Live Music Show - Best of Midnight Special

Great performances from the long-running US music show, Midnight Special

Curated by The Sadnesses

Total Runtime: 0:51:42

Playlist:
Kraftwerk

Curtis Mayfield

AC/DC

Kiss

Rick Dees

David Bowie

New York Dolls

The Cars

Genesis

Walter Murphy

America

Hot Chocolate

The Midnight Special is an American musical variety series that aired on NBC during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It premiered as a special on August 19, 1972, then began its run as a regular series on February 2, 1973; its last episode was on May 1, 1981. The ninety-minute program followed the Friday night edition of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

The show typically featured guest hosts, except for a period from July 1975 through March 1976 when singer Helen Reddy served as the regular host. Wolfman Jack served as the announcer and frequent guest host. The program's theme song, a traditional folk song called "Midnight Special", was performed by Johnny Rivers.

The Midnight Special was noted for featuring musical acts performing live, which was unique since most television appearances during the era showed performers lip-synching to prerecorded music. The series also occasionally aired vintage footage of older acts (such as Bill Haley & His Comets). As the program neared the end of its run in the early 1980s, it began to frequently use lip-synched performances rather than live. The program also featured occasional comedic performances from the likes of Richard Pryor and Andy Kaufman.

Collection: Rhonda Shear is "Up All Night"

Her trademark manner of speaking the show's title by raising her voice an octave when saying the word "Up" became a catchphrase.

Curated by Claire Donner

Total Runtime: 0:21:56

USA Up All Night (also known as Up All Night and Up All Night with Rhonda Shear) is an American cable television series that aired weekly on Friday and Saturday nights on the USA Network. The show aired from 1989 to 1998.

Synopsis

The program consisted of low-budget films, bookended by in-studio or on-location comedy skits featuring the show's hosts. In addition to skits, the hosts would also provide sardonic comments about the featured film(s), and observations on various Hollywood- and/or New York City-area clubs and attractions (when the series was shooting out of studio).

The movies aired ranged from cult classics, to B movies, to other fare not appearing on television frequently. Up All Night would regularly show sexploitation films, with the explicit content edited out.

Cancellation

In 1998, USA came under the new management of Barry Diller, and decided to go for a more general and upscale type of viewer. This meant many of USA's long-running series were either overhauled or canceled – Up All Night ended up among the latter. The network relieved Shear and Gottfried of their hosting duties (while still showing the Up All Night imagery before/after commercial breaks), and began airing re-runs of mainstream films that appealed to a broader audience. Eventually, the Up All Night name, music, and graphics were completely removed from the films.

Rhonda Shear (born November 12, 1954) is an American television personality, comedienne, and actress.

Shear is best known for her role as a host of the USA Network's 1980s/'90s weekend B-movie show, USA Up All Night. From 1991 to 1998 she hosted in-studio and on-location segments that aired on Friday (and later moved to Saturday) nights, replacing comedian Caroline Schlitt (the Friday night host for the show's first few years). Her trademark manner of speaking the show's title - by raising her voice an octave when saying the word "Up"...became a catch phrase. Shear also briefly hosted a comedy program called "Spotlight Cafe," hosted previously by comic Judy Tenuta.

In June 1991, Shear returned to Playboy appearing in the Funny Girls pictorial published by the magazine, with fewer clothes this time. In October 1993 she appeared in her own Playboy pictorial titled "Rhonda Up All Night".

Collection: Night Flight

clips from the classic 80s-90s new wave variety show Night Flight

Curated by Harris Smith

Total Runtime: 0:37:06

From Wikipedia:

Night Flight is a variety show that originated on the USA Network. An eclectic mix of short films, cartoons, B movies, stand up comedy, documentaries, music videos and more, Night Flight was broadcast, in various incarnations, from 1981 to 1996.

