It's a Saturday Night, its been a long week and I'm a bit washed. Flipping between cable and the few streaming services I subscribe to, I noticed the abundance of movies from the 80's up to the early 2000's that are played like clockwork on several stations (AMC, VH1, TBS, TNT). It got me thinking...it's time to bring back hosted movie programs.
I'm not sure what the official name of these programs are called but they go back as far as the 1950's with horror films hosted by personalities. Back in the 90's to early 2000's there were several movie programming blocks hosted by various personalities. Famously airing B-movies and bygone classics, in between commercial breaks the hosts would have skits, interview guest, or just talk about random non-important facts regarding the movie playing. It was entertaining and for a young kid who was big into movies, and was seeing some of them for the first time was quite interesting.
The USA network had USA Up All Night which aired on Friday and Saturday nights and over it's span was hosted by comedian Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear over it's time. Every Friday Night TBS had Dinner and A Movie a cool concept where dishes were crafted that fit into the theme of the movie playing. I saw Top Gun for the first time at 10 years old watching that show.
One of the more famous personalities to host these shows next to Elvira was Joe Bob Briggs with his Job Bob's Drive-In Theater program on premium cable channel The Movie Channel, and Monstervision on TNT. I saw way too many B-movies watching his program such as Toxic Avenger Trancers and Dollman . I saw the original Swamp Thing watching Monstervision, after seeing the sequel first and was in awe at the complete differences between the two films.
The last program aired on cable like this I'm aware of was Casino Cinema on SpikeTV in the mid 2000's. In 2018 horror streaming service Shudder bought Joe Bob Briggs back for The Last Drive-In Times have changed and with so much content out there, cable steadily losing ground to streaming services, and several talented entertaining personalities out there. Now's a good as time as any to bring these type's of programs back, and give washed individuals like myself some nostalgia and something to look forward to on Saturday nights when nothing else is on.
