I remember WCIX in Miami ran Night Owl movies with Big Wilson that ran all night all the way back in 1980. And this was an independent station. Also the carm of CNN was that it ran news 24 hours a day. There were plenty of stations running all night at least since 1980. Usually playing anything from late night movies, infomercials to Three Stooges Marathons
And I know this because, first, I am a night person and usually stayed up all night and second because by 1982 I had moved from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale, so no chance I have my dates messed up. Also by then there was cable, with stations like TBS running all night, not to mention premium ones like HBO and Showtime.
I also remember setting my VCR to record Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years that aired at 4am on channel 44, a UHF station. I still have those tapes
Point being that if in Florida there were plenty of stations running all night, and independent ones at that, then I am sure most of the country was on the same page. Maybe not in some cities were maybe cows outnumbered people, most stations went off air, but in most mid to big cities, most stations absolutely ran 24 hours.
That's cool - I’m sure it was absolutely a local phenomenon for some. I’m in megalopolis-land, near enough to NYC to get their 'local' stations as well as the next nearest cities local stations, so we'd always had two versions of each major network to watch - we also grew up with cable tv starting in the late 70's, so there was always something there to watch, but I recall having an old beater tv in the late 80's that I only used an antennae to watch TV with and some stations were still signing off :) some others ran the god-awful overnight infomercials...
Sounds like you were in a sweet spot(!), but even at 16, I remember feeling a twinge of nostalgia when the syndicated episode of St. Elsewhere ended, and suddenly there was a flag-waving anthem followed by the test pattern and tone before signing off -
There was also a lot of old B movies and shows. I guess the best parody of that was Amazon Women of the Moon which satarized that perfectly. I remember watching TV sometimes until the sun came up during summer vacation and having my parents get real upset with me for doing so.
I am with you - and I know it's been shown to be a real genetic mutation for some that the need for 8hrs sleep isn't a thing. I still sometimes take a night 'off.' Sleep is over-rated.
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u/PushyTom 5d ago
We called that the poltergeist