I can remember stay up many a late night on Friday and Saturday nights to get my fix of the late night lunacy that these shows provided. Everything from straight horror films to Troma flicks to some truly great TV shows! Enjoy these clips from some of my favorites!
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USA Up All Night, hosted by Gilbert Godfried and *drool* Rhonda Shear. If I remember correctly, Up All Night used to be on Fridays AND Saturdays....Rhonda hosted on Fridays and Gilbert on Saturdays. Caroline Schlitt host the Friday night show originally ....but I wasn't watching back then. I can remember many a late night watching flicks such as The Toxic Avenger, Vice Academy and Meatballs. They showed everything from crazy Troma flicks such as A Nympoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell to classic comedy like Young Frankenstein and everything in between. Horror, Sci-Fi, Explotation, Sexplotation, Cult, Comedy it was all in there! Of course being a network station all the good stuff was edited out....but once in a while someone would slip up and a boob would go unscrambled or an F-bomb would go un-bleeped. Those of you who remember this show will remember USA's "scrambling" of naughty bits.....basically pixilating the "offending" part of the picture. Sometimes you could almost make out a nipple! Sure that doesn't sound like much in this day and age of internet porn, but for a 12 year who's only access to naked women was National Geographic, it was pretty awesome!
Commander USA's Groovy Movies
From his secret HQ under a shopping mall, Commander USA would usually show a double feature on Saturday afternoons. Usually of the B- Z Grade variety of Sci-Fi and Horror films. I'm gonna be honest with ya on this one.....of all the shows I'm talking about, I remember this one only vaguely. However, I did find segments from his one and only Halloween Special, so you can go ahead and enjoy the heck out of those!
Creature Double Feature! The ONLY place to get your monster movie fix on Sunday afternoons! CDF stopped running when I was quite young, but I still have quite vivid memories of sitting in front of the TV and watching Godzilla battle it out with Megalon. As a matter of fact, I can remember that I loved that movie so much that my parents bought if for me on VHS for Christmas. The VHS art was absolutely awesome. Godzill and Megalon fighting on what appears to be the Twin Towers. Don't believe me? Here check it out! See! I told ya so!USA Saturday Nightmares was on Saturday nights starting at 8p.m. It would usually consist of a movie followed by an episode of The Hitchhiker, Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Ray Bradbury Theater. The intro segment was a cool computer animated tour through a house with "paintings" that either showed movie monsters or had a quick clip from a movie. Most of the movies shown were from the same lot of films as Commander USA pretty much. I'll talke more about The Hitchhiker and Ray Bradbury Theater at another time...both those shows are so awesome they warrent thier own articles! The announcer is awesome on this one too!
TNT'S MONSTERVISION!!!!! HELL YEAH!!!!!
Okay you know what....this is going to warrent it's very own article. Yes, it's THAT awesome. So consider the above intro video a teaser for an upcoming article! Best. Show. Ever. Period.Night Flight.....this was a show that could have only existed in the 80's. Four hours of pure madness. Movies, shorts, music videos and everything in between. I think this is going to warrent it's own article as well. There's just too much awesomeness to try and cram into an article already overflowing with video goodness! Trust me, it'll be worth it's weight in Pizza Rolls!
RANDOM MUSIC VIDEO!!
I can think of no better way to send you off than with this clip from 1986's Neon Maniacs. One of the greatest cheezy horror movies ever made (and the namesake of my new weekly Friday Night article!) The battle of the bands segment of the movie is 100% pure 80's filtered onto celluloid and perfectly preserved for future generations to marvel. The song is titled Baby Lied by Rick Bowles. Enjoy.
In all seriousness, you could slap my name on this post and say I wrote it. I too grew up with all of these shows, as well as stuff like Monsters, War of the Worlds, Friday the 13th: The Series, etc etc...
ReplyDeleteI actually used to have every episode of Shadow Theater taped from TV but lost it probably over 15 years ago. Luckily, an internet buddy had all of the episodes transferred onto DVD and sent me a copy after I posted about it on some forums. I've been meaning to watch them, then probably write a little article about the show afterwards. By far one of the biggest influences in my young life!
Glad you enjoyed it brotha! I've got tons of VHS tapes laying around somewhere in my parents basement with episodes of all these shows!
ReplyDeleteI remember on USA they used to show these little short films in between stuff as well, including one where a thief stole this gem from an old lady, but then ended up getting kill and she took the gem back.....can't remember much else about it though.