#TV censorship

[buzzdixonwriter]

Turn-On! Turned Off (part 2)

Riding high on the success of Laugh-In, Schlatter and Friendly were approached by Bristol-Meyers to create a similar show for them.  Schlatter and Friendly, feeling their original concept for Laugh-In became too diluted by the time it hit the air, took a second swing at it with Turn-On!.

The premise of Turn-On! is that it’s a TV skit comedy show created by a computer.  At the beginning of each episode two technicians walk to computer terminal sitting in a white featureless voice.  They start the computer and it begins generating short skits, none longer than a minute in length, most only ten seconds or less.  Frequently weird animations or puppets would intrude into the frame completely independent of the actual skit being performed.  And while there were a few recurring characters and skits, many of them seemed derivative of Laugh-In performers.

No music, no laugh track, just weird blips and bloops from a Moog synthesizer (the first use of a Moog on American TV).

And to add to the confusion, the credits ran after commercials, not at either the beginning or end of the show.  Bristol-Meyer shot all tbeir commercials in a similar comic sensibility to the show itself, so it became even more confusing to viewers as to whether they were watching a real commercial or a parody of one.

The thing is, none of this is explained to the audience, Schlatter and Friendly and co-producer Digby Wolfe) simply assumed you’d either get it or not.  Without someway of making sense of the show, audiences of the era were left rudderless.

Remember, this is 1969.  Go take a look at that list up there for an idea of what America was going through, if you think the current MAGA vs progressives contretempts is bad, you’ve got no idea what the country went through with Norman Rockwell America vs sex & drugs & rock & roll (plus radical politics & civil rights & feminism & anti-war).

Some viewers complained of being physically ill by all the fast cutting and non-sequiturs, but fast cutting and non-sequiturs are de rigueur in video now.  Comedy against a featureless background is a TikTok aesthetic (and, lordy, there are some brilliantly funny comics and comedians out there).

What really pissed ‘em off was the open for the day commentaries on sex and race, with a good dollop of politics thrown in.

Please do not think this was all high brow enlightened material rejected by the hoi polloi. 

Quite the contrary.

One of their female performers appeared as “The Body Politic” reclining on a divan in sleepwear, making Playboy-quality jokes on sex.  The attractive female members of the cast were expected to do go-go dances, same as on Laugh-In, only Laugh-In’s dancers usually had some sort of funny graffiti painted on them, Turn-On!’s…just danced.

There were holocaust jokes, demeaning gay jokes, racial stereotypes, sexual stereotypes, and references to all sorts of kinks that people today think got invented in the 21st century.

Schlatter and Friendly set out to be deliberately offensive, and they succeeded.  While we can acknowledge they intended their offence to be in service of exposing hypocrisy, a lot of it remains pointlessly offensive today, and in more than a few cases their Playboy-era masculine attitudes have added brand new levels of offensiveness.

So why not ignore Turn-On! if it’s so awful?

Because it isn’t awful.

There are terrible parts, to be sure, and they spoil appreciation of what Schlatter and Friendly and co. actually wrought, bust this proved to be really groundbreaking material.  They weren’t the first to do this sort of surrealist comedy (try 1964’s Help, My Snowman's Burning Down on for size, or the earliest film experiments of Jim Henson) but they were the first to try to deliver it unfiltered and undiluted to the American public.

This show seems almost quaint and passe now, but every technique used in it is now being employed across the Internet with striking effect.

And while they made many of their points in an offensive manner, their points are typically spot on.

The show did not sit well with the American public.  According to Schlatter, there was an effort by one station owner to cancel the show before it began because it took over one of three (!) weeknight slots set aside for the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place (one of those shallow properties that makes a meteoric arc across the pop culture sphere only to vanish without a trace).  When the premiere episode aired, a couple of stations simply didn’t come back to the show but aired local programming until the next program started (one just played twenty minutes of recorded organ music!).

Public and critical reaction appeared uniformly negative.  Even Harlan Ellison, while refusing to call it bad, acknowledged it as “awkward” in The Glass Teat.  ABC-TV preempted the second episode in order to start their movie The Oscar a half hour earlier (and if you know anything about Harlan and this movie, you can appreciate the irony).

