Night Flight - FM-TV (1983) Part 1
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"More than music, more than television: it's FM-TV!" Tonight, let us take you on an incredible journey through 1980s entertainment ephemera. FM-TV was Night Flight creator Stuart Shapiro's short-lived prime time cable companion series aimed at a slightly different demographic.
Fresh from the archives, this relic from 1983 features a dance sequence in between every segment. Alright!
60 Minutes Australia - Cyndi Lauper
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In this 2016 feature, 60 Minutes Australia covers the career of the singular Cyndi Lauper, from her 80s pop stardom to her career revival on Broadway. Featuring an interview with Lauper herself.
Night Flight - Short Cuts: "Taco and Falco"
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“If we combine the modern new wave elements with the old, beautiful melodies, that might be an intriguing mixture,” says Taco discussing his hit cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in this exclusive Night Flight interview. Later on in this brand new Night Flight Short Cut, Falco talks about translating rap music influences into his German-language hits.
Night Flight - Eagles Video Profile
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Night Flight’s 1985 Video Profile of The Eagles begins with Pat Prescott introducing an epic performances of “Hotel California,” the ultra-hit that was the beginning of the end for the band. What follows is likely the most comprehensive and thorough review of the former member's solo careers before the band’s reunion in 1994. Patt Prescott takes us through Glenn Frey’s Miami Vice spin-off special single “Smugglers Blues,” Timothy Schmit’s 1983 “Playing It Cool,” Joe Walsh’s psychedelic cowboy odyssey “The Confessor,” (above) and of course Don Henley’s French New Wave-influenced video for the massive hit “Boys of Summer.”
Night Flight - The Cure Video Profile and New Movies
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The segment is guided by a candid Radio 1990 interview with Robert Smith about the inspiration for the "Close To Me" video, fame and more. In true Night Flight fashion, the British band's "ever-evolving visual image" is explored through director Tim Pope's videos throughout the piece.
Night Flight - Short Cuts: "Scorpions"
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What begins as backstage banter and a photoshoot turns into a fun interview packed with Scorpions lore in this new Night Flight Short Cut. The band goes celebrating Rudolph's birthday to a candid recollection of playing Roger Waters’ The Wall concert in a newly unified Berlin, originally shot for Stuart S. Shapiro’s MetalHead Magazine.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to 80s Dance Classics
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Classic dance videos from Robert Palmer, The Clash, Devo and more.
Night Flight - Short Cuts: "Sex"
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This sexy Short Cut compiles music videos and interviews featuring the most transgressive figures in the business, including Prince, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Queen.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Politics (1984)
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This 1984 episode of Night Flight focuses on the socially conscious side of rock music. From nuclear war to Latin America, these music videos run the gamut of political commentary from artists like The Rolling Stones, Killing Joke, and Rush.
Spectres of the Spectrum
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The director of Tribulation 99 and Sonic Outlaws returns with his grandest work to date! Spectres of the Spectrum plunders Baldwin's treasure trove of early television shows, industrial and educational films, Hollywood movies, advertisements and cartoons, combining these with live-action footage, no-budget special effects, and relentless narration to generate a wholly original paranoid science-fiction epic.
BooBoo, a young telepath, and her father, Yogi, are revolutionaries pitted against the "New Electromagnetic Order." Their story, set in the year 2007 in a blighted Nevada outpost, is interwoven with a history of the development of electromagnetic technologies, from X-rays to atom bombs, from television to the Internet.
Night Flight - B.B. King Video Profile
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In this Night Flight original episode, Blues legend B.B. King is interviewed by Al Bandiero and discusses his origins as a disc jockey, the fiery incident that inspired his famous guitar's name, and why he tours so heavily. Also featuring a Joe Cocker performance from 1969.
Gravity
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A spoof of educational films about gravity.
Night Flight - Laurie Anderson Video Profile
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Classic Night Flight profile of avant-garde experimentalist Laurie Anderson. Featuring an incredibly candid interview with Anderson about her background and work.
Night Flight - Nico's Frozen Warnings and Industrial Dance Mix
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Salvador Dali, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground and other denizens of Andy Warhol’s netherworld make an appearance in this long-lost footage from the Factory for Nico's "Frozen Warnings."
Featuring the gorgeous, droning arrangements of John Cale's pipe organ, and the otherworldly voice of Warhol’s muse, this The Marble Index deep cut is a perfect backdrop to some of the best looking footage of The Factory you can find.
