Darren McGavin was so great in this and pretty much everything. The music and sound was impeccable and that opening theme simply amazing. As a young boy I loved it.
Me too! I recommend you track down the audiobook of the original job. Also, there is a podcast about the TV movies and the series, called The Kolchak Tapes. It's really fun, informative, and has some great guests. Track it down. You won't regret it. Cheers
I know exactly how you feel. It is such a shame that we didn’t get more than one season. But the writing was pretty much on the wall when the network made promises they didn’t keep.
I love this show this day and watch it on MeTV in Chicago. When Darren McGavin passed away his passing was overshadowed by Don Knotts who passed away the day before. Mr. McGavin you are missed but never forgotten.
A show that still holds up very well to anything else on TV today. The scene where Kolchak gets "up close and personal" with a rotting zombie in an old hearse in an auto junkyard is still intense today.
I read that Darren actually chose the outfit for him. Something about how he didn't like the one chosen by the director because a reporter who was obsessed with the macabre wouldn't exactly be rich or work for a no.1 news agency so he came in wearing the hat and cheap suit.
I’m 73. Saw this on an old black &white TV followed by “The Night Strangler” Been a fan of Carl Kolchak ever since. Now I have the TV series on Blu-ray. Life is good.
Funny enough I spotted a guy in the grocery store yesterday wearing a Kolchak Night Stalker T-Shirt! I had to strike up a conversation with him because if course it was one of my favorite shows too..
This posting explains a lot about how The Night Stalker was aired. I was in high school during the 1970's, and I used to randomly flip through TV stations and find Stalker playing. I never knew when or where to find it, but it was fun to watch Kolchak chasing down The Boston Straggler and in the end the authorities would cover up the evidence and boot him out of town empty handed. It was a short lived series, but a great one !
For some reason, a headless motorcycle rider swinging a sword terrified me as a kid. Also, if you watch the series enough times, you come to realize how brilliantly funny some of the dialogue was.
@@MADE_FOR_TV When I saw the silly looking headless motorcycle man again I stopped being afraid of motorcycles. And I had been wondering why the heck am I scared of motorcycles?
One of my favourite episodes. Watched it with my cousins when I was young and later that evening we waited outside in the dark for a taxi cab to arrive to take us home. Moments later a motorcycle headed towards us and we all ran in different directions to hide. LOL Will never forget it. Amazing show.
Great Video. I used to love this show & Darren McGavin & the Supporting Cast. Afterwards, when he made A Christmas Story, I'd make my friend (also a fan of the show) laugh by, in using the Carl Kolchak voice of the opening narrative, saying, "December 25th, 1982. I Was Expecting A Tie For Christmas, But, I Didn't Get It, What I Got Was . . . ." LOL
OH MY GOD!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN WITH THESE FILMS OR THE SERIES!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! I STAYED UP AT NIGHT ON A SCHOOL NIGHT FOR BOTH OF THESE FILMS! PLUS THE SERIES! Let me tell you (and I watch this series religiously) even in syndication and it was THE BOMB! Right now it's airing on cable television channel 54 in the west ME TV at midnight on Saturday nights. Darren McGavin aka Carl Kolchak every week took on the supernatural beasties, the RIPPER LEGEND, a LAS VEGAS VAMPIRE, ANCIENT BEASTS, a ZOMBIE even a Outer space EXTRATERRSTRAL who was trying to get back home!
All time top gun show for me mcgavin was totally the man to me as a 7 year old.....one of my favorite summertime memories is the night my brother came blasting into our bedroom in 1979 and said WILLIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i said yea? He said NIGHTSTALKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I came zooming out into the front room and laid down to watch we were absolutely as happy as could be totally riveted to the tv.....................all these years later davin mcgavin is still the man to me......i will forever be heartbroken he did not reprise the kolchack legend on the x files when given the chance and I will forever maintain that if he understood just how much fans like me not only loved the show but also loved HIM he would have done it...i would have gone absolutely bonkers.......it would have been my number one top tv moment of all time by a million miles......to see kolchacks triumphant return over 20 years after he last battled the supernatural forces of evil........man are you kidding me how awesome would that have been????? when the remake in 2005 came out my brother and I got together for every episode, dimmed the lights and wolfed down the popcorn......sadly it was cancelled after only 6 episodes.......yes it was different but it was good in its own way...........i pray somebody brings a new kolchack to the airwaves before i die...............and does it right.
