Different types of fast eye movements, including saccades and fast-phases of optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) and OKAN, are coded by only partially overlapping neuronal networks. This is a likely cause for the differences which have been reported for the dynamic parameters of fast eye movements. The dependency of two of these parameters, namely peak-velocity and duration, on saccadic amplitude has been termed "main sequence". The main sequence of OKAN fast-phases has not been analyzed yet. These eye movements are unique in that they are generated by purely subcortical control mechanisms and that they occur in complete darkness. In this study, we recorded fast-phases of OKAN and OKN as well as visually guided and spontaneous saccades under identical background conditions as background characteristics have been reported to influence the main sequence of saccades. Our data clearly show that fast-phases of OKAN and OKN differ with respect to their main sequence. OKAN fast-phases were characterized by their lower peak-velocities and longer durations as compared to OKN fast-phases. Furthermore we found that the main sequence of spontaneous saccades depends heavily on background characteristics, with saccades in darkness being slower and lasting longer. On the contrary, the main sequence of visually guided saccades depended on background characteristics only very slightly. This implies that the existence of a visual saccade target largely cancels out the effect of background luminance. Our data underline the critical role of environmental conditions (light vs. darkness), behavioral tasks (e.g. spontaneous vs. visually guided) and the underlying neural networks for the exact spatio-temporal characteristics of fast eye movements.