by Led Zeppelin‘s The Song Remains the Same, followed by an old Heckle and Jeckle cartoon, followed by the music of Devo, and, finally, the original Night of the Living Dead.
A classic lineup like that can only mean one thing-I am on the couch in the mid-1980s, checking out Night Flight.
For the uninitiated, Night Flight was a show on the USA network that aired in various incarnations (the best and most popular being 1981-1988). For many, Friday and Saturday nights were reserved for the obscure, the grotesque, and the just plain bizarre.
In 1981, television viewing was more or less limited to the mainstream programming of the “Big 3” stations and the movies reserved for pay stations such as Showtime and HBO. Believe it or not kids, back then, you were at the mercy of a few channels and whatever was showing at the theater. A world without Blu-Ray, DVR, and YouTube now seems as barbaric as, well, not having a cell phone, but there we were.
The result was a plethora of “underground” films, shorts and music videos too “out there” for the ABC Saturday Night Movie and not profitable enough to air just before E.T. on Showtime. Many of these golden nuggets had not been seen in decades, and Night Flight was the place to go to expand your head.
Why, if it weren’t for Night Flight, I might never have found John Waters, Felix the Cat, or The Ramones. The groundbreaking series offered me my first exposure to The Terror of Tiny Town (a 1930s western starring only midgets), Flesh for Frankenstein (created as only the disturbed mind of Andy Warhol and his minions could manage), and Reefer Madness (“one puff and you’re hooked!”).
Night Flight also gave many youngsters their first glimpse of that macabre aberration The Night of the Living Dead, an ode to cannibalism only spoken about in whispers (hard to believe, as now it has been overexposed and parodied so often it has lost all of its shock value). The classic film is treated as tame and laughable today, but it was a different story to the uninitiated at 2 a.m. in 1984.
And the music? Also what you could not get during non-vampiric hours on MTV (yes, believe it or not, MTV used to play videos and stood for Music TeleVision). Who remembers the punk doing a flip in Toni Basil‘s “Shopping from A to Z“? Or Lou Adler‘s follow-up to his classic homage to aliens and tranvestism, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains?
Relive some classic weirdness here!
Civilization, at least for the weird, came to a sad end after 1988, when Night Flight was TRAGICALLY replaced by the vastly inferior “Up All Night,” hosted by the uber-annoying Gilbert Gottfried (shudder).
So who remembers Night Flight? I know I can’t be the only one out there that was forever tainted with a disgust for the mundane and acceptable because of what I encountered on that classic program.
Looking to capture some of the decadence that has been diluted from civilization by the curse of instant media? Find an old working VCR (or, even better, an old Beta player!), get some old tapes on Ebay (preferably 1977’s Kentucky Fried Movie, 1955’s Bride of the Monster, and 1973’s Fantastic Planet, in that order). Then, pop some popcorn (on the stove, of course), start with the Night Flight theme on YouTube, and be subversive and counterculture from the comfort of your own living room!
Being a devout night owl, I absolutely remember NIGHT FLIGHT. I never missed it. Kentucky Fried Movie and Fantastic Planet are both on my list of all time classics. Thanks for refreshing my memories!
Thanks Ray! I know I’m sounding like an old guy, but I much preferred turning on a show like Night Flight and catching a movie like Fantastic Planet…being at the mercy of what was on was just more fun than having access to the dvd any time you want (kind of like people saying a song always sounds better on the radio than buying and playing it yourself!)