‘USA Up All Night’ Icon Rhonda Shear Dishes on Favorite Guests & Reboot’s Future

The 1990s on USA Network brought a string of shows such as Silk Stalkings, La Femme Nikita, and Pacific Blue. If you were staying in on a Friday or Saturday, you may also have tuned in to USA Up All Night. This campy series initially ran for 10 seasons starting in 1989, bringing viewers B-movie and horror delights in the same vein as Elvira’s Movie Macabre. Host Rhonda Shear brought that sexy playfulness when she joined the show in 1991 alongside Gilbert Gottfried after Caroline Schlitt’s exit.  

Shear parlayed her success into other ventures including an intimate clothing line and becoming a staple on HSN for what’s going on 24 years. She married high school sweetheart Van Fagan in 2001. The entrepreneur also kept the Up All Night brand alive through convention appearances and by rebooting it for the “Kings of Horror” channel on YouTube last year. The show is produced within her own 20,000 square-foot studio space in St. Petersburg, Florida. Shear Media’s Studios looks to become a new hub for content creators and filmmakers to help see their respective visions realized. 

Here Shear dishes on what she has been up to, Up All Night experiences, and how she is keeping the spirit of the cult classic alive in today’s entertainment landscape. 

Rhonda Shear

You made your USA Up All Night debut on January 4, 1991. What do you remember about that time now more than 35 years later? 

Rhonda Shear: It would be so viral today. Caroline Schlitt started about a year-and-a-half before me. I was on Fridays as Caroline was and Gilbert was on Saturday. It was USA Network’s big film festival of schlock films, horror films, all the films that were in their library. They wanted us to be entertaining until viewers watched the commercials. That little show made a lot of money. It funded a lot of programming that USA went on to do like Weird Science and La Femme Nikita, Duckman. Our show was just cranking out money. They’d even bring me to meetings with their account executives to talk to like Budweiser and do all these showcases.

How did the opportunity come about? 

I started in stand-up comedy. I was always told throughout my acting career that I was either too pretty or too sexy for this role. You can’t be funny unless you look funny was the thought. So, when this came along I was with Dick Clark Productions as they had a talent agency wing. One of the guys who worked there, his friend, was one of the producers of the very first Up All Night. He knew they were replacing Caroline. I don’t know why. She was very good. But they wanted this new person to be over-the-top, sexy, to keep people tuning into the films. I was so tired of being told too this or too that, I decided to go all in. Like crazy over-the-top. So, I went in with a low cut dress, hooked up my blow dryer to blow dry my hair, which was already dry. Just being absolutely over-the-top. Three months later I got it. The first producer was Tommy Lynch, who is still producing children programming. We sat in my kitchen in my Beverly Hills apartment, and I came up with the, “Up [higher pitch] All Night.”

Rhonda Shear

And a star was born. 

I saw the character as more wonderment, and not being a dumb blonde. One that had a sense of wonderment where anything went. She would just look at it and think that was cool. Not nasty or judgmental .We had cheerleaders on, Marilyn Chambers on back in the day. We had everyone from Barbara Walters to porn stars. It was great. When I first started, it was Rhonda keeps you up all night in Los Angeles while Gilbert was in New York. Eventually the location stuff was too much, we always shot at night. We started to do in-studio programming as well.

We’d start the show maybe in the bedroom and then take you out on the town. Then it became a lot of sketch comedy. That was my favorite part of that. I knew pretty fast we blew up where today it would be viral. It was very successful. Back then it was snail mail, and the letters and gifts were pouring in. The audience really took to my character. The films definitely also brought people in where it was less horror and more comedy. Like what we just showed Assault of the Party Nerds. We just had that on Friday night. We’re looking to do more of that with the new rebooted Up All Night as well. 

Who were some of your favorite guests you had on the show? 

I have so many people who became friends. Weird Al Yankovic became a friend. Then I had like Chris Rock, so many stars. Then it was the wrestling and the wrestlers. WWF was broadcasting on the USA Network. They definitely had synergy between the shows like I was on Duckman. I was on Weird Science. They did promote their stars in between shows. So, I covered a lot of the wrestling matches, and they were great. I’m not sure who came up with it, but it was where Shawn Michaels and I had this big affair around the show. We had this steamy romance. We went to Vegas and rode around in limos, and we’d take photos where it was like he was pushing me away because he was too big a star. He came on the show a lot. We also had regular stand-up friends of mine. names of that era because I was then headlining stand-up shows. It was a great time in my life. We were always filming. We moved the show to New York, so then I’d come in and bank four episodes at a time. I look back at working with Gilbert fondly. We meshed well. 

Rhonda Shear and Shawn Michaels (WWE/WrestleMania)

It’s funny you mention Shawn Michaels. I remember you served as the timekeeper at WrestleMania X from Madison Square Garden. That must have been a trip.

It was so much fun! Wrestlers are great. As a matter of fact, we’re shooting in a few days with Nic Nemeth, also known as Dolph Ziggler, as he is a fan of mine. We became friends via Facebook or Instagram. He is just a doll. Then I’m bringing in an old friend of mine, Jeanne Basone, who is Hollywood from the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling . It’s not going to be a wrestling show, but it’s going to be a cook-off. They are going to be cooking stuff. It’s going to be fun. I like to take people out of the context of what they are used to being in and giving them another role. It will be a fun competition where we’ll have him surrounded by four beautiful girls. John Brennan, who comes from The Last Drive-In, has been a regular with me now. 

