# What was your late, late night show before infomercials screwed it all up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 30, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297 "2012-03-30T16:56:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/21 "2012-03-30T23:30:49Z")
_M_A_S_H\* and the B.V. (_The Big Valley_ – but I only think of it as the B.V.) 2:00 a.m., parents in bed, and I’d be sneaking up to watch the B.V. There was a mouse that would run out the pantry door and across the family room every night around then, but of course I couldn’t tell my parents about him. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/22 "2012-03-30T23:53:30Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > College (early to mid 80’s) - the NBC affiliate in Topeka, after the Tonight Show and Letterman, would broadcast [Dr. Gene Scott](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Scott) every night. What an oddly fascinating dude. Forgot about that guy. He was the one who had the cameraman that zoomed in on his face and then turn on the acid camera effect so his stupid glasses would duplicate and zoom about fifty times, and rotate around his head. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/23 "2012-03-31T00:24:45Z")
It didn’t hurt that Dr Gene looked like Foster Brooks and raved as if he were drunk. I remember one time he kept telling me, Mr Any Viewer, that he didn’t care anymore and would shut down his show and ministry if I didn’t call immediately with my donation. I assume he did it every other show. His widow does the show now. She’s rather hot, but doesn’t bring “crazy, drunk, street person” to the show so I stopped watching. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/24 "2012-03-31T00:31:00Z")
And then there was that fat psychic who dressed all in gold lame and camped it up on a Spanish station. He seemed to be making predictions, but I’ll never know because I don’t speak Spanish. He was good for a laugh, but I haven’t seen him in years. ---
**Author:** ![bmasters1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@bmasters1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmasters1)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/25 "2012-03-31T00:37:23Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > Twilight Zone, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Biography (with Mike Wallace). Also Tonight and Tomorrow, and David Susskind’s show, and Cavett when I could get him, Charlie Rose’s Nightwatch and Linda Ellerbee and the other guy’s News Overnight. My favorite slate ever, though, was circa 2000, when Nickolodeon or maybe probably TV Land ran Bob Newhart, Superman, Batman, Charlie’s Angels, and Gunsmoke consecutively. “The other guy” was first Lloyd Dobyns, and then in late '82, Bill Schechner. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/26 "2012-03-31T01:44:07Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > [Tomorrow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_(TV_series)) with Tom Snyder. Me too. I wonder how Tom would have fared against the current crop of late night hosts. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/27 "2012-03-31T01:52:28Z")
During the week I would watch The Honeymooners at 11:30 and Star Trek at 12 nearly every night. On weekends Night Flight on USA and/or \ scrambled Playboy channel. When I had a cable box with buttons, if I hit 3,4 and 7 at once and played around with the fine tuner I would get fuzzy boobies with no sound. Hey I was a teenage boy! ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/28 "2012-03-31T02:11:19Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > [USA’s Night Flight](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Flight_%28TV_series%29) This one. Loved it. Also watched a lot of Twilight Zone and random video shows, and bad horror movies featuring Satan. ---
**Author:** ![audit1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/29 "2012-03-31T03:04:59Z")
I only had Test Pattern ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/30 "2012-03-31T03:11:47Z")
[Aerobicise](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPnO1y5vbn0&feature=relmfu) ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/31 "2012-03-31T03:30:55Z")
Oooh, Saturday sleepover night with my best friend! We started off with _Son of Svengoolie_, a local monster movie show in Chicago on WFLD-TV. Then there was a half-hour syndicated stand-up comic show called "Comedy…"something or other, I forget. Then it was over to NBC for the rest of the night. _Saturday Night Live_ in its first glorious incarnation, followed by _SCTV_ (Second City Television), _Sha Na Na_, (with BOWSER!! Not that we liked him, or anything.) Then there was some dreck called \*The Guiness Games \*which featured people trying to break world records. Boring really, we played fortune telling games while this was on. And finally, _Tales of the Unexpected_, a horror anthology that wasn’t too horrifying because it was too British. I do remember one story where a henpecked husband frees his wife from a piece of modern sculpture by chopping her head off. By that time, it was almost sunrise. We had a blast! And then, NBC ruined it all by replacing everything after SNL with _Madame’s Place_. Honest to god, they showed like eight episodes in a row every Saturday night. We were like WTF? Maybe it was the network’s attempt to corral the late night gay crowd, but we teenaged girls were pissed off. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/32 "2012-03-31T03:43:23Z")
