Back in the 1980s there was a lot going on. Music was a clash of hair bands and synthesizers, fashion was out of control, and our youth was bookmarked by John Hughes movies. However, not everything was The Breakfast Club and in the summer of 1986 the USA network launched a twelve year mission to hook us all on the craziest of the crazy genre flicks of the day.
USA Up All Night was like a gateway drug for horrible low budget comedy. It was a party of sexploitation and schlocky horror. So yeah, it was kind of radical. Each episode was a mixture of in-studio and location skits where the hosts would make fun of the movie intercut with the actual films, which were often edited down for TV but still plenty sensational for a 14 year old boy.
They went through a couple hosts, most notably Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear who handled the duties on Saturday and Friday nights respectively. As the title suggests, the program aired late, showing a couple of films over a four hour time slot. Two years before we all tripped over ourselves to praise Mystery Science Theater 3000, Gottfried and Shear were doing some very irreverent and funny bits into the early morn.
It was the kind of program we’d watch every week. Sometimes hanging out together, or when the curfew was a little tighter, we’d talk about the movies at school on Monday. For a good decade I fell asleep on weekends to the films of Up All Night.
They would show more well known cult classics like the Friday the 13th films, Kentucky Fried Movie, or License to Drive, but more often than not it was the kind of thing that you’d never heard of, seen, or was even available in any other venue than Up All Night. I want you to read the following paragraph of film titles very carefully and add to your Netflix queue as needed.
Lust in the Dust, Monster High, Assault of the Killer Bimbos, Assault of the Party Nerds 1 and 2, Bikini Summer, Pinball Summer, 976-Evil, Chopping Mall, Demon Warp, A Polish Vampire in Burbank, Satan’s Cheerleaders, Dialing for Dingbats, Stewardess School, Gimme an F, Young Doctors in Love, Sex and the Single Alien, Flesh Eating Mothers, Neon Maniacs, Revenge of the Teenage Vixens from Outer Space, Roller Blade Warriors: Taken by Force, Fortress of Amerikkka, Getting Lucky, Virgin High, Preppies, and Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death!
Classics, each and every one of them!
So what is my brightest memory of all those neon and hypercolor clothing infused cinematic bombshells? One word: Joysticks. The opening theme song for this movie rivals anything Kenny Loggins could ever dream up. I’ll never forget my friend Jason coming to school and asking me if I saw it while he sang the lyric “totally awesome video game!” over and over. To this day I use that lyric whenever something super 1980s awesome happens. It’s the kind of thing I imagine Barney Stinson would totally be into.
By the late nineties I was graduating college and USA was rebranding itself as a more serious television network. Shows like Silk Stalkings and Up All Night became casualties of growing up and were cancelled. USA held onto the Up All Night intros, using them before more mainstream fare briefly before vanishing into our memories forever.
I really wish this kind of show was still running today. Thankfully, You Tube is built for stuff like Up All Night. Search around and you’ll discover a lot of the Gottfried and Shear skits as well as a ton of clips from the movies I mentioned above and hundreds more that survived the school of Up All Night. Go ahead, I can guarantee it will be a lot of fun.
Comments
No comments.