All September long, this site will be looking back at part of our teens and twenties. USA Up All Night was a major part of our lives from 1989 to 1998, airing on Friday and Saturday nighst from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Whether you were stuck at home or just getting back from the bar, there were so many movies that you could watch. In fact, so many of the films that are part of my genre education were watching on this show.

Check out this Letterboxd list to see what I mean. You can also challenge yourself and see how many of them you’ve seen — I’m 288 out of 729 movies — with this quiz.

USA Up All Night started on January 7, 1989, with Gilbert Gottfried hosting on Saturdays from New York City. The first two movies? Cheerleaders Beach Party and Stuck On You! After a few months, the Friday night show was filmed in Los Angeles and hosted by actress/comedian Caroline Schlitt from another USA Network show, Camp Midnite. Both of these shows replaced the beloved Night Flight but only USA Up All Night was worthy of continuing the weirdness that late night USA was known for.

When Schlitt left the program in December of 1990, she was replaced by the iconic Rhonda Shear on Friday nights. She also hosted a Spanish version in 1993 for Latin American audiences!

Sadly, in 1998, USA came under the new management of Barry Diller. He wanted a less strange and more upscale viewership for USA. Many of the long-running series were soon gone, but the USA Up All Night name and imagery continued without Gilbert or Rhonda until 2002. Sadly, the movies shown were mainstream films that you could see anywhere.

From December 1988 to February 1998, there were nine hundred episodes of this program. While many don’t consider this show in the same category of other horror host programs, in truth it had a longer lifespan than many of them and it was on a larger network.

Get ready. I have an entire month planned. And if you have a memory of the show, write to me. I’d love to feature it on the site.