When I was a kid I was a big fan of the Tv show Kolchak: The Night Stalker. I watched the show regularly, though back then some of the episodes would scare me so much I would have to leave the room. It was a great show that was only on for one season. Apparently the show is credited as being an inspiration for the X-Files. I consider it to be Scooby Doo for adults.
The series starred Darin McGavin as Carl Kolchak, a hard nosed tenacious reporter with a trademark pork-pie fedora who worked for a small Chicago newspaper. For some reason he gets on everybody's nerves and is the butt of jokes.He is regular guy who is confronted week after week with the supernatural occurrences, that are beyond the realm of believability. The reporter angle is good because the writers did not want to have the hero of the series to appear to be a kook or insane person. Simon Oakland plays Vincenzo, his constantly stressed out and flustered editor. Jack Grinnage plays Ron, his foppish fellow reporter and acid tongued rival. Ruth McDevitt is Emily, the old lady who creates puzzles for the newspaper.
Beyond that, from week to week, it was like The Love Boat Of Horror. Each episode had a new bunch of celebrities, including Tom Skerritt, Cathy Lee Crosby, Dick Van Patten , Erik Estrada, Jamie Farr, Antonio Fargas, Sharon Farrell, Jim Backus, Phil Silvers, Scatman Crothers, Larry Storch, Hans Conried, David Doyle, Alice Ghostley,Bernie Kopell, Stella Stevens, Pat Harrington, Jr, Carolyn Jones, Dwayne Hickman. Whew!!! That's a barrel full of character actors.
And every week Kolchak would go toe to toe with all sorts of strange entities. Plus he indefatigably butted heads with his editor and Chicago's finest. He battles Werewolves, Jack the Ripper, Vampires, Doppelgangers, Zombies, Demons, Gods, even Robots. You can marvel at the second rate special effects of the era, and the interesting clothes and hairdos that people had back then. The makeup and masks used at the time are also worthy of examination. All the monsters and werewolves look a lot cheesier now than when I was twelve.
Another thing I like is that this is all about Chicago. There are constant driving scenes through Chicago's downtown, street scenes where Kolchak is a pedestrian . There are also panoramic views of the skyline and the area along Lake Michigan. The show is definitely not set in some anonymous city at all. You get a sense of the flavor of the Windy City as it was three decades ago.
Of course one of the stumbling blocks to this show was the fact that someone who was nominally a reporter would constantly be subjected to encounters with the supernatural. It probably would have been better if the hero was cast as professor or author who investigated the occult. To have this happen to a beat reporter time and time again strains credulity. It's like the popular series Murder She Wrote. Wherever Jessica Fletcher went, dead people showed up. Book tours, visiting old friends, the body counts rose. But nobody suspected her. Whether she had something personally to do with the murders or she was just bad luck, she usually was bad news. I wouldn't let Angela Lansbury stay at my inn at any price. You would have thought her home town of Cabot Cove Maine would have had a population of zero by the end of the series by a combination of foul play, and terrified locals fleeing all the carnage.
But I digress. Kolchak is a fun carnage-free glimpse into the madcap world of American Tv of the 70's. It's not the greatest show ever, but I have a fond place in my heart for it. Check it out. Happy Halloween, part 2.
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