On Being Up All Night...
Does anyone else remember in the late 80's / early 90's the USA network had late night programming on Friday and Saturday called USA Up All Night..? or was I the only one who suffered childhood insomnia? Anyway... it was the best late night programming ever. On Friday nights it was hosted by none other than Gilbert freaking Gottfried and on Saturday nights by the ever bountiful B-movie bombshell Ronda Shear! The way it worked was the host or hostess would entertain the viewing audience during commercial breaks with silly segments that somehow related to the programming. On Friday nights the programming would consist of a pair of low-budget cult horror classics (or not so classics as the case may be.) Saturday nights would be low-budget 80's style comedies or melodramas, guaranteeing gratuitous T&A. Now I know what you must be thinking. "What the hell is a pre-pubescent kid doing watching this kind of programming?" Well, I would watch these programs every weekend for a few reasons. One, as mentioned earlier, I was a bit of an insomniac... still am from time to time actually (hence the graveyard shift.) Also, I had nothing better to do. I didn't really have the most "active" social life as a kid, so I watched a lot of T.V. Mostly, though... as a pre-pubescent boy, I have to say there is nothing like a little soft-core porn edited for T.V. to motivate you to stay up maybe a bit later than you probably should. Granted, I probably shouldn't have been able to comprehend the adult oriented humor, themes or situations at the tender age of 9 or 10... but, alas, I did. I was never really sheltered from that kind of stuff and there were some really entertaining films that I got to enjoy, which I suspect many people my age probably don't even know exist. Like... I was a Porky's fanatic as a kid... or the Bikini Carwash series (truly classic). This is where I was introduced to the brilliance/madness of Roger Corman and Troma Films! Or the Meatball series with Meathead! Who else knows the name of the extremely cheesy vampire film staring a young Jim Carry, well before he was ever even on In Living Color? What about Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, or Killer Clowns from Outer Space? Oh man... the memories are just flooding back. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen Zapped! or Zapped Again! because of the USA Network! Anyway... this is the kind of crap I think about working the graveyard shift, by myself, sitting here staring at the computer waiting for something to happen. |
|
|
