Night Flight (TV series)

Night Flight

Night Flight title screen from 1988
Created by Stuart S. Shapiro
Narrated by Pat Prescott
Country of origin United States
Production
Camera setup multi-camera
Running time 4 hours
Release
Original network USA Network
(1981–1988)
Syndication
(1990–1996)
Original release First Run
June 5, 1981 (1981-06-05)–
December 31, 1988 (1988-12-31)
Second Run
1990 (1990)–1996 (1996)

Night Flight is a visual-arts magazine and variety television show that originated on USA Network targeting a younger demographic. Featuring an eclectic mix of mainstream and alternative music videos, artist interviews, B movies, documentaries, short films, stand up comedy, cartoons, and more, it aired from 1981 to 1988, and was in syndication in the early 1990s.

Broadcast history

Jeff Franklin (head of American Talent International) and Stuart S. Shapiro (head of International Harmony) approached USA Network about developing Night Flight in February 1981. The network was struggling to define itself, and to identify and expand a target audience. USA Network and its young cable rivals had few original shows, and a typical broadcast day lasted 16 hours or less, relying mostly on blocks of syndicated programs repeated throughout the same day; many of the programs were decades old. Such cable channels desperately needed inexpensive content that was unique, and able to attract a wider audience and increased advertising revenues. A new series that defied conventional formats and easy categorization was an acceptable risk to USA. The first episode of Night Flight aired on June 5, 1981, timed to exploit a Hollywood writers' strike that had halted production of what would be its strongest timeslot rival, NBC's highly popular Saturday Night Live.[1]

Episodes originally lasted four hours each, and aired in the late night programming block after 11:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday and Saturday nights. Night Flight’s final original broadcast aired on December 31, 1988; it was replaced with the programs Camp Midnite and USA Up All Night starring Gilbert Gottfried, starting the following week.

Night Flight was revived in syndication in 1990. New episodes were produced for three seasons until 1992,[2] when the program reverted to selected reruns of episodes from the USA Network years hosted by Tom Juarez. These “best of” shows were seen as late as 1996.

In 2015, the series was brought back as a website, NightFlight.com.[3][4] In addition to archiving the original series, it features new short and feature films, and curated YouTube and Vimeo clips. In March 2016, a companion subscription service called Night Flight Plus was launched, allowing subscribers to pay a monthly or annual fee for access to full segments of the show, as well as to other media closely reflecting the spirit of the original series' programming.

Format

Night Flight was one of the first sources in American television (and therefore, its pop culture) to see full-length and short films not generally aired on “broadcast/network” television, or even pay-cable TV channels such as HBO. It was the first place that many Americans were able to see music documentaries such as Another State of Mind, The Grateful Dead Movie, Word, Sound and Power and Yessongs. Night Flight was also one of the first American television shows to present the music video as a serious visual-art form, not merely a superficial, elaborate promotional tool for musicians. In addition, with the freedom it had on early (and late-night) cable television, it would at times show portions of videos that MTV and other outlets had either censored or, in some cases, banned outright.

In the series’ original format, there was no traditional, on-camera host. Voice-over introductions of segments and pieces were made by Pat Prescott just before they began. Recurring segments included:

Bela Lugosi's Monogram films were recurring features. Other segments included condensed parodies of low-quality, out-of-copyright black-and-white-era movies and serials, as well as letters from viewers.

The show would also highlight movies that were regarded as cult hits. Examples include:

Programming intentions

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 (c. 1986), which inspired Night Flight to program even more animation, cult and camp films. Samuels also gives the background of Senior Producer Stuart S. Shapiro as having run a company that was instrumental in the distribution of cult, midnight movie and campy films like Tunnelvision.[5]

Films shown on Night Flight

Reception

TV Guide called Night Flight the "Best Pop Music Magazine show on cable".[7] USA Today would later echo that sentiment, declaring it "the most creative use of music and video on television today".[8]

Notes

  1. ↑ Denisoff, pp. 129—30
  2. ↑ Night_flight1.tripod.com
  3. ↑ Nightflight.com
  4. ↑ Nightflight.com
  5. ↑ Harrington, Beth. "Reference". Boston Rock issue #77; September 1986. Michael Dreese, pub. Billie Best, ed.
  6. ↑ The Intruder (1962 film)
  7. ↑ TV Guide, July 9, 1981, quoted in Denisoff, p. 132
  8. ↑ USA Today, December 2, 1982, quoted in Denisoff, pp. 132—33

References

External links

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