I was a kid in the 70s and was glued to the tv when Kolchak came on. I watched the series again in 2020 and every time that theme music started I got goosebumps. Darren McGavin was perfect as Kolchak.
I used to sneak and stay up to watch it. I had a TV in my room and would keep it down low and put a blanket over my tv, lol. If my parents knew they never let on I was 7. One of my favorite memories
The first vampire TV movie really stood out as the vampire didn't wear a dinner jacket or 19th century outfit. He was the first vampire who could have been anybody. Extremely original at the time.
Another show that was sadly ahead of its time. It's immediately identifiable opening theme would have you enthralled right from the start every week. RIP Darren
Kolchak was not "fearless". He was pretty much chicken on most things, especially the dentist. Kolchak had the balls and guts to push through it in his quest for truth and get the job done.
@watershed44 no powers, no superhuman intellect, no Sharingan or super genes, just an ordinary human (not in peak human conditioning like Batman), not particularly young either, going up against supernatural forces that should've gotten him killed long ago.
You know, I actually thought about that many times myself. His conflict with his boss and his coworkers. Generating expenses and none of his stories ever getting published.
I was 8 years old when "The Night Strangler" came on TV. Since I was born & raised in Seattle, I watched Karl Kolchak whenever he was on. I was fascinated by the Seattle Underground, and as soon as I could get to Pioneer Square, I was going on the tour ! The parts of the underground that's covered by the tour was interesting, but I wanted more. Later in life I was a Union Ironworker in Seattle, and one job involved erecting steel towers to hold up the oldest buildings in Seattle, during an earthquake. The coolest part ? I had unrestricted access to the underground. Walk out the subterranean front door & you're on the sidewalks in Underground Seattle. GREAT VIDEO !
Yes Sir ! I was in late grade/early-high school in the mid/late 70's. I really liked this series. It was just mildly "Scary", but really showed more of the "Pluck" that 'ol Carl had. It was just cool. Great mix of (Slight) horror/comedy/drama/suspense, all at once. And I always rooted for Carl, of course.
@@theequalizer9154 social commentary has been in popular fiction for centuries. Although it does feel shows with a certain or another agenda are more plentiful nowadays.
@@OGdadpool Agreed, but it was well done and well written. Two major differences. Now, things are written as demands and forcing. Catering to agendas that do not apply to society as a whole. Agendas from a few that are quite frankly perverse and/or demands to cater to psychopathic ideals.
LOVED this show when I was 11 years old! Then watched The Night Gallery later on the same Friday nights. Too scared to sleep!! Don’t forget about his signature ragtop Ford Mustang!
One of the best 70s horror TV shows ever!! I still remember seeing The Night Stalker for the first time when I was a kid. I couldn’t sleep for weeks after seeing it! To this day it’s one of the best Vampire stories ever! R.I.P. Darren McGavin.
I heard that McGavin, in failing health, still enjoyed hearing from his fans, as his caregivers read e-mails to him I wrote him an E-mail, and he passed on a couple of days later. I hope he got to hear it, and I like to imagine (and it's quite possible) it may well have been the last fan mail he heard. RIP, Darren, and thanks for the memories.
@@berniemadoff7837 The email was actually about his food products and my admiration for both the charity aspect (commendable) and the genuine high quality. I mean, Newman's Own makes some great stuff, amirite?
John Wayne once said true courage is "being scared spitless and saddling up anyway." That's what made Kolchak such a great character - each week he was scared to death but pressed on anyway. So much more relatable and memorable than the typical fearless TV heroes of the day.
A large part of the success, I think, was the decision to have the Skorzeny/vampire character not speak, but rather simply show his enormous strength, very powerful
With all your crystal meth issues , backstabbing your family , abandoning your poor girlfriend in another state after taking her away from her children not to mention what happened with that nine year old girl...it's a shocking you had time to even see it.
My wife and I came across the DVD for this show. We both enjoyed it as kids. In the fall of 2012, on Friday nights, we would pick up a pizza and watch an episode in the dark. They were cheesy but fun, it brought back memories of a simpler time. When the X- files came out it reminded me of this show, I let my kids watch that show on Friday nights until FOX moved it to Sunday nights.
