Late Night Memories

As you no doubt remember, because I harp on about it frequently, I spent most Friday and Saturday nights in the early to mid-1990s watching B-movies on late-night television. And when Rhonda Shear hosted these gonzo cult movies on USA Up All Night I was absolutely glued to the boob tube.

Ahem *cough cough*

I was also watching Gilbert Gottfried host Up All Night on Saturdays, plus eighties episodes of Elvira’s Movie Macabre, and tuning in for Joe Bob Briggs, first on Joe Bob’s Drive-in Theater and then MonsterVision. I always say this with utmost sincerity: Rhonda, Elvira, Gilbert, and Joe Bob taught me more than most of my teachers at school did. Not only did they give me a crash-course education in B-movie horror and exploitation cinema, but they also helped mold my skewed sense of humor and warped world views. They were each iconoclasts in their own ways, and I was their eager young student, lapping up all the knowledge I could from the masters.

The programmers and writers at USA Network, The Movie Channel, and TNT also played important roles in creating this curriculum, of course, but the ways Rhonda, Gilbert, Elvira, and Joe Bob delivered this education is what shaped my future interests and also my personality. First of all, they were all hilarious in their own unique ways. Rhonda was the ultimate blonde bombshell with the sweet and sexy voice, and a thousand-megawatt smile that instantly made you feel special. Elvira was the leggy, bodacious babe who talked like a jaded Valley Girl and laced everything she said with sexual innuendo—come to think of it, Rhonda did that too. Gilbert brought his wildly singular standup comic energy and that signature shrill voice. Joe Bob was the scholar of the bunch, dropping massive amounts of deep-cut cinematic knowledge on us about the films we were watching, plus he did it while being ultra cool, kicking back on a lounge chair, and sipping on some Lone Star. Legends, all of them.

I’ve written copiously about Rhonda and Elvira here at the Starfire Lounge (click their names in the tags below to read ‘em all), but my 1990s late-night fascination is a vast well that never runs dry. For this reason, I’d like to write some more of these Late Night Memories. So, stay tuned. Some posts might have a theme, some might not, others might focus on those nights I can recall with vivid accuracy—where I was, what I was watching, what Rhonda was wearing, etc. I’d like to write about late-night series I watched too, like the irreverent satire Night Stand with Dick Dietrick, or the too-sexy-for-primetime Silk Stalkings. The point in these posts will be to simply enthuse about an era, and a time in my life, when it was a rush to stay up late watching all manor of horror, exploitation, comedy, heck, even infomercials (few more memorable than Forbes Riley in a sexy business suit), because I was young and could function on very little sleep. Those were the days.

There was something illicit about watching movies late at night—that’s when they air the dark, raunchy, twisted stuff. It’s also when they try to sell you gadgets you don’t need and self-help claptrap you might need but don’t want. Altogether it’s this strange stew of pop cultural ingredients that warped the minds and souls of many Gen Xers. And thank goodness for that.

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Here’s a little teaser for the next installment of Late Night Memories. Mail call!