NBC News Overnight
NBC News Overnight is a television news program on the NBC television network that aired weekday mornings from 1:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. from July 5, 1982 to December 3, 1983 for 367 telecasts. The program was noteworthy because during this era a large majority of TV stations signed off between 1 and 3 a.m., with the rest running obscure syndicated shows and old movies.
Key personalities
NBC News Overnight was the brainchild of NBC News president Reuven Frank, who conceived the show as inexpensive overnight programming after Late Night with David Letterman. Frank had created the news program Weekend in 1974, and the two programs shared a similar, sometimes ironic outlook on the news. Weekend's co-hosts Lloyd Dobyns and Linda Ellerbee were reunited for the program initially, though Bill Schechner replaced Dobyns in November 1982. Herb Dudnick was the program's first executive producer and was succeeded by Deborah B. Johnson.
Humorous sign offs
During the show's early months the anchors were known for signing off in a humorous fashion. For example, during one installment Dobyns was given a very long, complex word to say and he stumbled over it; at the end of that broadcast the anchor took a moment to praise his writing staff, only to light-heartedly threaten to "take it all back" if they ever included such a word in his scripts again. Dobyns and then Ellerbee closed each show by saying, "And So It Goes." (which had been Dobyns' sign-off on Weekend). It became a bit of a catch-phrase and was the title of her first autobiographical book.
