HBO back in the 1980s. Weird stuff would come on once in awhile

[gundarkherder]

Anyone else that was a kid basically an 80s kid where they were hooked on watching Fraggle Rock and Brain Games and watching Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and Dreamscape when they were on all the time?

also from time to time, HBO would air some weird stuff such as the Flesh eating film reel which i always thought it was a Monty Python skit back then

[Michael24]

For awhile when I was real young we had cable and got HBO. One of my favorite childhood memories is watching Fraggle Rock with my dad. I don't remember any particular weird stuff but my parents used to record a lot of movies from HBO and still have a box with some of those old VHS tapes. Would love to get another VCR sometime and dig those tapes out to see again just for nostalgia. One of them is Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure, which I was obsessed with as a kid. I realized how trippy it was when I saw clips on Youtube many years later. Haha! A recording of Bugs Bunny's 1001 Rabbit Tales was another one I practically wore out.

[steel_breeze]

HBO in the 80's was epic. Didn't watch too much of their original programming, but saw a few episodes of FRAGGLE ROCK and enjoyed NOT NECESSARILY THE NEWS (remember Sniglets??)

But it's thanks to HBO that I first saw movies like DUNE and THE NATURAL... and one of my favorite "childhood movie memories" ever is the night I set the VCR timer to record ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK on HBO, then woke up the next morning to a Snow Day -- no school! So I got to watch ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK -- uncut -- twice in a row. (I'd seen it edited and with commercials on broadcast TV once before, but this was like watching it "for real", lol.)

Oh, and every now and then they'd have an unannounced premiere, which would show up in the TV Guide as "To Be Announced" or something. Set my timer for one of those and ended up -- much to my surprise -- with GHOSTBUSTERS! Very excited about that; had LOVED it in the theaters.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by steel_breeze

Oh, and every now and then they'd have an unannounced premiere, which would show up in the TV Guide as "To Be Announced" or something.

They still do this from time to time. Starz and SHOWTIME do it, too. I stay up until about 4 in the morning, and these unannounced premiers usually air around 3 a.m. local time. It's a nice surprise. (It still says "To Be Announced" in the onscreen guide.)

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by steel_breeze

Oh, and every now and then they'd have an unannounced premiere, which would show up in the TV Guide as "To Be Announced" or something. Set my timer for one of those and ended up -- much to my surprise -- with GHOSTBUSTERS! Very excited about that; had LOVED it in the theaters.

If I remember correctly, that was on Christmas Eve. I recorded it too! One year they had Heathers on New Years Eve.

[recS-12]

As a kid growing up in the 80’s I remember staying up late and watching Children of the Corn. I shouldn’t have! Scared the s*@t out of me. Good times.

[Michael24]

I also remember HBO airing the music video for Ghostbusters. I don't know if they got to exclusively premiere it or what but my dad recorded it for me.

And I swear that I once saw the video on HBO another time but it was a different version that had a female singer performing the song instead of Ray Parker, Jr. But over the years I've never read anything about such an alternate version of it.

[SIWilson]

We didn't have HBO, but my best friend did. I was always over at his house in 82 watching For Your Eyes Only over and over. The year after that over there watching Star Trek II. I know his mom was tired of me always being there. In my parents house then, I would look forward to those free HBO / Cinemax preview weekends. Those were big promotional events, complete with people hosting the weekends, with annoying scrolling banners going across the bottom of the screen for their movies. But I was able to catch the premiere of Body Heat one Saturday night. Had to quietly watch that... Good teenage memories.

[RedNails]

I remember my father always falling asleep with HBO on and catching things on that I probably shouldn't have...lol
The movie Heavy Metal is one I vividly remember!!!
Hearing the Dio line-up of Sabbath during the Taarna sequence changed everything!!!
SO METAL!!!
And the movie FROM BEYOND!!!
Barbara Crampton��

[Scoot79]

I remember this kick ass intro. We had a large C-band satellite dish, the one that moved when you switched to a different satellite. Each satellite had 24 channels and the satellites were named F1, F2, F3, G1, G2, G3, etc.... One of the pay per view channels was Cable Video Store and there were times when the scrambler wasn't on/working and we got to see a bunch of pay per view movies for free. (Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Heathers, Beetlejuice, etc. That must have been late 1988 or 1989.