I also would love to see them try this again. And you have touched o something that I've wondered time and time again; why did Darren hate the character so much? Obviously, he knew how much fans loved the character. So what was the source of his distain even 20+ years later?
@@MADE_FOR_TV If you watch the early episodes you will see they are much closer in style to the 2 movies ....they were hard nosed and had some grit....as the show went on however, the writers started to make kolchack the butt of jokes he was looked at by his peers as being a little goofy and maybe a little strange....gone was the grit....and hard nosed carl was soft in the head a little........mcgavin was very serious about his acting and having the show take that direction really hurt his pride....remember, the movies was smash hits and macgavin was at the top of his game.....he must have felt like Charlie Brown when lucy pulled the football away.....the show had drifted far away from what he thought it could be......the straw that broke the kolchacks back was when Jhonny carson made jokes about the show during his opening monologue one night... the season only had a few episodes left and the ratings were awful....mcgavin asked to be let out of his contract and his wish was granted........I guess he never got over it....and the show passed into legend.... A sad ending to a show that had some real promise.
I always felt bad for Kolshack, In that he usually had to deal with the supernatural menaces by himself. He would get advice from others, but Karl was the guy who had to face the monster at the end. Hey at least Dean and Sam have each other and Skully and Mulder have each others backs. But, Karl, he was the lone guy standing against the forces of evil. Hell, he was a reporter! No gun! No combat training! Great series though. :)
I'm 69. I very much enjoyed your musing on Kolchak. Loved the character and it is how I remember the actor. He was one of the greats when Hollywood was still Hollywood. Thank you for this and the information you provided.
My mother worked at Universal Studios in the 1960's. Sometimes she would take my brothers and I to the movie sets. About 1967, or 1968, me being 9-10 years old, were were on the set of "Ironside". This was a series that starred Raymond Burr. I was rolling around in Raymond Burr's wheelchair prop, that he used for his character in the TV series. All of a sudden, an actor was walking by, and saw my mom, brothers and I on the "Ironside" set. No one else was around. The man, who was Darren Mc Gavin , looked at me, bent down, and said, "hello young man", shook my hand, and then proceeded to continue on to wherever he was walking to. I've always liked the series, and have it on DVD, and was surprised that it had not even a full season's run. Thanks for all of your in depth info about the series, learned quite a bit that I never knew before. Richard Kiel appeared as an Indian in one of the "Night Stalker" episodes. I met him in Jan. of 1988, shook his hand, he was 7 ft. 2 1/2 inches tall, and I have several autographed pictures of him, as he appeared as "Jaws", the villain in two of the Roger Moore James Bond movies, and in the "Twilight Zone", episode "To Serve Man".
i watched the original movie when it first came out. it caused a resurgence in an interest in vampires and dracula. another tv movie with darren mcgavin i like A LOT is "tribes" (1970). with jan michael vincent and earl holliman. mcgavin has a credit list about mile long. he appeared or guest starred in practically every tv show of the 60s and 70s. i always liked his on-screen persona. he seemed to always play the part of stability and common sense. thanks mr. mcgavin for all the great performances and memories.
I don't remember a re-make in 2015, but remember one in about the late 1990's' or 2000. I got all excited when it came out, and my wife and I watched it together. It wasn't anything like the original though.
I goofed up on that one. And never even caught it until you made this comment. The reboot was in 2005, not 2015. Same for Supernatural. Oops! Sorry about that! 😀
The guy who created The Sopranos was a writer on this show ( it was his first big job) Darrin unfortunately didn’t enjoy the series because he wanted to do a movie version every other year instead of a weekly series ( and the fact that he didn’t get producer credits/money he was promised) There is a motion comic on YT called The Get of Beliah . It was from one of the unused scripts for the series.
This show scared the pee out of me. I totally agree with peoples comments about how great the music was!! X-Files was just a newer take on Nightstalker.
What particularly appeals to me about the original "NIght Stalker" movie is the everyday, ordinary quality of it. Though Las Vegas is not your typical town, I would describe the story as dealing with everyday working people who might be considered blue-collar workers in ordinary circumstances and then the outrageous and seemingly impossible comes into the community. Also at the end of this video we see the closing credits of a "Night Stalker" episode or movie. Some of it is partially obscurred, but the surname Marmlestein can be seen. I wonder if that's a nod to the character Miss Marmlestein that Barbra Streisand played on Broadway in "I Can Get it for You Wholesale" at the beginning of her career and that brought her overnight recognition.