After that the series was quietly shelved, with Schlatter reporting ABC-TV paid him the full series production budget on the promise he never show it again to anyone. Well, all involved are long out of position to do anything about enforcing such a contract, so the first two episodes -- the premiere hosted by Tim Conway –--and the second –--hosted by Robert Culp and his then-wife France Nuyen -- finally surfaced, allowing us to see for ourselves what caused all the fuss.

As Harlan said, awkward but not bad.  As I said, a brilliant misfire.  It really appears to be a show several years ahead of its time, something better suited for late night TV than prime-time.  Could it have made a cultural impact the way Laugh-In did?  Maybe, given enough exposure.  Many of the mini-segments were shot by film students Schlatter recruited; as a showcase for new talent it might have proved interesting.

Since it was shot on film, I’m surprised Schlatter and Friendly didn’t try re-editing it for theatrical release.

 © Buzz Dixon

Turn-On! episode one with Tim Conway

Turn-On! episode two with Robert Culp and France Nuyen

[nerdby]

ALL👏🏻MEDIA👏🏻IS👏🏻POLITICAL👏🏻

[admiral-bennetts-aide-de-camp]

in my heart of hearts i truly believe that the study group had multiple group chats. like a discord server with multiple channels to stay on topic, because discord hadnt been invented yet, and they would never stay on topic. theyre like a discord server that keeps futilely making threads. shirley, annie, and sometimes abed would be the main ones that scold anyone who's off-topic. and abed would be vocal about this. Why make a group chat specifically for study meetups when you aren't going to use it for that.

shirley would also make a girls chat with britta and annie. and jeff, more in retaliation than anything, would make a guys chat with troy and abed. (he forgot pierce on purpose.) Neither are used much.

there would also be a roommates group chat for annie, troy, and abed, created by annie, that incidentally is also a younger generation group chat. Remember those study break mini episodes? Yeah.

[angelsdean]

I need people to understand how S&P (standards and practices) works in television and how much influence they have over what gets to stay IN an episode of a show and how the big time network execs are the ones holding the purse strings and making final decisions on a show's content, not the writers / showrunners / creatives involved.

So many creators have shared S&P notes over the years of the wild and nonsensical things networks wanted them to omit / change / forbid. Most famously on tumblr, I've seen it so many times, is the notes from Gravity Falls. But here's a post compiling a bunch of particularly bad ones from various networks too. Do you see the things they're asking to be changed / cut ?

Now imagine, anything you want to get into your show and actually air has to get through S&P and the network execs. A lot of creators have had to resort to underhanded methods. A lot of creators have had to relegate things to subtext and innuendo and scenes that are "open to interpretation" instead of explicit in meaning. Things have had to be coded and symbolized. And they're relying on their audience to be good readers, good at media literacy, to notice and get it. This stuff isn't the ramblings of conspiracy theorists, it's the true practices creatives have had to use to be able to tell diverse stories for ages. The Hays Code is pretty well known, it exists because of censorship. It was a way to symbolize certain things and get past censors.

Queercoding, in particular, has been used for ages in both visual media and literature do signal to queer audiences that yes, this character is one of us, but no, we can't be explicit about it because TPTB won't allow it. It's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to those in the know. It's the deliberate use of certain queer imagery / clothing / mannerisms / phrases / references to other queer media / subtle glances and lingering touches. Things that offer plausible deniability and can be explained away or go unnoticed by straight audiences to get past those network censors. But that queer viewers WILL (hopefully) pick up on.

Because, unfortunately, still to this day, a lot of antiquated network execs don't think queer narratives are profitable. They don't think they'll appeal to general audiences, because that's what matters, whatever appeals to most of the audience demographic so they can keep watching and keep making the network more money. The networks don't care about telling good stories! Most of them are old white cishet business men, not creatives. They don't care about character arcs and what will make fans happy. They don't care about storytelling. What they care about is profit and they're basing their ideas of what's profitable on what they believe is the predominate target demographic, usually white cis heterosexual audiences.

