Turn on, tune in, drop out for NBC Radio's Talknet nighttime programming block of call-in advice shows. Another variation, "Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out", was the title of a 1993 single by the band 'Freak Power'—the name itself being a reference to the hippie culture. Turn on, tune in, drop out "Turn on, tune in, drop out" is a counterculture-era phrase popularized by Timothy Leary in 1966. In 1967 Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and phrased the famous words, "Turn on, tune in, drop out". It was also the title of his
Turn on, tune in, drop out in one of the lines. Gil Scott-Heron criticised the concept in his 1970 poem and song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", with the line "You will not be able to plug in, turn on and ". The lyrics, "Turn on, tune in, drop out" are included verbatim in several songs: The "" episode title "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Dead" also parodies the quote, with the episode focusing on how two victims who are supposedly dead get up and walk away. A variation of the quote ("Tune in, Turn on, Talknet") was used in the 1980s and early 1990s