50 Years Ago: The Midnight Special

August 19, 1972 was the premiere of a unique television innovation — a bigger deal than most people realize, I think. For that was the date when Burt Sugarman aired his pilot for the late night/early morning rock and pop showcase The Midnight Special.

When Sugarman pitched this pilot, what he was proposing took place in terra incognita. Some of us are old enough to remember when there was NO television at night. The networks and local stations played the national anthem at the end of the broadcast day and SIGNED OFF, leaving nothing but a test pattern for viewers to look at until the morning shows started the next day. Some local stations would fill that time with old movies, OLD “Late, Late Show”. But in general, the Vast Wasteland was, well, a Vast Wasteland during the wee hours. But Sugarman realized that teens and young adults would certainly stay up late enough to watch their favorite musical artists, because they were probably ALREADY up at that hour. This was no longer Wally Cleaver’s America.

The Midnight Special aired Friday nights following The Tonight Show. Its efficacy was immediately proven, and thus it opened a door for all that followed in that time slots. Initially, the Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder in the Monday-Thursday slots, and Saturday Night Live in the, duh, Saturday Night slot. In the case of SNL, the show also demonstrated that programming geared specifically to younger audiences could work, and (since the guests on Midnight Special usually performed live rather than lip synced), it also paved the way for SNL‘s uncanned aspect. And it also pioneered the use of “guest hosts” which we now associate with SNL.

The memorable aspects of the show included DJ Wolfman Jack as the announcer, and the eponymous theme song, performed by Johnny Rivers, who’d had a hit with in 1965. An old folk classic, that song had been covered by everybody over the decades, though the best known version at the time was probably Creedence Clearwater Revival’s, which had been released in 1969. Helen Reddy hosted more times than any other performer. The most frequently booked artists, in descending order, included Donna Summer, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Ike and Tina Turner,Olivia Newton-John, Electric Light Orchestra, KC and the Sunshine Band, Paul Williams,The Spinners, Leo Sayer, Curtis Mayfield, and The Bee Gees. There were hundreds of others.

The show was cancelled in 1981 when line producer Dick Ebersol left to take the reigns of Saturday Night Live for its disastrous sixth season. The upside was that the show that replaced The Midnight Special in that time slot was…SCTV.

For more on show business history,please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous; and keep an eye out for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.