Circa 1980, it would have been any of the late, late movies on one of the three major networks. I remember watching Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw in _Goodbye, Columbus_, when I was 17 years old, and wanting so much to understand exactly what the hell was happening in that movie. 🙂 I saw it recently, and have no idea what I was so confused about. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/33 "2012-03-31T04:23:42Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > I’d tough it out to watch some planet show with Jack Horkheimer. > > “Greetings, fellow Stargazers!” He was such an enthusiastic goofball, with his kooky voice. Then he’d end each bit with “Keep looking up!” and wander off superimposed (poorly) on some moonbeam while some ethereal whistling space tune played him out. I loved that show, when I was a kid. (googling…holy cow, it’s still going (although Horkheimer died in 2010, he hosted right up until his death)…I had no idea…) Although I remember watching it at a reasonable hour for the pre-teen I was when I watched it, back in the 80s… To the OP’s question…the ones I remember from the 90s, when I was staying up late regularly, were Speed Racer and Samurai Pizza Cats on YTV, and MST3K on…WGN, maybe? All between 2 and 4 AM. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/34 "2012-03-31T04:29:53Z")
Nite Owl Theatre with Fritz the Night Owl on Channel 10 (WBNS) out of Columbus, OH. If I remember right, it was usually a double feature of horror movies, emceed by Fritz, who wore a pair of giant comedy sunglasses. After Nite Owl Theater, they played the national anthem and then went off the air until 5 AM. Man, those were the days. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/35 "2012-03-31T04:36:37Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Anybody remember “USA Up All Night” with Rhonda… somebody? This was late 80s/early 90s I guess. > > Before that, my middle-of-the-night fare was old sitcom reruns and b&w movies. I want to say the first time I saw “Casablanca” was on late late night TV. > > ETA: Rhonda Shear (and, how could I forget, Gilbert Godfried) My brother used to watch that, sometime after 1991 when we got cable (and a new family room far away from my parents’ room). As a pre-pubescent girl I was highly un-interested in it. He also watched [Night Stand With Dick Dietrick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Stand_with_Dick_Dietrick), which is where I know Timothy Stack from. Personally I used to watch [Blind Date](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Date_%28U.S._TV_series%29)…once I was 20 and had my own TV in my room. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/36 "2012-03-31T05:27:31Z")
**Herman’s Head**. Yep, slim pickings. Sometimes I’d watch the Formula 1 racing, an act of sheer desperation. ---
**Author:** ![coolbyrne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc79bd/32.png) [@coolbyrne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coolbyrne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/37 "2012-03-31T14:41:40Z")
Northern Ontario in the late 80’s, working the midnight shift at a hotel let me catch up with The Rat Patrol. Didn’t realize until later that the German villain played by Hans Gudegast ended up being The Young and the Restless’ Victor Newman, played by the now re-named Eric Braedan. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/38 "2012-03-31T14:53:24Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > What was that one where they had the couple that lived in the suburbs but they found all kinds of wacky ways to live off the land? That would be [The Good Life](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyZ--z8RpOI), **Shakes**. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/39 "2012-03-31T15:00:04Z")
I don’t understand what’s being discussed here. Shows in the 1-2 AM time slots (or earlier) really don’t count. Most channels still have regular stuff on well past then. I did a quick check for tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Most commercial cable channels have regular programming until 4 AM. And at least a third don’t run any infomercials at all. (And Sunday AM is about as dead as dead can be in terms of advertiser interest.) Back the old days, for most OTA TV stations, it was either test pattern, off air or religious glurge in the truly wee hours. The difference between informercial glurge and religious glurge is small as far as watchability goes. There’s a whole lot more stuff you can watch at 3 and 4 AM nowadays than years ago. A lot more. The only change is since the economy hit the toilet skids (calling “Mixed Metaphors” thread), there’s been more infomercials and less programming on some channels. But that is recent. Definitely nothing to do with the coming of infomercials. ---
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297/40 "2012-03-31T15:04:13Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > He also watched [Night Stand With Dick Dietrick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Stand_with_Dick_Dietrick), which is where I know Timothy Stack from. Came in here to list that… great show! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-your-late-late-night-show-before-infomercials-screwed-it-all-up/617297.md?page=3)