So, imagine a show that started airing in the early 2000s. Imagine a show where the two main characters are based on two characters from a famous Beat Generation novel, where one of the characters is queer! based on a real like bisexual man! The creator is aware of this, most definitely. And sure, it's 2005, there's no way they were thinking of making that explicit about Dean in the text because it just wouldn't fly back then to have a main character be queer. But! it's made subtext. And there are nods to that queerness placed in the text. Things that are open to interpretation. Things that are drenched in metaphor (looking at you 1x06 Skin "I know I'm a freak" "maybe this thing was born human but was different...hated. Until he learned to become someone else.") Things that are blink-and-you-miss-it and left to plausible deniability (things like seemingly spending an hour in the men's bathroom, or always reacting a little vulnerable and awkward when you're clocked instead of laughing it off and making a homophobic joke abt it)

And then, years later there's a ship! It's popular and at first the writers aren't really seriously thinking about it but they'll throw the fans a bone here and there. Then, some writers do get on the destiel train and start actively writing scenes for them that are suggestive. And only a fraction of what they write actually makes it into the text. So many lines left on the cutting room floor: i love past you. i forgive you i love you. i lost cas and it damn near broke me. spread cas's ashes alone. of course i wanted you to stay. if cas were here. -- etc. Everything cut was not cut by the writers! Why would a writer write something to then sabotage their own story and cut it? No, these are things that didn't make it past the network. Somewhere a note was made maybe "too gay" or "don't feed the shippers" or simply "no destiel."

So, "no destiel." That's pretty clearly the message we got from the CW for years. "No destiel. Destiel will alienate our general audience. Two of our main characters being queer? And in a relationship? No way." So what can the pro-destiel creatives involved do, if the network is saying no? What can the writers do if most of their explicit destiel (or queer dean) lines / moments are getting cut? Relegate things to subtext. Make jokes that straight people can wave off but queer people can read into. Make costuming and set design choices that the hardcore fans who are already looking will notice while the general audience and the out-of-touch network execs won't blink and eye at (I'm looking at you Jerry and your lamps and disappearing second nightstands and your gay flamingo bar!)

And then, when the audience asks, "is destiel real? is this proof of destiel?" what can the creatives do but deny? Yes, it hurts, to be told "No no I don't know what you're talking about. There's no destiel in supernatural" a la "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" but! if the network said "no destiel!" and you and your creative team have been working to keep putting destiel in the subtext of the narrative in a way that will get past censors, you can't just go "Yes, actually, all that subtext and symbolism you're picking up, yea it's because destiel is actually in the narrative."

But, there's a BIG difference between actively putting queer themes and subtext into the narrative and then saying it's not there (but it is! and the audience sees it!) versus NOT putting any queer content into the text but SAYING it is there to entice queer fans to continue watching. The latter, is textbook queerbaiting. The former? Is not. The former is the tactics so many creatives have had to use for years, decades, centuries, to get past censorship and signal to those in the know that yea, characters like you are here, they exist in this story.

Were the spn writers perfect? No, absolutely not. And I don't think every instance of queer content was a secret signal. Some stuff, depending on the writer, might've been a period-typical gay joke. These writers are flawed. But it's no secret that there were pro-destiel writers in the writing room throughout the years, and that efforts were made to make it explicitly canon (the market research!)

So no, the writers weren't ever perfect or a homogeneous entity. But they definitely were fighting an uphill battle constantly for 15 yrs against S&P and network execs with antiquated ideas of what's profitable / appealing.

Spn even called out the networks before, on the show, using a silly example of complaints abt the lighting of the show and how dark the early seasons were. Brightening the later seasons wasn't a creative choice, but a network choice. And if the networks can complain abt and change something as trivial as the lighting of a show, they definitely are having a hand in influencing the content of the show, especially queer content.

Even in s15, (seasons fifteen!!!) Misha has said he worried Castiel's confession would not air. In 2020!!! And Jensen recorded that scene on his personal phone! Why? Sure, for the memories. But also, I do not doubt for a second that part of it was for insurance, should the scene mysteriously disappear completely. We've seen the finale script. We've seen the omitted omitted omitted scenes. We all saw how they hacked the confession scene to bits. The weird cuts and close-ups. That's not the writers doing. That's likely not even the editors (willingly). That's orders from on high. All of the fuckery we saw in s15 reeks of network interference. Writers are not trying to sabotage their own stories, believe me.

