TFTP On This Day: "Night Flight" from USA Network (Jun. 7, 1985)

Posted to YouTube by user 'pannoni4'
Length - 14:51

It Was 33 Years Ago Today: "Night Flight" was a freeform program that aired on USA Network during weekend late nights in the early- to mid-1980s. Although mainly continuous music videos a la MTV, "Night Flight" also contained segments devoted to cult movies, alternative culture, and exploitation fare. The program format and scheduling was flexible, and "Night Flight" typically aired for anywhere from just a few to several hours on Friday and Saturday nights starting at around 10 pm and running sometimes until 4 or 5 am the following morning.

The set of clips above is from the fourth anniversary program for "Night Flight", which aired 33 years ago today on June 7, 1985. As a special edition, this night's program probably contained more older and vintage material than usual, but "Night Flight" nearly always had at least a helping of older black and white imagery. The set of excerpts above includes parts of performances by Ike and Tina Turner, the Doors, the Who, Cream, John Lennon, and the Kinks, as well as by jazz legends Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Lionel Hampton. (The typical "Night Flight" program had a high degree of current music videos, which are completely absent in this set of clips.)

A number of commercials appear here also, including as-seen-on-TV fare like Art Instruction Schools, Trim Trak exercise equipment, and an oldies music-compilation called "Cruisin'". There are some great USA Network interstitial materials, too: a program promo for USA airings of the late-1960s program "Room 222"; several "Night Flight" bumpers; and a promo for the network's inimitable late-movie host "Commander USA".

TFTP On This Day: "Night Flight" from USA (Sep. 26, 1986)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Channel 6'
Length - 33:22

It Was 31 Years Ago Today: "Night Flight" was a long-running feature (for most of the 1980s) on the USA Network that highlighted music videos, ephemeral films, and quasi-underground culture. Typically, it would air on Friday and Saturday nights, starting at 9:00 or 10:00 pm and continuing throughout most of the overnight period on each of those weekend nights.

The flow of music videos on "Night Flight" often proceeded (especially in its earliest days) with no theme or organizing principle, much like MTV did. By the mid-1980s moment in the clip featured here, though, "Night Flight" was doing quite a few theme nights, and here we have excerpts from one of these theme nights--from 31 years ago today--that highlighted the work of music video director Zbigniew Rybczynski.

In radio aircheck style, we see only the first few and last few seconds of each music video, but between videos we get to see commentary by Rybczynski himself about his work. The snippets of videos we do see indicate that Rybczynski worked with a lot of artists that are now completely forgotten and obscure and that his videos have an avant-garde style that seems now to be not that interesting.

There are a number of examples here of the "Night Flight" logo/branding graphics in the form of bumpers and end credits. (End credits ran several times over the course of an evening's "Night Flight" block.) We also get to see a number of commercials, including for Clearasil (because pimples), Lee Press-On Nails, and direct response ads for things like silverware, watches, and Dream Away weight-loss pills.

TFTP Cable: Promo Breaks from USA Network and CBN (Feb. 1986)

Posted to YouTube by user 'WREYtube' (all three clips)

USA Network and CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) were well-established as cable networks by the mid-1980s, both having been started in the first big wave of basic cable expansion in the late-1970s. At the time of these promo break clips, all from February 1986, both had as a mainstay of their programming off-network reruns of old shows from the major broadcast networks.

The first clip above from USA features a short segment of the game show "Jackpot" before moving into a promo break for "The USA Comedy Hour", a programming block airing at the time that had episodes of very obscure network sitcoms such as "Mr. Merlin", "The Second-Hundred Years", and "He & She" (as well as the less-obscure "That Girl"). USA showed a lot of game shows in those days, most of them off-network reruns, but "Jackpot" was at the time a Canadian-produced first-run game show.

Clip #2 (in the middle) is another, shorter one from USA that has a promo break for an Western/adventure block that included "The Monroes", "The Virginian", "Wanted Dead or Alive", and "Lancer". This is followed by an excellent example of the mid-1980s USA Network ID bumper, then the first seconds of an episode of the game show "Chain Reaction".

The third and final clip, from CBN, starts with the close of an episode of the game show "Go", followed with a nice CBN network ID. Then, a promo break features "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and then a "Late Night Comedy" block including Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life", the '70s version of the "Bill Cosby Show", "Dobie Gillis", and "Father Knows Best". The clip ends with a fascinating CBN image spot called "Family Power".