In issue #77 of the entertainment magazine Boston Rock, Night Flight's Director of Programming Stuart Samuels, was interviewed about the show. He is introduced as having a doctorate in the History Of Ideas, having been a former professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, a teacher of annual seminars at the Cannes Film Festival, and as the author of a book on cult film classics titled Midnight Movies. He describes their intention as wanting to "...put the videos together in some kind of thematic categories...so that the videos were saying something to each other and were letting the audience make conclusions from them." He also states that they never felt in competition with MTV, as they wanted to be; "...a little more selective... intelligent and... stimulating." He claims they were the first to put director's names on the videos, interview the bands, create band profiles, show uncensored videos and longform 12" remix videos; as well as the first to put together politically oriented shows about subjects like apartheid in South Africa. He states that their intention was not to be "...heavy-handed, but do 'here's-something-that's-in-the-news' shows". Samuels and the interviewer also speak of a backlash against the stagnation and repetition of rock video (circa 1986), which inspired Night Flight to program even more animation, cult and camp films. Samuels also gives the background of Senior Producer Stuart Shapiro as having run a company that was instrumental in the distribution of cult, midnight movie and campy films like Tunnelvision.

Network Awesome - Fri, Jul 13

◀ PREVNEXT ▶ THIS VIDEO: MORE INFO ABOUT THIS SHOW »

July

What's On Today?

Today curated by:
Jason Forrest

Live Music Show - Best of Midnight Special

0:51:42

Collection: Rhonda Shear is "Up All Night"

0:21:56

Collection: Night Flight

0:37:06

Talkshow - Day at Night: Ray Bradbury

0:29:05

Search Tags:

Our Curators Recommend:

Collection - Arne Jacobsen

Spend some time with the beloved Danish architect and designer

Women Of Punk

Exploring the role women have played in Punk music from the 70's to today

Gatchaman - Episode 1 "Gatchaman vs. Turtle King"

"I will now guide you both to hell!" The Science Ninja Team infiltrate a gigantic robot turtle Mecha run by Galactor troops stealing uranium!

Live Music Show - Shreds

Even the biggest bands in the world can slip up when playing live, but they still shreds!

Network Awesome Originals:

NATURE WEEK

5 days about NATURE, the possibilities, and the now.

Gang Weekend

3 days of violence, retribution, and justice

Electronic Music Week

(Not) Star Wars

Parodies, Rip-offs, and Homage - everythig that's just (not) Star Wars

Previously This Week:

Mon, Jun 17

Live Music Show - Alcohol

Talk Show - Madonna

Collection - Robby Rackleff

Collection - Sheena Easton

Art - Un Chant d'Amour (Jean Genet, 1950)

Movie - Cocktail (1988)

Sun, Jun 16

Collection - Every 'Doctor Who' Regeneration (So Far)

Talk Show - Tom Baker Convention Q&A (1983)

Dial D for Dalek/The Hues of Doom

Doc - The Dalek Tapes

Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death

The Sarah Jane Adventures - Invasion of the Bane

Sat, Jun 15

Doctor Who - The Edge of Destruction

Live Music Show - The 'Doctor Who' Theme

Doctor Who: Stripped For Action - Episode 02 - The Second Doctor

Collection - Doctor Who Commercials

Search Out Science - Search Out Space

Movie - Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans (1994)

Fri, Jun 14

Live Music Show - Cartoon Bands

Doc - Walt Disney: The Man behind the Myth

Disneyland - Mars And Beyond (Ward Kimball, 1957)

Mutilator: Hero of the Wastelands

Collection - Liquid TV

Movie - Fritz The Cat (1972)

Thu, Jun 13

Collection - Enchanted Pencil

The Films of Sandor Reisenbuchler

Doc - Animated Soviet Propaganda

Alice of Wonderland in Paris (1966)

Art - Space Visitors (1981)

Movie - Fehérlófia (1981)

Wed, Jun 12

Live Music Show - Adventure Time's music videos

Captain Pronin Episodes 1-4

Collection - Nelvana Animation

Collection - The Best of "Spike and Mike's Twisted Animation Festival" Volume One

Movie - Kanashimi no Belladonna (Osamu Tezuka, 1973)

Movie - The Watchmen (Motion Comic)

Live Music Show - Best of Midnight Special

Great performances from the long-running US music show, Midnight Special

Collection: Rhonda Shear is "Up All Night"

Her trademark manner of speaking the show's title by raising her voice an octave when saying the word "Up" became a catchphrase.

Collection: Night Flight

clips from the classic 80s-90s new wave variety show Night Flight

Talkshow - Day at Night: Ray Bradbury

James Day interview the great Sci-Fi writer

Network Awesome - Fri, Jul 13