Anyways, TLDR: Networks have a lot more power than many think and they get final say in what makes it to air. And for years creative teams have had to find ways to get past network censorship if they want "banned" or "unapproved" "unprofitable" "unwanted" content to make it into the show. That means relying on techniques like symbolism, subtext, and queercoding, and then shutting up about it. Denying its there, saying it's all "open to interpretation" all while they continue to put that open to interpretation content into the show. And that's not queerbaiting, as frustrating as it might be for queer audiences to be told that what they're seeing isn't there, it's still not queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is a marketing technique to draw in queer fans by baiting them with the promise of queer content and then having no queer content in said media. But if you are picking up on queer themes / subtext / symbolism / coding that is in front of your face IN the text, that's not queerbaiting. It's there, covertly, for you, because someone higher up didn't want it to be there explicitly or at all.

[calabria-mediterranea]

A high-profile Italian author has accused Rai of censorship after his antifascist monologue was abruptly stopped from being aired, in what he called the “definitive demonstration” of alleged attempts by Giorgia Meloni’s government to wield its power over the state broadcaster.

Antonio Scurati was due to read the monologue marking the 25 April national holiday, which celebrates Italy’s liberation from fascism, on the Rai 3 talkshow Chesarà on Saturday night.

But as he prepared to travel to Rome, he received a note from Rai telling him his appearance had been cancelled “for editorial reasons”.

Scurati is well known in Italy for his books about the dictator Benito Mussolini and the fascist period. The cancellation of his monologue provoked fierce reaction from Rai journalists, fellow authors and opposition leaders.

His speech referenced Giacomo Matteotti, a political opponent of Mussolini who was murdered by fascist hitmen in 1924, and other massacres of the regime. It also contained a paragraph criticising Italy’s “post-fascist” leaders for not “repudiating their neofascist past”.

“Undoubtedly, this is what infuriated them,” Scurati told the Guardian. “And also because of what I represent and maintain in my books … [that] there is a continuity between the fascism of Mussolini and the populist nationalists in Europe.”

The Rai director Paolo Corsini denied that the monologue had been censored, telling the Italian media that an investigation “of an economic and contractual nature” was under way, while implying that the speech was cancelled because of the “higher than expected” fee sought by Scurati.

Scurati said his fee had been agreed and the contract signed before the monologue was due to be broadcast. “The fee was perfectly in line with those paid to authors … It was the same as in the past, when there were no issues.”

In solidarity, Serena Bortone, who presents Chesarà, read out the monologue on the show. It has also been published in full by several Italian newspapers and websites.

Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has neofascist origins, came to power in October 2022 with a coalition including the far-right League and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

During the election campaign, Meloni said the rightwing parties had “handed fascism over to history for decades now”. However, Scurati claimed in his monologue that when forced to address fascism at historical anniversaries, Meloni has “obstinately stuck to the ideological line of her neofascist culture of origin”, for example by blaming the Mussolini regime’s persecution of the Jews and other massacres on Nazi Germany alone.

Meloni responded by publishing the speech on her Facebook page, while attacking Scurati and accusing the left of “shouting at the regime”.

“Rai responded by simply refusing to pay €1,800 (the monthly salary of many employees) for a minute of monologue,” she said. “I don’t know what the truth is, but I will happily publish the text of the monologue (which I hope I don’t have to pay for) for two reasons: 1) Those who have always been ostracised and censored by the public service will never ask for anyone to be censored. Not even those who think their propaganda against the government should be paid for with citizens’ money. 2) Because Italians can freely judge its content.”

Since coming to power, the Meloni government has been accused of increasingly exerting its power over Rai while edging out managers or TV hosts with leftwing views. The European Commission was last week urged to investigate the government’s alleged attempts to turn the broadcaster into a “megaphone” for the ruling parties before the European elections.

Meloni’s administration has also been accused of trying to influence other areas of the press and targeting journalists with legal action who criticise the government. A Brothers of Italy politician recently proposed toughening penalties for defamation, including jail terms of two to three years.

Elly Schlein, the leader of the centre-left Democratic party, said: “The Scurati case is serious; Rai is the megaphone for the government.” Carlo Calenda, the leader of the centrist Azione party, said: “Silencing a writer for saying unpleasant things about the government is simply unacceptable.”

Scurati said he has received solidarity from many authors and journalists who were otherwise afraid to speak out against the government.

“This episode is the definitive demonstration, as it has finally aroused the revolt of other writers, intellectuals and journalists who until now kept quiet,” he said. “This government launches violent personal attacks against you for speaking out, in my case [that] I asked for too much money.”