Thanks for posting ! Jan. 12th of 72 ? What was I, eight ? Wow. I remember sitting in front of the rabbit eared zenith floor model blk and white watching the opening logo for the ABC tuesday movie of the week. The prior previews made this an event. I was primed by the Hammer Films and Barnabas Collins but this one was...different. No bats. No cape. Dressed in a black suit, he looked like covert CIA. With that Spock-like haircut, he could throw, hurtle, duck, dodge, spin, and sprint past police cars like a running back . And had nothing to say because those dull lifeless eyes, like a doll's eyes, made him a driven primal force undiluted by conscious or remorse. Of course, I didn't think that back then. I was eight. But it was quiet the next day in school. All I could remember was "Trauma". Even the teacher paused and explained it was a movie that would become timeless. What did that mean? Then "The Night Strangler" premiered and it started again. Oscar Goldman was never the same to me after that. The Night Stalker should have been released to theaters first. It was that good. Thank You, Dan Curtis for fighting to get Richard Mathison for the script, casting actors who already worked together in "The Twilight Zone", and being on set as the alias director. And Barry Diller for making "The Movie of the Week" the staple of my childhood.
My favorite show as a kid. Loved the monster of the week, cookie cutter format. Wish that it had received a 2nd season. But all of the behind the scenes crap made that impossible. There were 3 unproduced scripts. " Eve of Terror," " The Get of Belial," and "The Executioners." Too bad those weren't finished off. Glad they didn't do the 3rd movie "The Night Killers." Then we probably wouldn't of gotten the 20 episodes. Which in my mind were like 20 mini movies, anyway. My 6 favorite episodes were " The Ripper," " The Vampire," " The Spanish Moss Murders," "Horror in the Heights," " Chopper," and the "Knightly Murders." With "Spanish Moss" @ the top. Loved the story. The creepy sets. And the best part of all, the sewer scene near the end of the episode. The show will remain a small gem in the annals of horror T.V.
The first Night Stalker TV movie alludes to Kolchak having to leave New York in some kind of disgrace. I always wanted to see a prequel built around that. There's no chance of doing one now since all the original 1970's creative team is gone, but maybe using AI in a few years...
@@crazyAl-m4p Implied horror is sometime the best. The "Id Monster" from "Forbidden Planet" (1956) is another invisible terror - made visible only when it encountered a force field. The monstrous demon in "The Curse (Night) of the Demon" was invisibly horrific in one scene.
A bit of trivia: White Wolf Publishing games, Vampire the Masquerade, had a version of Kolchak in one of their early city source books. Special Unit 2, TV series took place in Chicago, battling various supernatural creatures.
Loved the show. I read an obituary about an investigative reporter in the paper he had worked for, - The Sydney Morning Herald - that proudly compared him to Karl Kolchak in his personality. It said the reporters had all sort of thought of themselves like that in a semi-secretive way. This may sound strange, but I always thought that Lois Lane from Superman should be portrayed the way Kolchak was by the 1972-74 material. Someone that obsessive and relentless after a story would need to be rescued regularly, given the bad guys are never short of resources and are sometimes famous with political connections.
I had thought the "husband" reference where Wilma was concerned was a facetious, tongue-in-cheek reference by Carl due to Wilma's imposing presence. I believe she was more of a bodyguard rather than a husband.
Oh my mistake. I thought the remark about Wilma Crankheimer being her husband was a tongue-in-cheek remark, lol, because of how domineering her personality and posture was, oops.
The music in both the series, and especially the two TV movies was absolutely chilling! I wish they had gone ahead with the 3rd TV movie, rather than switching to the weekly TV show.
It would be cool if they brought it back with modern cryptids like the rake, the wendigo, skinwalkers, chupacabra, cattle mutilations, ufo's, etc. But they would have to find the RIGHT actor to play Karl. That part was made for McGavin! So they would have to fit the part. But it would have been better if it ran for more than 1 season.
Rod Serling's classic anthology series, "The Twilight Zone" was definitely not a "monster-of-the- week" format TV show like "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" was years later in 1974. For examples, "The Changing of the Guard" starring the great actor Donald Pleasance is about an aging college professor who is terminated from his professorship position by the college's administrators who want a younger man to replace him. The elderly professor becomes so despondent, erroneously believing that his teaching English literature had no influence on his students, that he contemplates suicide until he goes to his old classroom when he hears the campus clock tower chime 13 times at midnight and sees the ghosts of his deceased former students who were killed during WW2. They tell him just how much he and his teachings meant to them and he then realizes that his life and career have not been a fruitless waste of time. In the classic episode, "The Night of the Meek, "famed comedic actor Art Carney plays a drunken department store Santa Claus who is given the opportunity after he is fired from his job to become Santa Claus when he comes upon a magic bag that gives out any kind of gift a person wants. Neither of those two great "The Twilight Zone" episodes are about a monster!