I love having that young energy. I don’t think I should host this all on my own, maybe it’s because I’m not showing as much of my cleavage. Just a little bit, but not all of it. I’m using a lot of great B-queens and scream queens like Jessa Jupiter, Mel Heflin,  Tiffany Shepis, Felissa Rose. These are all huge names within the horror genre. They’ve been coming in, and it has been feeding my soul. We’re shooting at Shear Media Studios. 

I love that you have this production space now. 

The studio my husband and I built. It’s two buildings. One that houses my intimate line Rhonda Shear Intimates, which ahs been there for years. We bought the second building, a nice size…We had this building we didn’t want to sell. My husband and I sat down and thought about doing this place for all things media whether it’s a podcast, influencers, movies, television, commercials. It’s lovely. It’s now built up, huge, and in one of the studios we built what is our Up All Night set. My husband nailed it and designed it. He worked on this with a partner. I think it’s a little bigger than the original, but it’s very reminiscent of the original Rhonda bedroom. 

What’s the filming schedule? 

We’re now beginning the season after we did holiday shows. In January, we are running every other week, but we’ll also be showing content through “Kings of Horror.” Also, my husband and I are starting a Roku channel under the name Up All Night. It will be mainly Rhonda content initially because I have thousands of shows. Not just the Up All Night library, but from all the sitcoms and things I did. I’m probably the only person who has the whole library of my Up All Night episode because USA Network got rid of them for the tape stock back in the day. It was in my contract to get two VHS tapes. One I would send to my mom, who was older. She came out to some of the shows, but she couldn’t always. So, we sent her one. Then I would get a copy. I’ve been really good about having mainly my entire career. It’s now downloaded on DVDs and uploaded. I’m missing maybe 20 shows out of eight years. 

You also have the rights to Up All Night, right? 

Yes, I did that after one of the attorneys for USA Network and I were talking. I said, “You know when you guys are off the air, I wonder if I could use Up All Night.” I wasn’t even in the intimate apparel business at the time, but it’s a great name for one of our lines. He said after a year, “Let’s do this.” They gave it over, and we’ve used it ever since. Christina Applegate, a few years ago did a sitcom called Up All Night. We actually had our attorneys do a cease and desist. It was NBC, and they were like, “Yeah right [laughs]. Who has the deeper pockets?” It didn’t last but a couple of seasons, but we never really lost it. But we knew we couldn’t fight NBC for them not to use it. You get names for things under different categories. Like we have it for intimates, TV, I think J.Lo’s residency in Las Vegas is called “Up All Night.” 

 

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Before his death in 2022, were you and Gilbert still close? 

Every now and then we would speak. During COVID, I started a podcast, but didn’t call it a podcast. It still runs, called Rhonda Shear’s Social Hour on Thursday nights. It has built up a nice audience. Nobody was getting out so I had about 150 interviews, and Gilbert was one of them. Judy Tenuta, who passed, was another. God bless her. It was very cool.

Do you think Up All Night could make a return to USA Network or another traditional channel? 

Would you please call them? I don’t see a problem doing it through streaming, TV, all of the above. All these companies are different now. Streaming is great because you can be interactive with your fans. I think “Kings of Horror” has 1.5 million subscribers, but only a percentage watch the show. I’m really getting the social media out there. I think the word has to get out more. I think I have a time limit to get it out there because I think there is a lot of heat for it. I’m getting requests to do films, cartoons, conventions, acting roles, reality shows.

All this energy coming at me, that is different from my intimate apparel business. It’s very cool, but I think if we keep it somewhere where it can’t get the viewers I think it deserves, it would fizzle. I would love to be on a USA Network because I still think TV is not dead … .It has been feeding my soul to be in three new horror movies. Only one I die in. It’s fun and brings more eyes to us. “Kings of Horror” has multiple channels on YouTube and has been getting a great audience. I just feel it wouldn’t hurt to be found in different places. 

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We need these escapes right now in the world, so I’m glad Up All Night is back. That era was a special time because you didn’t have to take yourself so seriously. It was like a version of Pee-wee’s Playhouse in a sense. 

Exactly what I want it to be. We’re actually getting more films that have a more comedy slant. Joe Bob [Briggs] with The Last Drive-In, Svengoolie and a lot of horror hosts are still killing it. But I don’t consider myself a horror host as much as a movie host so we can do a bit of both. Horror is not my jam as much as I’m a comedian. I want to play into the sketches using really good actors and comics and people from all walks of life. We’ve had some really good guests come in. Or like Nic Nemeth coming in. How fun is that going to be? JB Smoove, who reached out to me. His partner reached out to me because he is a major fan. He grew up with me. I haven’t reached out to him yet, but I will reach out to Bill Hader because he has credited his career on Up All Night and me, not even Gilbert. I haven’t reached out to him yet. I’m waiting for that right moment. It’s funny we haven’t gotten no from anybody so far.

Rhonda Shear’s Up All Night can be found on the “Kings of Horror” YouTube Channel