This Friday on "Kolchak: TNS" ep 02 "The Zombie"

The Zombie

Kolchak runs away. He flees in terror, this man who has faced the undead, shouting "Get back! Get back!" and probably wishing he had a crucifix to wave. He is being chased down the stairs by one Monique Marmelstein, fledgling journalist. Well, you can't blame him, she is rather a handful.

Monique is one of those young creatures in need of a compliment and constant encouragement. One word taken the wrong way might get you a steady drone of her insecurity and her life story. She's got a direction, at least, she wants to be a photo-journalist. No talent for it, mind you, but she's dead set and eager to prove herself. She's also armed with an uncle who owns a news service. INS, to be precise. So Uncle Abe makes it editor Tony Vincenzo's problem to deal with. Tony passes her along to Kolchak. As compensation, Carl gets a potential mob war to cover - if Kolchak can keep Monique from running straight into a crossfire of bullets with her camera. Talk about getting the shot.

There's a conflict brewing between factions of Chicago's mafia. It began with one François Edmonds, a numbers runner suspected by the Syndicate of skimming their money. It got him a hail of bullets. Soon after, it's the Syndicate boys being taken out. Kolchak uses his connections to learn a few things the cops aren't telling: the gangsters are having their spines crushed like chalk, for one thing. Another is that the body of François Edmonds keeps showing up among the corpses, with yet more bullets in him and chicken blood in his ears. Funny guy, that François. He gets killed a lot in this episode. They keep burying him.

The Zombie gives us a microcosm of the society Kolchak moves in. Everything's a power play. The black mafia under "Sweetstick" Weldon chafes at having to report to the higher-echelon Italian mobsters under Benjamin Sposato. People like Vincenzo have to bow to "nessitism" (nepotism) from their publishers, and police captains like Leo Winwood will easily resort to illegal pressure tactics to get their way. If you live at street level, what are you supposed to do? For Kolchak, it's a tape recoder and the power of the press (or in the case of Vincenzo and Monique, duck and cover). If you're a gravedigger, you register a complaint with your union. For the mother of François, it's Vodoun. "The law" has nothing to do with the laws of society, you don't have to be a criminal to be subject to them.


We get a feel for what it's like to navigate this world. Kolchak has developed a hardened detachment that comes through in his dime-novel prose. That attitude finds easy camaraderie with people like undertaker Gordie "The Ghoul" and his gallows sensibilities, or shady street informer "The Monk"... it isn't just the mob that's got a support network, Carl's got one too. Vincenzo's is the voice of frustration and abandoned dignity. Various mafia figures and Captain Winwood (who may or may not himself be compromised under mob influence) are the selfish, uncaring engines that run everything, and to whom all bow. Houngan and occult-shop proprietor Uncle Filemon feigns a blithe smile for all and tries to stay the hell out of trouble's way. He's a nice guy who just wants to keep his head down. Mamalois Edmonds is the citizen who won't bow to anyone, nor compromise. She wants what she wants. Along comes Monique, the babe in the woods. She can be draining and exasperating, but it's hard not to feel a little sympathy for her ultimately. She's in over her head and might easily get herself killed by naivety alone.


That's heady stuff for a breezy show. K:TNS is a breezy show, and The Zombie gives us a tour through a variety of city locales without loitering. The story flies past with wit and baited breath, and a plot that unfolds neatly. I had no reservations or objections to either Kolchak's conclusions or his methods of obtaining clues. When the big scare setpiece comes, it's a doozy.

McGavin again has the audience trying to keep pace with his inspired, caffeinated performance bouncing off Oakland and the guest cast. As Monique, Carol Ann Susi is a little grating but a lot more winning in her sincerity and unstoppable drive to succeed. She flits about the newsroom in near silence ready to pounce on any opportunity to assert herself with Vincenzo, her head popping up in the office windows even while the focus of a scene is Kolchak arguing with Winwood. She's pretty damn hilarious, actually, and it's a good thing she's kept to a minimum in the episode because she could overwhelm it. Looking at her IMDb page, I now realize I've seen a few of her gigs without realizing it was the same actress. Some of you Sages saw her in Journeyman. (In a casting conundrum she could have played Jane Plumm, as she would fit that role physically and has plenty of gumption. Funny, then, and a relief that there no potshots at Monique's weight. Vincenzo calls her "little Monique".)

Charles Aidman is solidly gruff as Winwood. I recognize a number of the other actors from their film and televisison work from the era: Scatman Crothers of The Shining and Chico & the Man plays Uncle Filemon; Joseph Sirola as Sposato, seen in a ton of TV shows in one-off gigs; Ditto Val Bisoglio as Sposato's right-hand man Victor Friese - I especially associate him with Barney Miller and M*A*S*H, a guy with a friendly face and personality who could be charmingly peeved; Likewise again with John Fiedler, who was all over television as well as being the voice of Piglet - I'll always think of him as a lawyer in an episode of Star Trek (oddly enough, one that featured Jack the Ripper as an inhuman entity that repeated the same crimes throughout the centuries); Sweetstick is played by Antonio Fargas, famous as Huggy Bear on Starsky and Hutch - another hustler.