My favorite episode was “Chopper” the biker that returns from the grave to find his head. Loved the cheesy effects of the headless motorcycle rider with really tall shoulders, just room enough for a head😆! Simon Oakland was great in the series too!
One of my favorite tv shows of all-time. I wish its run had lasted a little longer, or maybe a lot longer. But I treasure what we have of Kolchak. Its influence is far larger than its short run might suggest. No X-Files and maybe even no Omen without Kolchak. Marv Wolfman, who wrote Tomb of Dracula, loved Kolchak so much he wrote a blatant tribute to Kolchak into an issue of Tomb of Dracula.
A little Night Stalker trivia: In the second pilot movie "The Night Strangler", the strangler was played by Richard Anderson who went on to play Steve Austin's boss Oscar Goldman on the Six Million Dollar Man. What some people may not know was that before Anderson played Goldman, Darren McGavin played Steve Austin's government boss in the original Six Million Dollar Man pilot movie. McGavin played him as more of a ruthless guy. When the the show became a series they went with Anderson who played Oscar Goldman who was more of a friend to Steve.
I loved this series as a teen and still enjoyed it in syndication. My most favorite part of the series though was the opening theme music, it still makes my heart race with anticipatory fear.
I remember watching it and the series and being scared by them. I loved it! My friends all saw it as well. TV movies and mini series were big over that period. Charlie Brown, Rudolph, Fat Albert and Wizard of Oz were all events!
I really enjoyed that!! Thanks, this was my favorite show when I was a kid. I use to sit in front of our tiny television and wait for every episode. Great memories. I STILL re-watch them, they have NOT lost their quality and they have stood the test of time of acting and story telling. (Ok, the effects were what they were, for early 70's tv, but when you're 10 years old who cares?)
Some of the best TV movies of all-time were on ABC in the early '70s, and Kolchak was certainly part of that mix. I was born the same year the short-lived Kolchak series ended. Didn't discover the entire show until about two years ago. Now, it's a regular part of my Halloween viewing schedule, along with the usual horror stuff. McGavin nailed that role and it's a shame the original producer and others weren't involved in the series. Big reason it didn't last long!
I watched this back in the day, we didn't have cable and I had to watch it on UHF and it was all snowy but I LOVED it. This was the first show I remember that had such good stories and suspense. The acting was top notch and probably one of the biggest things for me was that the villains were always real. Not real as in reality real, but as in not some idiot in a costume trying to pull a scam, ie Scooby-Doo lol. I still go back and rewatch the series.
I was huge fan of the show, and never missed one episode!! Sometimes I had to do extra chores in order to earn my place in front of the tv, but it was always worth it!!
G'day Rerun, Here's another classic example of a great leading character, played by a dedicated, focused actor, acting well written scripts and then all that effort and talent begins to come apart and, at the time, totally wasted. Why? Because of studio legalities and bickering over contracts and money. The 'show' part of 'showbiz' is great. It's always the 'biz' part that ruins it. BH
Not always. Get a pimadonna on the set & they can reek havoc. Polly Holliday left ALICE b/c of Linda Lavin. And w/dn't return. THREE'S COMPANY had THREE primadonna's.
I was 11 when the first two movie were broadcasted in Argentinean TV. I am not a Horror movie fan - I prefer Hard Science Fiction. But I was so thrilled by Kolchak that I becomed a big fan of the series AND Darren McGavin. He is one of my favorite actors.
I loved that show. I was 10 yrs old in 72. The tv guide was my bible at the time. Quite often I'd stay over night at my friend Ricks house or vice a versa on fri nights. & that was the high light of the evening. 👍❤️
Great T.V. Darren McGavin did his double-takes as professionally as any vaudevillian from the old days. Even though the endings always had that Scooby-Doo type of a feel, it was one of my favorites and still is. Reruns Rule...lol
This is one of my favorite shows as growing up. He brought a lot of memories when I see it. I was watching the middle of the room so nothing will come behind me.
I was at the age where those 'undesirable' time slots worked for me. It seemed fitting for a horror show to be broadcast at 10PM, even if TV level of 'horror'. I loved this show and thought McGavin was outstanding in his portrayal of Kolchak and a living example that middle aged men can still be really cool. I do recall that the "Monster of the Week" syndrome, though I didn't know the term at the time, because some of the latter villains were pretty bad as would be expected with that formula. X-Files ultimately fell into the same trap after awhile from its 'must see' shows.
