If you were a teenager in the 80's (and you had Cable TV) you probably encountered NIGHT FLIGHT on USA Network.
It ran in 2 hour blocks and would sometimes be shown all night on USA Network, I remember the show starting usually on a Friday or a Saturday night around 11pm and going on until dawn, or until the infomercials started to run at 4am or so. The unseen announcer Pat Prescott would introduce each segment which contained everything from old horror movies to new Music Videos (many that MTV wouldn't play) to short films and retrospectives on artists or genere's of music. Sometimes episodes of New Wave Theatre would be shown as part of the telecast, sometimes the comedy versions of DYNAMAN would be telecast (re-dubbed with humorous results). The list goes on and on.
It ran from the early to the late 1980's, after which it went into reruns before disappearing until it eventually returned in the early to mid 1990's as a new format show, which is generally frowned upon by most of the folks who remember the original.
Shows like Night Flight sort of "encompassed" the 1980's if you ask me, where the show highlighted all that was new and hip or old and odd.....and it was never the same show from week to week. Always entertaining, even
The reason I'm curious if any of you remember it is because the show and all of its master tapes have recently been re-acquired by the people who originally made the show throughout the 80's.
There are said to be hundreds to thousands of hours of material that never made it to air, and all of this footage is in the process of being digitzed....digital distribution is one possibility, even re-showing the shows on a network of some kind is another.
I was just curious how many of you remember this show, and get an idea if there is any excitement about being able to see it again.....! I know I am...
Posted by Chris the CandyFanMan (Member # 3197) on :
It sounds rather interesting actually. I never stayed up that late in those days, but it sounds like something I might have liked. Regardless, there's no question USA was definitely the best regular cable channel in the 80s (in my opinion it's continued to hold that distinction through to today) and had a great freshness and spirit during that time that's har to match at any point in TV history (who can argue with that great all-afternoon game show block, for instance?).
Posted by jimpickens (Member # 5801) on :
I loved this show always watched it unless there was a movie on the pay channels or I wasn't home those were the good old days of cable.
Posted by halekido (Member # 7119) on :
I loved Night Flight. I had totally forgotten about this program. That is one thing I hated about going into the Navy in 1988 (but I have no regrets), the 80's were unceremoniously dead by the time I got back to the real world. I never got to give a proper goodbye.
Posted by xchazx (Member # 7158) on :
night flight was one of the greatest shows ever.
as a young skate punk/hardcore kid growing up in the 80's, i have two great memories of this show. first, it aired this great 80's punk movie called "Suburbia". i was just getting into punk rock and hardcore music when it aired and it blew me away. i still remember the night i watched it. the second movie was a punk documentary called "Another State of Mind", which like "Suburbia", was a huge influence on me at the time and kind of changed the way i was as a kid. i will forever be in debt to night flight.
was this show the precursor to the show hosted by joe bob briggs? i forgot what that show was called. it was later taken over by gilbert gottfried and then some blonde lady. that too was a good show if you were into 70'/80's cheesy flicks.
Posted by halekido (Member # 7119) on :
"Suburbia" was cool. Me and my friends walked around quoting lines from the movie weeks after we saw it.