“Somewhere along the line, punk and disco got all mixed up in the pulsating metal machine music of Industrial sounds.” Hell yeah, Pat Prescott. Sign us up. For Night Flight’s industrial dance mega-mix, our editors creatively synced footage of ‘60s Go-Go Dancers with crackin’ edits from Meatbeat Manifesto, Renegade Soundwave, KLF and 9 Inch Nails [sic].
Night Flight - "Take Off" to New American Music
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From Boston to LA, New York to DC, a musical explosion is taking place in Rock and Roll. Traditionally, success for bands came from touring, but today, the video explosion has given local bands national exposure sparking a renaissance in music and reinforcing the original roots of Rock 'n roll. Featuring 'Til Tuesday, Run DMC, REM and more...
Night Flight - TV 2000 (Episode 17)
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Welcome to TV 2000! Join your hosts Joie Gallo and Lisa Robinson for a tour of the hottest videos across the country, circa 1985. Tonight, we “belong to the city” with Eagle Glen Fry fresh off his debut acting role on Miami Vice, Talking Heads, Ready for the World, the ever languid casanova Bryan Ferry, and Run DMC in a preview section covering the Sheila E starring “Krush Groove.” Featuring all the original commercials in this completely uncut episode!
Radio 1990 (12/26/83)
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Welcome to Radio 1990, bringing you the latest news from the world of entertainment and today's best music videos. In this episode, Lisa Robinson shares sad news for any The Who fans out there, previews a new Mel Brooks episode and videos from Hall and Oates, Men at Work and 1983's #2 power cut from "The Album Network" countdown.
Night Flight - John Lennon Profile
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Night Flight's 1988 video tribute to John Lennon includes "Instant Karma," "Stepping Out," "Living on borrowed time" and more, with introductions and back story from Pat Prescott
Night Flight - "Take Off" to the Australian Invasion
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This review of the early 80s Aussie rock scene on video features the likes of Jo Jo Zep, Men At Work, Divinyls, Midnight Oil, Inxs and New Zealand's Tim Finn (of Split Enz fame) and more.
Night Flight's innovative "Take Off" series dispensed with playlists, bland VJ set-ups and the usual tired video countdown format and instead cleverly programmed music videos and performance clips by theme. The series regularly featured hits from Eighties pop icons juxtaposed against obscurities from not-ready-for-MTV cult favorites. Original Air Date: 11-11-83
Night Flight - "Heavy Metal Heroes" and "New Film and Video"
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Two back-to-back classics in one from the Night Flight vault. First up- Night Flight teamed up with Hit Parader magazine in the mid-80s for the series "Heavy Metal Heroes". This installment features legends like W.A.S.P., Triumph and Accept along with cult-favorite also-rans Vandenberg, Raven and Van-Zant. Next on deck is a spotlight on Eighties movie soundtrack tie-in videos! Late greats David Bowie and Glenn Frey both make a showing with their hits from "Falcon and The Snowman" and "Beverly Hills Cop" respectively. A rare cut from "Porky's Revenge" by Dave Edmunds, El DeBarge's contribution to the "Last Dragon" soundtrack and a rarely seen video promoting "Amadeus" starring the inimitable David Lee Roth round out the set.
Night Flight - Short Cuts: "Horror Shorts"
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A series of gruesome and gory horror shorts, including Alex Winter and Tom Stern's wacky "Aisles of Doom," and the hilarious zombie parody "Dawn of the Night of the Dead: The Musical."
Night Flight - New Years '83 (Part 4)
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This Night Flight original episode is part 4 of the 1983 New Year's Special. Featuring Music Videos, Video Profiles, and more. Night Flight rings in the New Year in style!
Night Flight - Van Halen Video Profile
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Good evening high-flying fans, and welcome to Night Flight. Tonight, we share another edition of our distinguished Video Profile series with Van Halen. Wherever you stand on Sammy Hagar v. Diamond Dave, you’ll love tonight’s special episode, with videos and concert footage from both. The group's winning combination of charismatic frontmen, Eddie’s phenomenal guitar playing and insanely epic live shows made them an essential act of the era. Dig in.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to New Metal and Def Leppard Video Profile
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Night Flight's 1988 New Metal Special spans the globe - covering bands from Japan, Germany and at home in the USA. Acts included in this essential Night Flight Take Off are Megadeth, Zodiac Mindwarp, Ezo, Warlock and more... Not to be missed!
Night Flight - Short Cuts: "Celebrity Rap"
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Night Flight transports you to the wacky world of celebrity rap singles, featuring bars from such hip hop luminaries as Mel Brooks, Rodney Dangerfield, the Chicago Bears and Mr. T. Don’t miss Night Flight's wild ride through this uniquely '80s genre phenomenon!