Follow us on Instagram, @calabria_mediterranea

[the-yellow-wall]

Breaking news: near 31 year-old man is babygirl

[boysnberriespie]

Truly you can’t simultaneously say “this queer media is important and meaningful in real life” and then simultaneously say that anyone critiquing it for its handling of certain subjects and the messages that sends is just applying morality to media where it doesn’t belong

It can not both be a moral win and free from analysis of those morals

[the-corvus-luna]

The Tsubasa Chronicle 'Problem'

No eye, no heart, no time, no feathers, and..... no show.

It's April 9th, 2005, 6:30 p.m. BLAZE blares loudly on the TV while you sit in a dimly lit room, slurping whatever instant ramen you could find. You catch the faint silhouettes of familiar characters from Cardcaptor Sakura, looking a bit older, along with a few new faces you don't recognize yet... a new journey, a new world.

CLAMP's Multidimensional Masterpiece.

The legendary Yuki Kajiura's compositions bring the story to life. "Song of Storm and Fire" sparks that electric feeling of excitement and tension just before Syaoran kicks into battle. Eri Itou’s breathy voice floats delicately, much like Sakura’s own feathers, adding a sense of ethereal beauty. The animation is fluid and action-packed, just as you'd expect from Bee Train.

What the hell happened? How did an internationally successful anime with 2 seasons, 1 movie, and 2 OVA's that leave the story incomplete.... what the hell?!

To find out to get the full story, you have to read the manga?!

Was it just bad like this guy's review suggests?

Is it really... a bad... anime?

Let's go on a journey about how censorship ruins everything, a broadcasting company's unreasonable demands, and a group of stubborn artists who refuse to have their story modified.

First off, based on my basic research, Japanese TV shows don't have to comply with rating laws like in the US. Before any US show airs, you usually see a rating in the top left corner—common ones for kids’ shows are Y7, meaning they’re appropriate for children 7 years or older. The US rating for Tsubasa Chronicle was TV-PG. But if you know anything about this series, it’s definitely not TV-PG... more like TV-14, and maybe even TV-MA at certain points, depending on your tolerance for darker themes.

Tsubasa Chronicle originally showed on NHK-E, an educational channel, alongside a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen...

While Japan might not have a formal TV rating system, it’s probably safe to assume that NHK would prioritize age-appropriate content. Ultimately, it’s NHK’s decision what airs on their network. For example, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (which, unsurprisingly, isn’t shown on any NHK network) airs around 11:00 p.m. The later time slot allows for more graphic content without much concern.

I can hear you screaming from the void, "TSUBASA CHRONICLE ISN'T EDUCATIONAL!" And honestly, if you’ve watched the anime, it’s not educational in the traditional sense... unless you count four people learning how to cope with massive amounts of trauma in various forms.

But Cardcaptor Sakura was kid-friendly… and someone who looks just like her stars in Tsubasa.

Magic Knight Rayearth was so educational it's anime was funded by a government grant!

I think NHK was expecting them to adapt the anime to be more 'educationally friendly' due to other properties they worked on... joke's on NHK, though.

The first issue I remember hearing was how NHK wanted to censor all alcohol references from Tsubasa.

From this interview from 2005 at around the 9:30 mark, we get to have a rare look at their art studio/research library and most important, the bar. Alcohol is a part of their creative process, and based on the KyotoHoLiC collaboration with traditional sake brewers, it means they have no intention to hide their passion for relaxation... not for NHK or anyone.

Second issue, graphic imagery. When the anime came out, the manga was only to volume chapter 66 - chapter 73 (Tsubasa Onmibus Vol 4)...literally 3 pages into the next chapter is the start of the graphic imagery that eventually leads into violent fights, lots of blood, and death by the end of the series. That's assuming that NHK didn't get a sneak peak at what the story was going to become.

For people who've read the Omnibus, to goes from Piffle World to Recourt to the 'Acid Wasteland'... quite the tone shift when NHK picked up this anime for a kid friendly educational show.

That's why Tsubasa Chronicle was canceled, or at least my general theory. Sadly there's no official reason for the cancelation. CLAMP did run Kobato on NHK-E in 2009, so the censorship and eventual cancelation didn't not burn the bridge between them.

Sadly, NHK did cancel a show that was not only getting a following internationally but also had it's own international merchandise sold at retailers! I will always treasure my US Mokona Modoki Soel plush, matching backpack, and Fai's Staff necklace.