The show should have been made with a national Inquirer type newspaper...Kolchak should have been sent around the country...having every supernatural entity making a stop in Chicago was too unbelievable...also, Bruce Campbell would have been a great Kolchak in the remake...
I noticed in a cartoon of with a brief appreance of Kolchak in Justice League Unlimited. Titled Fearful Symmetry. Also showed Kolchak in Swamp Thing interving Abby And tribute in Vampirella were Vampirella saves kolchak from Monsters in the t.v. show without him knowing about it.
I love the movies and series. I thought it was kinda corny how his editor follows him from Vegas to Seattle and then to Chicago lol but I guess they had to figure out a way to keep him in the story lol
Sadly even when Sci-Fi showed it, they clipped a few minutes due to time constraints for commercials. I saw the series in it's original run and notice.
I think prior to Kolchak, no series was MORE the "monster of the week" than the Outer Limits, although the series was super intelligent. Pure sci fi, its creator Leslie Stevens had a physics degree and doctored all the scripts interesting science.
Darren McGavin was so great in this and pretty much everything. The music and sound was impeccable and that opening theme simply amazing. As a young boy I loved it.
I LOVED KOLCHAK, AND I STILL MISS IT.
Me too!
I recommend you track down the audiobook of the original job.
Also, there is a podcast about the TV movies and the series, called The Kolchak Tapes. It's really fun, informative, and has some great guests. Track it down. You won't regret it.
Cheers
If you can get metv night stalker is on Saturday night 11:00 pm
Believe me... You didn't miss anything...
Signed Vinsenzo
@@KRYPTOS_K5 😂
I have every episode and movie. 1080p on the movies and 480p on the tv episodes. I've watched them dozen's of times and it never gets old or dated.
It was such a great series, i so loved it! Darren McGavin was such a great actor!
I know exactly how you feel. It is such a shame that we didn’t get more than one season. But the writing was pretty much on the wall when the network made promises they didn’t keep.
I'm 60. This show when I was a kid was the very best of TV. The opening music, all of it was great.
61 here, and YUP. a favorite
I'm 56. 7 years old on Friday nights at 10 pm after planet of the apes on Cbs
Correction - ABC tv
T.V. movies of the seventies were so well done. Period!
Me and my brother couldn't wait to watch the night stalker
One of my two favorite TV shows EVER growing up Jim!!! 🙂
I've got some more coming on Kolchak. I'd love to do a look at each episode.
Sounds great Jim! I can't wait! ;)
Darin McGavin made that series. I remember his facial expressions were brilliant. Night Stalker one of TV’s best.
Nice work!. Grew up with this show as a 10 yr. old fan ,& into this decade . STILL watching.....
I loved that show. Never missed an episode.
I loved, Kolchak, The Night Stalker
Same here. I miss it.
One of the best shows ever!
This was my favorite show when I was a kid!!
Me too.. The swamp monster (Parmafay?), the headless biker and the rakshasa scared the crap out of me..
@@geoffreygarwood5826 For me it was the episode about the Succubus. So relatable. 🤣
I love this show this day and watch it on MeTV in Chicago.
When Darren McGavin passed away his passing was overshadowed by Don Knotts who passed away the day before. Mr. McGavin you are missed but never forgotten.
Getting Dan Curtis to produce/direct was a masterstroke. He'd been scaring people in broad daylight for years with Dark Shadows.
Check out some Dan Curtis movies on YT...
The Norliss Tapes & Curse of the Black Widow...
Yup. As a matter of fact; we will be hosting a watch party on youtube in two weeks to watch The Norliss Tapes as a group.
Great theme music for the series "Kolchak"!
A show that still holds up very well to anything else on TV today.
The scene where Kolchak gets "up close and personal" with a rotting zombie in an old hearse in an auto junkyard is still intense today.
Darren was AWESOME!! His acting style, his voice...you just couldn't take your eyes off him!
Casting him as Kolchak was a masterstroke.
Get good writers and bring the series back with Brian Cranston, the best we have now that we've lost Darren.
I read that Darren actually chose the outfit for him. Something about how he didn't like the one chosen by the director because a reporter who was obsessed with the macabre wouldn't exactly be rich or work for a no.1 news agency so he came in wearing the hat and cheap suit.