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Gothic Rock
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Tonight we dive into the dark underworld of Gothic Rock! Rising from the ashes of late 70s punk, Goth Rock mixed the batwing style of Bram Stoker's Dracula with bizarre sentiments, black humor and a big beat. This classic episode (part of the Night Flight Series 'Twenty Years of Rock N' Roll Style') is a tour de force of goth bands and their myriad solo offshoots. Fittingly kicking off with Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead," this episode also features music from Peter Murphy, Love and Rockets, The Damned, Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim and more. Hope all you post-punk ghouls enjoy!
Night Flight - Simple Minds Profile and Pretenders Video Vault
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This video profile on Simple Minds features backstory on the Scottish act and multiple videos throughout the bands career arc. Night Flight mines the video vault for select cuts from the Pretenders.
Night Flight - New Sounds (August 1988)
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Welcome aboard Night Flight's New Sounds circa 1988. Tonight, we'll climb into the cockpit with Paul Kelly and the Messengers, Gentlemen Without Weapons, The Christians, and some high-tech irony in "Disco Dancer" from the Spud boys of Akron, Ohio: DEVO.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Freedom
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Night Flight's celebrating Independence Day (in 1988 and today!) with a Red, White and Blue Take Off Special to Freedom. We'll take a musical look at the many faces of Freedom, at home and abroad with Billy Bragg, Robbie Robertson, Hulk Hogan, and Aztec Two Step.
Flash Frames
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This time capsule compilation from Night Flight creator Stuart Shapiro and Laurie Dolphin celebrates the work of 40 innovative media artists using Flash in the early 2000s. At the time, Flash animation was the heartbeat of a new generation of pop culture enthusiasts at the beginning of the Internet. Whether creating their own independent animated clips or working with some of the biggest names in the music world, such as Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Todd Rundgren, Dr Dre and Phish, these Flash artists used the medium's unique quality to make art that defined a pivotal internet era.
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Comedienne Renee Taylor's parody of the Fellini films of the 1960s.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Comedy in Music Videos
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“What do you do when a guy puts Mayonnaise on your shoulder?... Do the Watusi!" — Howie Mandel circa 1986.
And so goes 3 minutes of towering cringe (even by '80s standards) in tonight’s "Take Off" episode to Comedy in Music Videos from 1988 that also features the legendary Max Headroom, Father Guido Sarducci, Bette Midler, Will Smith and more!
Night Flight - Politics In Music Videos (1984)
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Tonight we present another edition of Politics in Music Video with John Lennon, Nena, U2, Men at Work and the Fixx. As we dig through the massive vault of Night Flight tapes, we see more and more that politics were a recurring theme for our 1980s writers. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise if you read Night Flight creator Stuart S. Shapiro’s recent book "Identifi Yourself" where he reminisces about his time as “one of the go-to concert organizers from D.C. to Boston for the anti-war movement.” Night Flight was born from the inextricable connection between art and politics.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Academy Awards (1986)
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Just in time for awards season, we're sharing Night Flight's "Take Off" special featuring video profiles on the 1986 Academy Awards acting and music nominees.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Big Bucks
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Night Flight's take off special feels uniquely 80s in its exposure of videos from Madonna, The Talking Heads and more relating to the culture of wealth and excess that defined the time.
Night Flight - Video Classics
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Tonight, we’re opening Night Flight’s closely guarded vaults and dedicating a full hour to Video Classics. “The diamonds, emeralds, pearls, gold, frankincense and myrrh of video history” host Tom Juarez explains in one of his interstitial antics. Catch the episode in our 1990’s Syndication Episodes row!
Night Flight - Talking Heads Video Profile
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How did I get here? Night Flight takes on Talking Heads in this brilliant profile, originally aired September 20th, 1986 and now streaming on Night Flight Plus. "In the 1970s, a group called Talking Heads became staples on the Bowery music scene..." explains Pat Prescott. The Heads’ fused artistic concepts with rock, relying on the tight structure and quirky lyrics which have become a heads trademark.
The Audition
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A mean bulldog ringleader puts a worm through a harrowing audition.
Jac Mac & Rad Boy, Go!
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One of the more popular animated short films that aired during Night Flight’s '80s heyday was Wes Archer’s cult fave Jac Mac & Rad Boy, Go!, a wonderfully frenetic cartoon about two party-bound teens who inadvertently destroy a city on their way to hell, which Archer admits he may have also been inspired by his own wayward youth in Houston, Texas. Note: Wes went on to have an amazing career in animation and is currently the supervising director on Rick and Morty.
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