Up All Night With Some Bad TV

I did a lot of bad TV this weekend. No, not bad drugs. I said "bad TV."

I was on Martha's Vineyard, and I probably should have been outside. True, I did spend one afternoon at the beach. True, I got to wade in the Atlantic. And true, I got sand in my shoes and a sunburned nose, just like I'm supposed to.

But at night I should have been out on the town. Or I should have been at some yuppie Islander's patio cocktail party. I should have been roasting marshmallows on the beach.

Instead, I was indoors watching television. I hate prime time television; "Thursdays at 8" is meaningless in my vocabulary. But this was late-night television, and as I soon realized, it is oh-so-much worse. Eating ten slices of sausage and onion pizza with extra garlic would have given me pleasant dreams compared to the nightmares I had from the sludge that Gilbert Godfried, host of USA network's "Up All Night," force-fed me. Okay, I wasn't exactly force-fed. I could've gone to bed or read a book or taken a walk, but I didn't.

This weekend I discovered "Mystery Science Theater 3000." The show's premise: a human being and two robots are being held captive by mad scientists who make them watch bad, bad, bad science fiction movies. Throughout the film, the three sit in the front row of a movie theater, commenting drily on the acting, the plot and the script--all of which are crummy, very crummy.

The other people with whom I was watching "Mystery Science Theater 3000" could be classified as fans. They laughed a lot. I fell asleep a lot. My feeling is, if the movie itself is awful, nothing's going to save it, not pre-Claymation giant lizards on the big screen, not wisecracks from an actor and two puppets who acknowledge the misery of it all from their front-row seats.

Then came an Elvis movie which dated before the White Jumpsuit Era. Kissin' Cousins had something to do with two Elvis almost-look-alikes (one Elvis was supposed to be a red-head) living in the Appalachians. This film had, of course, the quintessental jug of moonshine ("where's the three x's?!" others in the room cried); the quintessential mopey hound dog, and the quintessential King crooning to two young females. Two, because he couldn't quite make up his mind right away: the blonde, or the brunette? It's a big decision to have to make, yes indeedy.

Sometime around midnight, we happened upon USA's "Up All Night," which was showing a low-budget (what other kind of budget is there on "Up All Night?") teen movie called "Gettin' Lucky."

God. A nerd-meets-girl, nerd-gets-girl story, laced throughout with sex, sex, sex. But no skin flick here. Just innuendo and a good-taste-be-damned-scene staged inside a woman's vagina. Plenty of condoms, plenty of high school bullies and ever-short-skirted cheer-leaders, and of course, a girls' locker room shower scene.

Commercial breaks offered no relief. Nearly every advertisement was for a 1-900 number featuring a Jenny, Susie or Lisa batting their eyelashes at the viewer. One promised titillating conversations with "Housewives, Secretaries and Co-Eds!" to thrill-seeking phonecallers. There were a couple of ads for the International Hair Club for Men. But I'm sure that men with full heads of hair enjoy sleazy movies and 1-900 numbers, too.

I went to bed that night in completed shock. I felt mentally assaulted by my own popular culture. How sad that the networks can count on us to be in our living rooms at night, ready to flip through channels of TV programming that will leave us feeling like we need to take a shower. We, need to take a shower. We, the jelly-brained viewers, aren't the only victims, either. Think of the Jennys, Susies, and Lisas. Think of the King.

There's got to be an alternative to late-night TV. We could go out at night, for instance. Why can't we be a discotheque culture instead of an "Up All Night" culture? Or why can't we just go to bed?

Martha's Vineyard was quite a trip, both literally and figuratively. This weekend I felt like I experimented with some bad drugs, except it was late-night TV. Same thing, I guess.