Kolchak and childhood terrors

I was scared of a lot of stuff when I was a kid.

Dogs, for example. I was attacked by a big one when I was a toddler in NYC, and ever after that they made me nervous. It didn’t help that my dad was afraid of them, too. I didn’t really get over it until adulthood, when I spent enough time around friends’ friendly dogs to get used to them.

My fascination with werewolves grew at least in part from this childhood fear. I recall being obsessed with shape-shifters, even as a pre-teen. The Wolf Man was my favorite entry in the Universal classic movie monsters set. I read my copy of Nancy Garden’s book on the subject over and over until it literally fell apart. And poring through Brian Frost’s Book of the Werewolf during a long family car trip introduced me to “The Were-Wolf” by Clemence Housman. The experience left me with the same pre-adolescent male fear-fascination with female sexuality that other boys picked up from Harvest Home.

But even before that magic moment, I tried my youthful hand at penning my own werewolf stories. One in particular I remember started off with a woman who left her apartment window open one night. And after she fell asleep, a werewolf snuck in and mauled her to death. I think some other stuff was supposed to happen after that, but that was as far as I got.

I was also terrified of killer bees. The national killer bee obsession reached its high point right around the time I was at my juvenile ripest for jumping onto the freaked-out bandwagon. Based solely on their name, I figured that just one sting from just one bee and I’d be an instant goner. I’d been stung by the ordinary kind often enough to know that as soon as the suckers made it north from Mexico that they’d get me for sure. Imagine my relief (and secret disappointment) when I did a little additional reading and found out that despite their name the bugs were really just extra-cranky versions of regular bees.

But before I found out the boring truth, I managed to start at least one killer bee story. It was about a woman who left her apartment window open one night. And after she fell asleep, a swarm of killer bees flew in and stung her to death. I think some other stuff was supposed to happen after that, but that was as far as I got.

What really frightened me was the Manson Family. I got bored during a sleep-over, ran across a copy of Helter Skelter, and scared the crap out of myself just leafing through the photos in the center. For the longest time I was absolutely convinced that Charlie and the girls were going to show up late one night and decorate my bedroom with my guts. I had no idea how they would get out of prison or why they would come to Kansas, but I was sure their arrival was imminent. As stupid as that sounds now, at least it’s a little less embarrassing than werewolves or killer bees.

I never wrote a story about a woman who left a window open thus accidentally admitting murderous hippies.

One thing that all this kiddie anxiety had in common was the intrusion of the monster into my house. And that particular element I think I can trace to one source: an October 4, 1974, broadcast of an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The episode was called “The Vampire,” and it scared me more than Charles Manson turning into a werewolf and chasing me around with a hive full of killer bees. The part that freaked me out the worst was the scene where a woman comes home to her apartment to find a vampire waiting for her. She must have left the window open.

Oddly, that’s the only episode I remember seeing. It must have freaked me out so badly that my mom made me quit watching it. I also remember seeing part of the second Kolchak movie, The Night Strangler, at another sleep-over years later. It was good, but it didn’t have the same effect on me.

That was it for me and the intrepid Mr. Kolchak. I never saw another one until the complete collection came out on DVD. Another 8sails staffer bought the set, and we slowly made our way through them two or three episodes at a time.

But rather than continue on with my history, let me back-track and start again with the history of the show itself.

Carl Kolchak first saw the light of day in a made-for-TV movie called The Night Stalker, and the movie set the tone for all that was to follow. Our hero – ably played by Darren McGavin – is a reporter working on a story about a serial killer who turns out to be a vampire. The movie first aired on ABC on January 11, 1972. It was a surprise hit, drawing more than half of all people watching TV that cold Tuesday evening. Its 33.2 rating was the highest ever earned by a TV movie at the time.

Naturally such a ratings monster almost instantly produced a follow-up. ABC hired Richard Matheson – who wrote the first one based on an unpublished novel by Jeff Rice – to write another one.

The product, which aired the next year, was The Night Strangler. The action moves from San Francisco to Seattle, allowing the use of old, buried buildings under the 20th century city. The villain drains blood from his victims, but he isn’t precisely a vampire. Rather, he’s an alchemist who needs the blood to maintain eternal youth. Otherwise number two takes few risks with the formula that made number one such a hit.

Then, after some negotiations with McGavin and resolution of a lawsuit filed by Rice, Kolchak became part of the network’s fall schedule in 1974.

Episodes tended to share a number of common elements, though not all were present each time around. Most shows began with innocent people minding their own business who are struck down without warning or provocation by some supernatural horror or another. Kolchak learns about the killing, but his initial efforts to find out what’s going on are thwarted by a bureaucrat, usually in the form of an obnoxious police officer. His boss, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), blusters and orders him off the story, but Kolchak perseveres.

From there things varied a bit more. Our hero tended to acquire a helper character (almost always a woman or someone from a culture other than mainstream white America). He also tended to get caught by the bad guy and/or the cop at least once per show thanks to his own bungling (tape recorder malfunctions and the like).

Eventually the monster learns that Kolchak is trying to track it down, which gets the reporter added to the beast’s list of targets (assuming it has one). In the end we get a showdown, often set in a location so dark that its hard to tell what’s going on. And of course Kolchak prevails, frequently with the aid of a jim-jam supplied by the helper.

In addition to the repeated plot elements, the series also featured several recurring characters. Vincenzo was Kolchak’s editor in both of the pre-series movies, and in the series he’s the Chicago bureau chief of the Independent News Service and once again Kolchak’s boss. He also has co-workers: intern Monique Marmelstein (Carol Ann Susi), dear old Miss Emily Cowles (Ruth McDevitt), and flamboyant (in ’74 we didn’t use the word “gay”) rival reporter Ron Updyke (Jack Grinnage).

Outside the office staff, only an actor or two get a second chance at screen time. Keenan Wynn does two tours of duty as Captain “Mad Dog” Siska, and Richard Kiel’s physical stature puts him inside more than one monster suit. But plenty of 70’s era staple character actors join the supporting cast.

To be sure, the show has its flaws. They’ve got an oh-so-70s feel to them (i.e. the film is grainy and the clothes are outlandish). The writing is stiff in spots. When McGavin decided to stop playing the role, one of his complaints was that the show had become a “monster of the week” experience, and he had a point. Compared to the technical quality and cynical sophistication of much 21st century horror, most of The Night Stalker is corny stuff.

Corny as it is, however, this show passes the test of time. If nothing else, it tends to be better than most of what’s on TV now, not that that’s much of an honor. Some episodes are better than others, but even the bad ones have some entertainment value. If “tell me a story” is the true beginning of quality video, this more than satisfies.

They don’t pack the thrill that I got from “The Vampire” when I was eight years old. There’s no Manson Family, no killer bees, and only one episode with a werewolf. Even so, they all took me back to a time in my life when I could still draw a solid scare from something on TV. The set was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, at least as long as all my windows were latched shut.