The Midnight Special is an American late-night musical variety series originally broadcast on NBC from 1972 to 1981, created and produced by Burt Sugarman.

The program also featured occasional performances of comedians such as Steve Martin,[4] Richard Pryor, Andy Kaufman, and George Carlin.

"Our aim was to reach for the 18-33 age bracket, the young married and daters who attend concerts and movies but don't watch much television," Sugarman said.

Some notable guest stars and hosts included: The show was parodied with a song by comedian Ray Stevens in 1974 called "The Moonlight Special" playing Mr. Sheepdog (Wolfman Jack), whose guest included Mildred Queen and the Dipsticks (Gladys Knight), Agnes Stoopa (Alice Cooper and his pet chicken (From the 1969 "Chicken incident" in Toronto)), and Jerry Joe Henly Jimmy (Jerry Lee Lewis).

[17] The series was canceled by NBC at the request of Dick Ebersol as part of a deal for him to take over the then-ailing Saturday Night Live.

[18] Because there was no time for NBC to develop a new show from scratch in light of the urgent SNL situation, The Midnight Special was replaced by SCTV, a weekly Canadian sketch comedy series performed by members of the Toronto satellite of Chicago's The Second City improvisational troupe.

In 2006, a DVD collection entitled Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special was made available by Guthy-Renker through television and radio infomercials.