38 is a station with a long but obscure history. It was KUDO for a while in the late 60s and possibly early 70s, showing rock-bottom movies and perhaps some local programming. They were probably the first UHF station to run all-night movies in the late '60s and early '70s.

UHF Nocturne correspondent Chuck S. scanned his stack of TV Guides from 1968 and 1969, and tells us:

KUDO Channel 38 ran movies from 2:00 AM until 6:30 or 7:00 AM from December 1969 until September 1970. No advertising [in the TV Guide. - ed.] for KUDO. No competition either. I'm surprised they didn't make a go of the all night movies. I remember watching some of these movies and I seem to remember that there was a local radio DJ that hosted the movie. He would have guests and during breaks he would interview other local personalities. I can't remember who the DJ was. Does this sound familiar to you?

After getting Chuck's email, I took a closer look at the one TV Guide I have with all-night movies listed on 38. In the week starting February 28, 1970, they showed movies all night on Mondays through Thursdays - oddly, not on Saturday nights - while on Friday nights, there are listings for all-night movies on KGSC/36.

I found exactly one non-movie listing for the week, on Mondays, the tantalizing Night People interview show in the listings at left. Remember, "Night People" was J. Brown's pet name for his audience. I didn't think he was ever on this early. I'm wondering if it might be Gil Hile, KGO's late-night mystery host? He certainly would have been the one with the experience locally, and KGO had ceased running all-nights in 1968.

Chuck adds:

By the way, at 7:00 AM, Channel 38 ran a stock market show until 1:00 or 1:30. This also seemed very innovative for the time but for whatever reason I guess this didn't work out either.

Chuck's quite right about that, and the show was even listed as shown in the sidebar. I would NEVER have spotted this one, having seldom been out of bed that early at any time in my life! Thanks, Chuck!

38 may have gone dark for a while after that, eventually lighting up the airwaves again as a Christian station, KVOF. As KVOF (King's Voice Of Faith), the station initially hosted a variety of strange religious programming, as well as a couple of hours a day of Dr. Gene Scott.

The non-Gene Scott programming was a mixed bag of Christian shows from all over. Early incarnations of The 700 Club and The PTL Club were on KUDO, their Tonight Show-style sets and chatty formats blazing the trail for the slicker Christian programming of today. A lot of less progressive shows, more reflective of the early (read: boring) days of Christian broadcasting comprised the bulk of the programming, however. I remember a LOT of preachers staring at a fixed camera and droning on in monotones; these days you can only see that sort of thing on Arnold Murray's Shepherd's Chapel, late at night on 26.

Gene Scott back then looked a lot younger, though he never really projected an image one might traditionally associate with a preacher. In the early days, my friends and I had no idea who he was, though we found him fascinating for reasons anyone who has seen him would understand. (We'd never seen a preacher scream at the camera before then, that's for sure!) It was a long time before I knew his name; until then, we always called him "The Guy With The White Hair."

Eventually, Scott gained control of KVOF, and his show became the channel, and the channel, his show. For the longest time, until as late as the '90s, 38 was 24 hours a day of Dr. Scott preaching at the camera - when he wasn't just staring it down. His videotaped lectures on everything from pyramidology and UFOs to the PTL scandals and the joys of cigars could mesmerize anyone, even if he didn't have a 100% conversion rate.