I’m 73. Saw this on an old black &white TV followed by “The Night Strangler” Been a fan of Carl Kolchak ever since. Now I have the TV series on Blu-ray. Life is good.
Some of the recurring characters were FREAKS......
It was GREAT!!!!
Great show. Darren Mcgavin was great in that role.
Funny enough I spotted a guy in the grocery store yesterday wearing a Kolchak Night Stalker T-Shirt! I had to strike up a conversation with him because if course it was one of my favorite shows too..
As recently as I checked, Jack Gingrage, who played Updyke, was the last surviving member of the cast & in his late 80s.
This posting explains a lot about how The Night Stalker was aired. I was in high school during the 1970's, and I used to randomly flip through TV stations and find Stalker playing. I never knew when or where to find it, but it was fun to watch Kolchak chasing down The Boston Straggler and in the end the authorities would cover up the evidence and boot him out of town empty handed. It was a short lived series, but a great one !
Wally Cox was awesome in The Night Strangler!!! He also voiced one of my favorite cartoon characters that you might have guessed??? 😁
I have no idea 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀 Seriously though, the first thing I watched when Boomerang came out years back was Underdog.
UNDERDOG!!!!!!!!!!
Loved that show.
For some reason, a headless motorcycle rider swinging a sword terrified me as a kid. Also, if you watch the series enough times, you come to realize how brilliantly funny some of the dialogue was.
I was afraid of the sound of motorcycles for decades until I saw the episode again!
😀 Isn't it amazing how these early TV shows affected the remainder f our lives?
@@MADE_FOR_TV When I saw the silly looking headless motorcycle man again I stopped being afraid of motorcycles. And I had been wondering why the heck am I scared of motorcycles?
One of my favourite episodes. Watched it with my cousins when I was young and later that evening we waited outside in the dark for a taxi cab to arrive to take us home. Moments later a motorcycle headed towards us and we all ran in different directions to hide. LOL Will never forget it. Amazing show.
@@mrjohntheo154 I ran too whenever I heard a motorcycle.
Glad I've Got the Movies & Series on DVDs.
Kolchak could have been the poster boy for the phrase More Guts Than Sense. He was brilliant.
Great Video. I used to love this show & Darren McGavin & the Supporting Cast. Afterwards, when he made A Christmas Story, I'd make my friend (also a fan of the show) laugh by, in using the Carl Kolchak voice of the opening narrative, saying, "December 25th, 1982. I Was Expecting A Tie For Christmas, But, I Didn't Get It, What I Got Was . . . ." LOL
I loved Kolchak: The Nightstalker. I think it’s time for another watch.
Vincenzo was a hilarious foil! Poor Vincenzo!
I was SUPER PISSED OFF when The Night Stalker was canceled.
The show rested on Darren’s performance. I was a kid when it came out.
OH MY GOD!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN WITH THESE FILMS OR THE SERIES!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! I STAYED UP AT NIGHT ON A SCHOOL NIGHT FOR BOTH OF THESE FILMS! PLUS THE SERIES! Let me tell you (and I watch this series religiously) even in syndication and it was THE BOMB! Right now it's airing on cable television channel 54 in the west ME TV at midnight on Saturday nights. Darren McGavin aka Carl Kolchak every week took on the supernatural beasties, the RIPPER LEGEND, a LAS VEGAS VAMPIRE, ANCIENT BEASTS, a ZOMBIE even a Outer space EXTRATERRSTRAL who was trying to get back home!
One of my favorite shows when i was a kid
A legendary show. I remember it well the movie and the TV series. Excellent cast . Nothing like it since.
All time top gun show for me mcgavin was totally the man to me as a 7 year old.....one of my favorite summertime memories
is the night my brother came blasting into our bedroom in 1979 and said WILLIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i said yea? He said NIGHTSTALKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I came zooming out into the front room and laid down to watch we were absolutely as happy as could be totally riveted to the tv.....................all these years later davin mcgavin is still the man to me......i will forever be heartbroken he did not reprise the
kolchack legend on the x files when given the chance and I will forever maintain that if he understood just how much fans like me not only loved the show but also loved HIM he would have done it...i would have gone absolutely bonkers.......it would have been my number one top tv moment of all time by a million miles......to see kolchacks triumphant return over 20 years after he last battled the supernatural forces of evil........man are you kidding me how awesome would that have been????? when the remake in 2005 came out my brother and
I got together for every episode, dimmed the lights and wolfed down the popcorn......sadly it was cancelled after only 6 episodes.......yes it was different but it was good in its own way...........i pray somebody brings a new kolchack to the airwaves
before i die...............and does it right.
