Post: #1

I ran across these gems from my childhood last night and figured some Sci Fi fans might get a kick out of them. The following videos were the Sci Fi Channel's pre-launch test sequence they ran for weeks (or months, I can't remember) on our old monster satellite dish back in 1992.

I grew up in the country in a place with really shitty television reception so most of my limited TV time was spent scanning the sky on something that looked like this.



One day after school during my daily scan hoping Cinemax or the Playboy Channel forgot to scramble their feed I ran across this new broadcast. I had no idea what was going on and this was pre-internets so I was freaked out by what I was watching. If I remember correctly, this was an hour or two loop broadcast 24/7 of freaky voices and video effects.





Here is another test sequence. I thought we were under attack by aliens, my religious mother thought I was being programmed by satanists and forbid me to watch it.





One day the pattern changed and it showed a countdown timer. I kept watching the channel for days making sure I would be around to see what in the hell was going to happen when the timer reached 0:00. I was in for a pleasant surprise. Excellent choice for the their first movie to air, the channel sure has gone to shit since it's inception.