HBO 1983 Opening Credits - YouTube

[buck135]

Originally Posted by Scoot79

I remember this kick ass intro.

That was a great intro. It really built up the anticipation for the film.

I miss those Friday nights at 8pm when they premiered a new film. No DVR, no f&$king commercials, no pausing, fast forwarding or rewinding. The phone was off the hook, Jiffy Pop was already made and you enjoyed watching the movie with whoever was with you.

It was the closest thing to experiencing a film with others theatrically. I'm glad it's part of my past. Probably the main reason I love movies so much. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

[Thomas Veil]

Oh man that HBO intro brings back so many great memories. I was 18
back then. It really did get you pumped for the movie. Ha! The button cable box. I remember certain movies that I watched like Nightwing and Continental Divide, just because they were on a lot.

MTV for hours, used it as background at house parties. Such good times.

[Winslow Leach]

This thread brings back so many wonderful memories! As a child of the 80s, I grew up with HBO and its programming (as well as the Disney Channel when it first started). HBO would only show R-rated movies after 8 pm, but there was always something cool on. Between Home Box Office and Disney, I was able to gain an appreciation for classic movies, thanks to the channels airing vintage Hollywood films from the 1930s onward.

The premieres were an event. Movies I missed in theaters I more than happily watched on HBO for the first time, especially POPEYE with Robin Williams. I must have watched that film every time it aired.

In those pre-VCR days (at least in my home), I would put a tape recorder in front of the TV and record the audio of certain favorites. Needless to say, I had a lot of FRAGGLE ROCK tapes.

[DarkSide2473]

I was born in 80 so most of my memories are shows from the late 80s/early 90s. Tales From the Crypt was something I'd stay up late and watch with friends when I wasn't supposed to. I definitely remember Fraggle Rock, but my favorite show was Encyclopedia Brown. By that age, I was a fan of the books and when a live action show came out, I was stoked.

Encylopedia Brown - Ghostly Rider - 1990 - YouTube

Another favorite was Encyclopedia. It was basically an educational show where they alphabetically pick a topic,then break it down for school-age kids.

Encyclopedia HBO intro - YouTube

Lastly, I remember watching a few episodes of what amounted to after-school specials. The main ones I remember were the Eddie Matos story and this one about gun safety, which scared the crap out of me:

Part 1 - YouTube

[Ray Jackson]

My parents were too cheap to order HBO.

So the occasional, once or twice a year, free HBO weekends were the greatest thing ever during my childhood.

...better than the Super Bowl and the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut combined.

[Bigdog]

I remember it was i think 1982 or 1983 when we had cable install in our neighborhood. I remember watching the first week of MTV and how awesome it was to see all these music videos. Those who never had to deal with rabbit ear tv's or the rooftop ant. with the dial just can't understand what a unreal thing cable was at the time.

Man that old HBO intro brings back some childhood memories...

[MagellanvsHimself]

I remember my dad had a VHS tape with a lot of HBO related shows on it...one in particular was something in between films that featured a giant, over-characterized cowboy hat wearing Ronald Reagan. If you have Amazon Prime, I highly recommend you folks get on the Night Flight train - it totally took me back to this stuff.

[Dr. Seymour Love]

I remember Showtime had weird stuff in the 80s too. I swear to god I watched some kind of stage play on there starring that guy from Trapper John Md, is his name Geoffrey Harrison? He was like a soldier in a military hospital...something like that.

[crowbar]

I watched Superman '78 over and over again when we first got HBO. I remember how I thought the end credits were so long compared to other movies.