I am a huge fan of this show ever since I first watched it in 1977. WOW. I still love it and still watch it until now. It would have been interesting if this actually got more seasons.
@@JM-zk9ou There was a reboot in 2005 it lasted one season and was awful. Instead of a disheveled middle aged reporter we got two attractive young people (Stuart Townsend and Gabrielle Union).
I was randomly watching this on SyFy one summer. It had a marathon. Like 30 years after it was cancelled. And it was like something totally new to me. I enjoyed it a lot. After that I was hooked and started searching for all the episodes and films.
As a kid in the 70s, I loved these movies when they came on Saturday nights followed by some other cheesy sci-fi flick...now as an adult, cheesy or not, watching these movies like a pair of well worn slippers - they may be beat up, but they are comfortable.
The late C J Henderson, a Brooklyn-born author, wrote a series of novels based on Kolchak: The Night Stalker He also wrote OTHER supernatural-based series set in New York; the Teddy London series, The Brooklyn Knight, and others A great author, and a wonderful man to know
In the C J Henderson novel, " Kolchak: The Lost World" (2012), Henderson unfortunately did not portray the character of Miss Emily ( played superbly by veteran actress Ruth McDevitt - who was most known by TV fans for playing the role of Mr. Quigley's girlfriend on the "All in the Family" sitcom during the 1970's as well as her role on the "Kolchak The Night Stalker" TV series) in his Kolchak novel correctly because in that novel he has her say to Kolchak when she first sees Kolchak again, "Carl how are you you old son-of-a-bitch?", which Miss Emily would never say using profanity!
Man, I used to love this show when I was a kid. I remember when it would come on T.V. on Friday nights at 8:00 PM. This would put me at odds with my father who, being too much of a realist, would insist on watching Sanford and Son which aired during the same time slot. As a kid I was only able to see about eight or nine episodes (during those evenings when my father was feeling magnanimous with our single television set). Since then, I have enjoyed today's technology which allows me to catch up on all that coolness I missed as a kid!
This WAS my favorite show as a kid. I remember one Episode called The Sentinel about a lizard man protecting eggs our lights went out in the middle of the episode and scared the shizipzap out of me and my sister. Unfortunately the show was cancelled and this was the last time we saw Carl, Ron, Mrs Abigail and Tony!
Dan Curtis said he always had Darren McGavin in mind for Kolchak! There's a video here on YT with Dan Curtis speaking about the making of this movie. This movie did so well ....it blew any other made for tv movie ....right out of the water!!! Dan Curtis said they were shocked at the numbers this movie did!
M*A*S*H had that problem when it first aired. It was all over the TV schedule until finally settling in to Monday nights. But that was the exception rather than the rule. It survived that hopping around. But generally, shows sent to Friday nights, especially the 10:00 PM slot, are sent there as filler, or to kill them off. Even Star Trek (TOS) was sent to Friday nights at 10:00 PM by NBC in its third season, in an effort to kill off the show,
Anybody else notice in the opening credits when he walks in the office, just before he gets to the coffee machine, he puts his hand in his pocket and "adjusts" himself?
I recently discovered the show and watched all the episodes. I wasnt aware that they made 2 movies so i watched both of them back2back. Wonderful show 👏
Loved this show! I introduced it to my son AND wife, got them hooked! Thanks for making and sharing this vid, lots of stuff I didn't know about the show.
I was 10. Friday night was my parents bridge night. They would leave the house for several hours and I would scare myself silly watching Night Stalker by myself with the lights out.
Loved that show. It was on Friday, followed by a creature feature after the 10p(Central) news. A reliable evening of horror. I miss those Friday nights.
Loved that and also the Mummy episode when Kolchak had to put salt in its mouth.That certainly had me on the edge of my seat.Nobody does a witches laugh like Lara Parker.
@@errolrichards5665 - The Zombie is one of my favorite episodes! The only problem I have with that story, was when The Zombie ACTUALLY took the bus, to get back to the junkyard .... Just the thought of that, cracks me up!!! The Chopper and The Ripper are a couple more.
I was a huge fan of this show in first run when I was a kid, and still watch it on MeTV. If only there had been a second season, maybe as two-parters with meatier stories. There are also a bunch of fan-written novels.