I also would love to see them try this again. And you have touched o something that I've wondered time and time again; why did Darren hate the character so much? Obviously, he knew how much fans loved the character. So what was the source of his distain even 20+ years later?
@@MADE_FOR_TV If you watch the early episodes you will see they are much closer in style to the 2 movies ....they were hard nosed and had some grit....as the show went on however, the writers started to make kolchack the butt of jokes he was looked at by his peers as being a little goofy and maybe a little strange....gone was the grit....and hard nosed carl was soft in the head a little........mcgavin was very serious about his acting and having the show take that direction really hurt his pride....remember, the movies was smash hits and macgavin was at the top of his game.....he must have felt like Charlie Brown when lucy pulled the football away.....the show had drifted far away from what he thought it could be......the straw that broke the kolchacks back was when Jhonny carson made jokes about the show during his opening monologue one night... the season only had a few episodes left and the ratings were awful....mcgavin asked to be let out of his contract and his wish was granted........I guess he never got over it....and the show passed into legend.... A sad ending to a show that had some real promise.
I always felt bad for Kolshack,
In that he usually had to deal with the supernatural menaces by himself. He would get advice from others, but Karl was the guy who had to face the monster at the end.
Hey at least Dean and Sam have each other and Skully and Mulder have each others backs.
But, Karl, he was the lone guy standing against the forces of evil.
Hell, he was a reporter! No gun! No combat training!
Great series though. :)
Made you think of the phrase More Guts than Sense. But Mcgavin handled it brilliantly.
Got the Entire DVD Series*** AWESOME*****
I'm 69. I very much enjoyed your musing on Kolchak. Loved the character and it is how I remember the actor. He was one of the greats when Hollywood was still Hollywood. Thank you for this and the information you provided.
My mother worked at Universal Studios in the 1960's. Sometimes she would take my brothers and I to the movie sets. About 1967, or 1968, me being 9-10 years old, were were on the set of "Ironside". This was a series that starred Raymond Burr. I was rolling around in Raymond Burr's wheelchair prop, that he used for his character in the TV series. All of a sudden, an actor was walking by, and saw my mom, brothers and I on the "Ironside" set. No one else was around. The man, who was Darren Mc Gavin , looked at me, bent down, and said, "hello young man", shook my hand, and then proceeded to continue on to wherever he was walking to. I've always liked the series, and have it on DVD, and was surprised that it had not even a full season's run. Thanks for all of your in depth info about the series, learned quite a bit that I never knew before. Richard Kiel appeared as an Indian in one of the "Night Stalker" episodes. I met him in Jan. of 1988, shook his hand, he was 7 ft. 2 1/2 inches tall, and I have several autographed pictures of him, as he appeared as "Jaws", the villain in two of the Roger Moore James Bond movies, and in the "Twilight Zone", episode "To Serve Man".
Carl's opening and closing monologues were great touches in both films and all of the episodes.
i watched the original movie when it first came out. it caused a resurgence in an interest in vampires and dracula. another tv movie with darren mcgavin i like A LOT is "tribes" (1970). with jan michael vincent and earl holliman. mcgavin has a credit list about mile long. he appeared or guest starred in practically every tv show of the 60s and 70s. i always liked his on-screen persona. he seemed to always play the part of stability and common sense. thanks mr. mcgavin for all the great performances and memories.
Loved this show as a kid and still watch it now on dvd
I still watch the series just for old time sake.
I don't remember a re-make in 2015, but remember one in about the late 1990's' or 2000. I got all excited when it came out, and my wife and I watched it together. It wasn't anything like the original though.
I goofed up on that one. And never even caught it until you made this comment. The reboot was in 2005, not 2015. Same for Supernatural. Oops! Sorry about that! 😀
The guy who created The Sopranos was a writer on this show ( it was his first big job)
Darrin unfortunately didn’t enjoy the series because he wanted to do a movie version every other year instead of a weekly series ( and the fact that he didn’t get producer credits/money he was promised)
There is a motion comic on YT called The Get of Beliah . It was from one of the unused scripts for the series.
This show scared the pee out of me. I totally agree with peoples comments about how great the music was!! X-Files was just a newer take on Nightstalker.
The picture in the thumbnail is the Collinwood Mansion from "Dark Shadows."