Don't forget, even Gaia Online even had a huge promotional event where players had to track down Sakura's feathers alongside other promotional events such as Magic the Gathering and Hollywood produced movies... and that was in 2007, after the anime series was already cancelled, never able to reach the conclusion.

Do yourself a favor and I'd suggest reading this manga if you loved the anime back in the day, but know that the lighthearted whimsy and sweetness of the anime is a palate cleanser for what NHK deemed they could not put on TV.

I found an unsubstantiated rumor on the fandom page about how the S2 opening was already storyboarded in Character Guide Vol 2., but NHK made them re-do it. I'm trying to track down that PDF so figure out what they cut, but it's a difficult one to find.

I did find a short of someone thumbing through their Japanese copy.

Holy shit! That's the scene in CLAMP in Wonderland 2 that's eluded to, but we never see play out in the anime. NHK made them get rid of their weapons for boxing with shadows? I guess Sakura's image also had to be 'softened' too. Ick.

[woundedearth]

people are so quick to laugh at other people for taking extremely loaded and upsetting representation in media ~too seriously~, but also conflate the words of some of the most powerless marginalized people with censorship by the FUCKING US GOVERNMENT. it’s so disingenuous it’s so silencing it’s so fucking shitty

it also very much feels like the cultural moment we’re in right now, where bringing up issues rooted in deep irl power structures is automatically written off as oversensitive and reactionary. it’s just media, until it’s an example from real life—then it’s just not that serious, or it’s childish to draw those connections, or it’s censorship to bring it up in the first place. allusions to irl violence are chump change but irl violence is always an isolated incident. and no one cares that this attitude magically seems to exclusively benefit the extremely conservative worldview that holds power

like lmfao no i don’t think it’s your right or anyone’s right to cover your eyes to obviously shitty offensive media writing laden with cultural baggage…. so that you can ~just enjoy it~! does this say nothing about you when you jump to silence the critiques of folks who noticed the harmful shit that went over your head? hot take… media is actually made and consumed by human beings who live in a society

[poughkeepsies]

my beloved mutuals you are all doing yourselves a disservice by not giving kdramas and cdramas a chance. there's literally a show where a ghost king and the ex-leader of a spy organization who has three years left to live become so immediately obsessed with each other upon meeting that they adopt each other's adopted children and live together as a family. at one point the ex-spy leader gets tortured with meat hooks. he's such a pillow princess the ghost king threatens to leave him cause he keeps not doing any of the household chores. they keep selling their souls for each other. there's an entire political plot going on in the background with the stakes to tear down their world as they know and they just don't fucking care. they call each other their soulmate and there's an entire scene where all they do is look into each other's eyes and repeatedly say the other's name because it's good to have someone to call. chinese censorship doesn't allow them to be more explicit because showing gay people on tv is fucking illegal so they mouth "ai ni" which means "I love you" without audio instead. they're the ultimate battlefield couple. they're the biggest bastards in the world. they're childhood friends. they're immortal nightmares.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Turn-On! Turned Off (part 1)

Turn-On! Is a legendary 1969 TV show legendary for all the wrong reasons:  It was cancelled during its first commercial break.

Typically when TV shows of that era are discussed it’s out of context with the time.  This is okay when discussing conventional westerns or cop shows or comedy-variety shows since they typically took great pains to avoid the social issues of their day in order to maximize appeal.

But there’s a different breed of cat that went out looking for trouble, and boy howdy!, was Turn-On! one of those.  It was a brilliant misfire, w-a-a-a-y ahead of its time, offensive then, and in an odd way, even more offensive now.

First off let’s set the culture temperature for the U.S. on February 5, 1969, Turn-On!’s premiere:

1967’s Summer of Love morphed into 1968’s days of rage

The Vietnam War continued to drag on in the wake of the Tet Offensive in January 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated

Political infighting split the Democratic Party, culminating with the infamous 1968 Democratic

Convention riot in Chicago “The whole world’s watching!”

White racist George Wallace created the proto-MAGA American Independent Party and siphoned off enough votes from Hubert Humphrey to cost him the election

Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who until recently were the sleaziest bastards ever to set foot in the White House, won election for the so-called “silent majority”

The popular and innovative 1967 show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour became increasingly more political, rousing both White House and network ire (it would be cancelled on June 6, 1969)

On January 22, 1968 Rowan And Martin’s Laugh-In, produced by George Schlatter and Ed Friendly. replaced The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and became an immediate smash hit

The latter bears great importance on the story of Turn-On! and not merely because Schlatter and Friendly produced both shows.

