BUCKET LIST ITEM No. 528: Watch every episode of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”
About 10 years ago, I started writing an on-again, off-again series of short stories about a fictitious newspaper reporter named Eli McMorn. McMorn is the nightshift reporter at The Claiborne Herald newspaper, which is located in a much larger, fictionalized version of Claiborne, Ala. McMorn covers all types of stories for the paper, but he always seems to get mixed up in things with a supernatural bent.
Not long after I started writing these stories and posting them on my old, now-defunct Web site, a Monroeville police officer mentioned to me one day in passing that he thought my stories were cool. We talked for a few minutes about the McMorn character, and the officer made the remark that “he’s basically Kolchak.” At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about, and he enlightened me. Like they say, there are no new ideas under the sun.
As it turns out, Carl Kolchak was a fictional Chicago journalist on a 1970s TV series called “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” Kolchak worked for the Independent News Service (INS), and he almost always ended up investigating mysterious crimes with supernatural aspects. More often than not, police would suspect Kolchak of being involved in these crimes, and he’s frequently arrested for trespassing and other crimes. Also, any evidence he digs up in the course of his investigations is either destroyed or disappears by the end of each episode, leaving him as the only person to know the full truth about what has occurred.
Actor Darren McGavin, who many of you will remember as Ralphie’s grumpy dad from 1983’s “A Christmas Story”, played Kolchak. You know, he’s the dad who receives a lamp in the shape of a woman’s leg as “a major award” and goes on a cussing rampage when his neighbor’s dogs devour the family’s Christmas turkey. While researching this article, I was saddened to learn that McGavin passed away in 2006 at the age of 83. He was pretty awesome as Kolchak.
“Kolchak: The Night Stalker” was only broadcast for one season, 1974-75, and was shown on ABC. In all, the series lasted 20 episodes, which were broadcast between Sept. 13, 1974 and March 28, 1975. Each episode involved something out of the ordinary, including Jack the Ripper, zombies, UFOs, vampires, werewolves, doppelgangers, Satanic and Aztec cults, androids, witches, a headless motorcycle rider, a lizardman, a succubus, prehistoric primates, a haunted suit of armor and creatures from Native American, Greek, Creole and Jewish folklore.
One cool thing about this TV series is that it’s now available through NetFlix. You can have the complete series sent to your home through the mail or you can watch it online. I got the DVDs through the mail and over the course of several weeks watched the complete series from the comfort of my living room.
Despite the fact that I’ve watched the entire TV series, there are still a few Kolchak-related things I’d like to do. I’ve yet to watch the two made-for-TV Kolchak movies, 1971’s “The Night Stalker” and 1973’s “The Night Strangler.” They’re currently unavailable through NetFlix.
Those movies and all things Kolchak were originally based on a novel by Jeff Rice called “The Kolchak Papers,” which I’d love to read. The book was originally published by Pocket Books, but it was re-released in 2007 by Moonstone. I’ve just got to get my hands on a copy of it.
Also, in the Fall of 2005, ABC aired a modernized remake of the original Kolchak series in a show called “Night Stalker.” It only ran for six weeks and starred Stuart Townsend as Kolchak. That show was set in Las Vegas. I’m currently rewatching that series through NetFlix, and it’s pretty good.
In the end, I really enjoyed watching the old “Kolchak” TV series. As a reporter, it was fun to watch Kolchak investigate the supernatural. The show was also very funny in parts, and more than once I found myself laughing at Kolchak’s antics. If you’ve never watched this old TV show, I highly recommend it, especially if you’re in the newspaper business.
BUCKET LIST ITEM No. 752: Survive the Mayan Apocalypse
I added this item to my bucket list several months ago as a joke. The build up to the “Mayan Apocalypse” really started several years ago and it really ramped up over the past few months as we drew closer to Dec. 21, 2012, the date that the Mayans supposedly predicted that an apocalyptic calamity would befall mankind.
Depending on what you read, the world would fall victim to a rouge planet that was on a collision course with earth or some sort of devastating planetary alignment that was going to either reverse the planet’s rotation or reverse the earth’s magnetic poles.
I thought this was hogwash all along for a number of reasons. First, the Bible says in Matthew 24:36 that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Also, the build-up to the “Mayan Apocalypse” reminded me too much of the build-up to “Y2K,” which was a laugh. Thirdly, no offense, but if the Mayans were so good at making predictions, why didn’t they see the Spanish coming?
In their defense, I should note that there are many experts who say that the Mayans never predicted that an apocalyptic event would occur on Dec. 21, 2012. They say that the date merely marked the end of a major cycle of the Mayan calendar and would have been cause for a big celebration by the Mayans.
In the end, I enjoyed scratching two more items off my bucket list. How many of you remember the old “Kolchak” TV show? What did you think about it? What are your thoughts on the Mayan Apocalypse? Let us know in the comments section below.
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