Dan Curtis
Yep Dan Curtis worked on dark Shadows too!
It sure is! I used it as a tribute to Dan Curtis being involved.
Saw the movie,and then watched the show,when it was on every week!
Great job on unveiling behind the camera nostalgia on a classic movie-series game changer.
Wally Cox, the guy in the scene in the beginning was the voice of the cartoon character, Underdog.
What particularly appeals to me about the original "NIght Stalker" movie is the everyday, ordinary quality of it. Though Las Vegas is not your typical town, I would describe the story as dealing with everyday working people who might be considered blue-collar workers in ordinary circumstances and then the outrageous and seemingly impossible comes into the community.
Also at the end of this video we see the closing credits of a "Night Stalker" episode or movie. Some of it is partially obscurred, but the surname Marmlestein can be seen. I wonder if that's a nod to the character Miss Marmlestein that Barbra Streisand played on Broadway in "I Can Get it for You Wholesale" at the beginning of her career and that brought her overnight recognition.
Thanks for posting ! Jan. 12th of 72 ? What was I, eight ? Wow. I remember sitting in front of the rabbit eared zenith floor model blk and white watching the opening logo for the ABC tuesday movie of the week. The prior previews made this an event. I was primed by the Hammer Films and Barnabas Collins but this one was...different. No bats. No cape. Dressed in a black suit, he looked like covert CIA. With that Spock-like haircut, he could throw, hurtle, duck, dodge, spin, and sprint past police cars like a running back . And had nothing to say because those dull lifeless eyes, like a doll's eyes, made him a driven primal force undiluted by conscious or remorse. Of course, I didn't think that back then. I was eight. But it was quiet the next day in school. All I could remember was "Trauma". Even the teacher paused and explained it was a movie that would become timeless. What did that mean? Then "The Night Strangler" premiered and it started again. Oscar Goldman was never the same to me after that. The Night Stalker should have been released to theaters first. It was that good. Thank You, Dan Curtis for fighting to get Richard Mathison for the script, casting actors who already worked together in "The Twilight Zone", and being on set as the alias director. And Barry Diller for making "The Movie of the Week" the staple of my childhood.
My favorite show as a kid. Loved the monster of the week, cookie cutter format. Wish that it had received a 2nd season. But all of the behind the scenes crap made that impossible. There were 3 unproduced scripts. " Eve of Terror," " The Get of Belial," and "The Executioners." Too bad those weren't finished off. Glad they didn't do the 3rd movie "The Night Killers." Then we probably wouldn't of gotten the 20 episodes. Which in my mind were like 20 mini movies, anyway. My 6 favorite episodes were " The Ripper," " The Vampire," " The Spanish Moss Murders," "Horror in the Heights," " Chopper," and the "Knightly Murders." With "Spanish Moss" @ the top. Loved the story. The creepy sets. And the best part of all, the sewer scene near the end of the episode. The show will remain a small gem in the annals of horror T.V.
Absolutely loved this show
Brilliant films and series.
The music is iconic
❤ loved the movies. There will never be another Kolchak! Darren was him. ❤ love him always.
The first Night Stalker TV movie alludes to Kolchak having to leave New York in some kind of disgrace. I always wanted to see a prequel built around that. There's no chance of doing one now since all the original 1970's creative team is gone, but maybe using AI in a few years...
Retired video professional over here......NICE JOB!
Thanks for the kind words!
I loved this show, when I could slip my parents and watch it.
I had a small black and white TV in my bedroom and would watch this when I was supposed to be asleep. This show scared me to death every week!
"They Were, They Are, They Will Be"
Invisible alien/ monster, yet scary as hell
@@crazyAl-m4p Implied horror is sometime the best. The "Id Monster" from "Forbidden Planet" (1956) is another invisible terror - made visible only when it encountered a force field. The monstrous demon in "The Curse (Night) of the Demon" was invisibly horrific in one scene.
A bit of trivia: White Wolf Publishing games, Vampire the Masquerade, had a version of Kolchak in one of their early city source books. Special Unit 2, TV series took place in Chicago, battling various supernatural creatures.
10 year old me lived for this show! Karl lives rent free in my memories 😄
I got the boxset, remember watching this as a kid
Loved the show. I read an obituary about an investigative reporter in the paper he had worked for, - The Sydney Morning Herald - that proudly compared him to Karl Kolchak in his personality. It said the reporters had all sort of thought of themselves like that in a semi-secretive way.
