV hosted by two guys as alter-egos with a lot of off-beat, left-field humor. Surprising given KAZT's very conservative ownership.

[gr8oldies]

Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?

[Ultimajock]

True about...how the show was cancelled very fast, but oddly enough a LOT of stuff that was writen about that show has since been discredited.  Denver's KUSA to this day denies ever cancelling Turn-On halfway through the broadcast while  Cleveland's WEWS I am pretty sure has since denied ever sening that telegram to ABC about not using THEIR ways if they must write dirty words or something similar.  Then there is that "lawsuit" about how Turn-On will be locked up in a valut somewhere and never to been seen again. Who sued who? Why is Turn-On available for viewing at the The Paley Center for Media, formerly The Museum of Television & Radio if a lawsuit says it can't be seen? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Perhaps ABC wanted to milk at least some PR for themselves over Turn-ON even after they had cancelled it and those "stories" had stayed in circulation ever since.

...Tim Conway himself repeated the story about the show being cancelled between coasts and the bit about WEWS/5 yanking it in mid-screening when he was on Tom Snyder's ABC Radio show in 1990. I suppose Conway's having worked for KYW-TV/3 and WJW-TV/8 in Cleveland gave the WEWS tale a bit more credibility coming out of his mouth...

[M.J.]

Some of the stuff that sometimes airs overnight on NTV in Newfoundland is outright trippy. One of the things they have aired is a computer animation festival, and it is on Youtube somewhere. I have heard that they once aired an Inspector Gadget cartoon in the corner of the screen during a local newscast; I don't know if that is true but I would believe anything about NTV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJON-TV#Overnight_programming

[mleach]

...Tim Conway himself repeated the story about the show being cancelled between coasts and the bit about WEWS/5 yanking it in mid-screening when he was on Tom Snyder's ABC Radio show in 1990. I suppose Conway's having worked for KYW-TV/3 and WJW-TV/8 in Cleveland gave the WEWS tale a bit more credibility coming out of his mouth...
[/quote]

Actually it was Denver's channel 9 that I have heard over the yearswho  had yanked Turn-On halfway through. That part was discredited some years back by KHOW-AM/Rocky Mountain News columist Penny Parker when she had done some interview on KHOW with an old timer who had then recently retired from KUSA-TV ( then KBTV ).  Never heard that it was WEWS who had done the yanking mid way through however.

I am curious about that mysterious "Turn-ON" lawsuit though that I read in various books over the years though.

[charlestondxman]

The Chair that John McEnroe did was a very bizarre show. I remember when the Chamber and the Chair both came out at about the same time in 2002. The Chair had higher viewership, and lasted nine episodes, while the Chamber only went 3.

Let's Make a Deal with Billy Bush was also bizarre. They jazzed it up a bit, but the skits they did on there were a little risque even for 2003.

The one that turned a lot of people off was when the goal was to get an item out of a woman with a one-piece bathing suit as the first deal. With the show airing at 8pm, this made people turn it off. They also gave away a trip to Iraq right before the war started as part of one of the big deals. No wonder it only lasted 3 episodes.

[nightfly61]

Swingtown was a pretty awkward show to have on around the house. It got downright ick-ie, since everything revolved around sex or swingers or threesomes. The only thing decent about this short lived piece of crap was the soundtrack.