USA network nowadays is just another mainstream channel, but back then it was more like youtube. There was a wide ranging of programming during the week, but the weekends were loaded with horror.
First up was the Friday night show “Night Flight”. Created by Stuart S. Shapiro in 1981, the show would run until 1988. The signature bumper was the Night Flight graphic flying over the city, while narrator Pat Prescott would give information on what we were about to watch.
Night Flight mostly showed alternative rock videos and offbeat shorts, but they’d also show horror movies like “Night of the Living Dead”, “Phantom Creeps”, “Invisible Ghost”, etc.
On Saturday afternoons there was “Commander USA’s Groovie Movies”. A horror host show which debuted in 1985. Actor Jim Hendricks played the part of Commander USA, a retired superhero showing movies on his psychotronic screen. He’s similar to The Comedian character from the 1986/87 comic “Watchmen”.
He showed a wide range of horror movies, from dubbed Mexican horror movies like “Vampire’s Coffin” to the first three “Friday the 13th” movies. Leading into or coming out of commercial breaks, he’d do a comedy segment, sometimes doing a parody of the scene that just played.
In 1986 he did a tie in contest promotion with “Psycho 3” where people who called a 900 number could potentially win an overnight stay at the Bates Motel.
The format for Commander USA’s Groovie Movies started as double features, but eventually it was only a single feature as time went on. The show lasted until 1989.
And then on Saturday night was “Saturday Nightmares”, which ran from 1984 until 1994. It would start off with a horror movie, and then show one or two anthology shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Hitchhiker, etc.
All three USA network programs can be found online. Commander USA and Saturday Nightmares lives on only from people who happened to tape it off TV. Sadly all the masters were tossed by USA network years ago.
In closing, as Commander USA always signed off with: “Keep your nose in the wind, and your tail to yourself. See ya pilgrim”.