Turn-On! has been accurately described as watching a half-hour’s worth of TikTok videos back-to-back.  While Laugh-In pioneered fast paced rapid-fire editing for skit comedy, it nonetheless maintained enough form for (most) audiences to get their bearings.  Whenever things grew too frenetic, they could always return to hosts Dan Rowan and Dick Martin or announcer Gary Owen to give viewers a chance to catch their breath.  They employed regular skits so the folks at home could find reassuring familiarity each week as well as more or less conventional satirical musical numbers, all backed by well placed laugh tracks.

They also hired a good cast, created several recurring stock characters who remain familiar to this day, and launched several catch phrases emblemic of the era:  “Sock it to me” “The flying fickle finger of fate” “You bet your sweet bippy” “Here comes the judge” (Okay, that last one is actually a call back to African-American vaudeville, but bravo to Laugh-In for sharing it with the rest of the country.)

And while the show didn’t steer clear of political and social satire, they lacked the heartfelt intensity the Smothers Brothers brought to theirs. 

You’re scarcely nibbling the hand that feeds you when you invite Richard Nixon to say “Sock it to me” on national television.

So Laugh-In had a sense of rebellion, a sense of daring, but in truth often appeared no more edgy than a copy Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang.  It was a format swiftly and ironically even more successfully imitated in cornpone by Hee Haw (and don’t get me wrong, Hee Haw could be damn funny).

 © Buzz Dixon

Turn-On! episode one with Tim Conway

Turn-On! episode two with Robert Culp and France Nuyen

[nerdby]

Having a debate with someone about "superhero fatigue" and I think I just figured out what the REAL problem with cinema is: The streaming industry and Christofascism go hand-in-hand. Almost everything with decent queer or BIPOC rep goes straight to the small screen because film studios outside of Netflix and Hulu are too afraid to risk losing money.

I mean, when was the last time you saw a queer film that wasn't like....Love Simon or whatever in theaters? Or even on live television?

In the 90s and early 2000s shows like Them -- a horror series that examines suburban racism set in 1950s California on Amazon -- would have gotten a 10pm slot on FX or Showtime. Ads for the show would start playing at like 4pm and become more frequent after sunset. Instead almost no one even knows the show exists unless they stumble across it in the Prime library. I mean, American Horror Story was hugely popular when it aired on cable and now the only place you can watch it is on Hulu, and the same thing is true about Pose.

Every TV series, documentary, or film that has a hint of counter-culture to it goes straight to streaming with minimal marketing.

You can deny it all you want, but queer and BIPOC stories have been delegated to the back burner. Like didn't any of you ever wonder Knives Out: Glass Onion didn't get a theatrical debut even though the prequel was a huge success?

Why don't you ask Benoit Blanc and his husband?

This is why there's no counter-culture in the US right now.

[buttfrovski]

the censoring in (mostly) early south park is so silly because

fuck? gotta censor that jfc- what are we? disgusting heathens? have some decorum.

but the f slur- r slur- n word- etc. a-okay ☺️👍

[deranged-fandom-quotes-archive]

The projectors keep coming out of the woodwork and it never ends. Again, if you are seeing CSEM on television or on social media report it to the police! The FBI and the Police will laugh you out of the office for trying to report fictional objects that don't exist. It's clear some people have zero reading comprehension given that they were responding to my previous post. Antis once again trying to project their sick and twisted interests on to someone pointing out their insanity. They're the masters of gaslighting and manipulation; so much so they need their own category in the olympics. The fact that they think it's acceptable to compare real children to objects is nothing short of horrifying. Imagine going through life thinking children are objects or something that doesn't exist. How dehumanizing, how shameful and inhuman must you be to make a mockery of real human suffering because you need to protect your pixels more so than the well being of actual people. We know for sure, with this kind of response, they would turn a blind eye to the pain and suffering of children.

[guzhufuren]

i am insane. About a fucking tv show

[llycaons]

I found the cql submissions for annoying fandom poll and they're really funny actually. all four of them. I'll post when I'm on desktop.