This may sound strange, but I always thought that Lois Lane from Superman should be portrayed the way Kolchak was by the 1972-74 material. Someone that obsessive and relentless after a story would need to be rescued regularly, given the bad guys are never short of resources and are sometimes famous with political connections.
Long live Karl!
This show use to freak me out when I was seven…
Loved that show!
I had thought the "husband" reference where Wilma was concerned was a facetious, tongue-in-cheek reference by Carl due to Wilma's imposing presence. I believe she was more of a bodyguard rather than a husband.
Be cool if someone would create audio dramas of Kolchak or even go as far as an animated movie, keeping in the same era.
Oh my mistake. I thought the remark about Wilma Crankheimer being her husband was a tongue-in-cheek remark, lol, because of how domineering her personality and posture was, oops.
Used to watch it all the time
The music in both the series, and especially the two TV movies was absolutely chilling!
I wish they had gone ahead with the 3rd TV movie, rather than switching to the weekly TV show.
This show needs to be rebooted.
I consider the original movie and the final episode "The Sentry" to be solid gold...
It would be cool if they brought it back with modern cryptids like the rake, the wendigo, skinwalkers, chupacabra, cattle mutilations, ufo's, etc. But they would have to find the RIGHT actor to play Karl. That part was made for McGavin! So they would have to fit the part. But it would have been better if it ran for more than 1 season.
Rod Serling's classic anthology series, "The Twilight Zone" was definitely not a "monster-of-the- week" format TV show like "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" was years later in 1974. For examples, "The Changing of the Guard" starring the great actor Donald Pleasance is about an aging college professor who is terminated from his professorship position by the college's administrators who want a younger man to replace him. The elderly professor becomes so despondent, erroneously believing that his teaching English literature had no influence on his students, that he contemplates suicide until he goes to his old classroom when he hears the campus clock tower chime 13 times at midnight and sees the ghosts of his deceased former students who were killed during WW2. They tell him just how much he and his teachings meant to them and he then realizes that his life and career have not been a fruitless waste of time. In the classic episode, "The Night of the Meek, "famed comedic actor Art Carney plays a drunken department store Santa Claus who is given the opportunity after he is fired from his job to become Santa Claus when he comes upon a magic bag that gives out any kind of gift a person wants. Neither of those two great "The Twilight Zone" episodes are about a monster!
A great show .
The music and theme tune were awesome, you missed that out.
That hat rack in the remake series had the hat, the jacket, and a wooden mallet.
I saw this at age six in 1972. Scared the hell outta me, couldn't sleep til mama hung a wooden cross over my bed.
How lucky are we that also watched Darren in 'The Outsider'. Think Jim Rockford with an even tougher life. TV gold!
Dam, I love this series. I watched it when it came out on television, and I still watch it now on UA-cam
It was that violin making that spine tingling sounds
Incomparable
They should remake this series
I love it. Why not do a page? Great job anyway and good luck!loved the video.
The show should have been made with a national Inquirer type newspaper...Kolchak should have been sent around the country...having every supernatural entity making a stop in Chicago was too unbelievable...also, Bruce Campbell would have been a great Kolchak in the remake...
I noticed in a cartoon of with a brief appreance of Kolchak in Justice League Unlimited.
Titled Fearful Symmetry.
Also showed Kolchak in Swamp Thing interving Abby
And tribute in Vampirella were Vampirella saves kolchak from
Monsters in the t.v. show without him knowing about it.
I thought he was going to tell us the friend was played by Fran Drescher. 😊
Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea and Lost In Space were the first "monster of the week" shows.
I love the movies and series. I thought it was kinda corny how his editor follows him from Vegas to Seattle and then to Chicago lol but I guess they had to figure out a way to keep him in the story lol
Omg I was thinking the exact same thing when you brought it up- had Mr Cox lived on he'd have been so amazing at INS Chicago
Awesome
The episode about a lizard under Chicago complex was the worse , the plastic suit and bouncing boulders were cheap shots.
Sadly even when Sci-Fi showed it, they clipped a few minutes due to time constraints for commercials. I saw the series in it's original run and notice.
Keep in mind that there are also some scenes towards the end that Sci-Fi would have to cut as well to avoid mature audience issues.
I live in the Tacoma area and have been to the underground many times.
All seasons are streaming on Peacock. It's a great binge watch!
I think prior to Kolchak, no series was MORE the "monster of the week" than the Outer Limits, although the series was super intelligent. Pure sci fi, its creator Leslie Stevens had a physics degree and doctored all the scripts interesting science.
It is still running on MeTV. I record it.