I also really enjoyed the direction. It isn't just manic Monique, but the director's sense of the humanity of the moment: the frantic quick decisions in the midst of flying bullets that has Kolchak take desperate measures in locking Monique in the trunk of his car, or Kolchak's creeping nerves at night in an auto junkyard - a virtual graveyard where the corpses are just left piled in the open to rust. My favorite might be when Sposato tries to blame Friese for the consequences of his own choices and Friese objects. Kolchak stands in François' empty grave staring up at them, and though he knows they may murder him at any moment he can't help but be delighted by them - stands there watching with a huge amazed smile! How deft that the director turns that moment, that laugh, into sheer horror as the missing corpse of François Edmonds walks into view just then. Kolchak's grin is mirrored in a blink-and-you-miss-it shot of Sposato's terrified grimace.

Again I have to point out that the film stock has darkened over the years to the point of hindrance. Having found some of Edmond's victims, Kolchak realizes that the zombie is leaving the scene by bus. Setting aside the willing obliviousness of a driver and fellow passengers in letting a corpse board (and the question of how a corpse buys a ticket*) , the scene still presents a problem. How did Kolchak know Edmonds was on the bus? I think we're supposed to be able to see him boarding but I've studied those shots and can't see him. Honestly, I can hardly see anything but the bus and a bench. it's one of those moments you have to replay to figure out what new idea has taken Kolchak's attention and what he's up to. ( I love that music cue as he grabs the bus).

Finally, a word about culture. I like this episode a lot, but it treads close to tastelessness in its stereotyping. We have the usual pinstriped Italian mafia trope, and we have Sweetstick arriving in what Dirty Harry would call a pimpmobile. We've also got Voodoo as a boogeyman. I'm not genial to the former two as types, and bristle at the usual horror assumption that if it ain't Christian, it can't be good news. Watch carefully, though, I think the Zombie balances the portrait. Not all of the Syndicate men are Italian, to begin with, but more fundamentally the mafia itself is shown to be a conglomeration of organizations that transcend race and cultural heritage - we could have Italians gengsters, or black. In Zombie we have both, mutually proving neither to be a rule. Kolchak names a number of honest, hard-working Italian-Americans who have nothing to do with organized crime. Vincenzo is one of them

On zombies, meanwhile...I assume everyone knows going in that the episode title is pointing us toward traditional zombies and not Romerotypes? Legends of zombies are pretty sketchy as practitioners of African magicks are notoriously secretive about their craft. Hollywood can't help that, but they can be careful about not demonizing other religions for the sake of entertainment. Winwood responds to Kolchak's mad theories about Voodoo with an insistence on respecting the faiths of the Haitian community. Uncle Filemon is friendly and welcoming as a representative of both the faith and his community. Mamalois Edmonds stands in for the abuse of magick that the faith acknowledges (both the light and the dark of witchcraft), Filemon must represent the light as both a decent man and Houngan. Anyway, notice that Edmonds has a cross on her wall - Vodoun is a mix of Catholicism and older African faiths. The Other isn't so other.

10 Pulitzer-winning examples of photojournalism taken from the inside of a closed car trunk. They shoot horses, don't they? Please don't kill the Mustang.

Asides:
Before most of us had VCRs, CBS (the American network, Columbia Broadcasting System) bought the series for airing in their Friday Latenight slot, 11:30 to 12:35. One highly memorable Friday night, "The Zombie" was followed by the American television debut of Don Coscarelli's "Phantasm" (1979). I had badly wanted to see that film, it called to me...but I was too young to see an R-rated movie at the cinema without an adult, and no one would take me. So that night after The Night Stalker was my first time seeing it. I was the only one awake in the house and I sat with the entirety of a large living room at my back...all the lights turned out...and the front door next to me, occasionally giving a sudden creak or snap as the house settled for the night. One of the finest, funnest viewing experiences I've ever been blessed with. I love that movie to bits, Phantasm.

I've seldom seen zombies as spry as François when he's got someone trying to sew salt into his face.

If you like horror films, I highly recommend Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow. It is that rare Voodoo/zombie flick that treats the culture of Haiti and the Vodoun faith with respect instead of demonizing them as 'other', and even rarer for being a horror film that bothers to be astute about the politics involved. It's a smart movie with a touching, genuine love story, affecting cast, and some lush visuals of sensual beauty and dreamlike horror. One of my favorite movies, period, and arguably Craven's best film.

*Mamalois Edmonds was as canny as she was cagey. My bet about the bus is that she anticipated the problem and bought her boy an all-month pass.

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Well, it's interesting we should be watching and talking about an episode named "The Zombie" on a Friday the 13th. Quite appropriate.

So, here's our zombie episode. Well, when I read the title I immediately thought, of course, that Kolchak would be taking a page out of the Walking Dead playbook. After all, it's zombies we're talking about. You see, I'm a millennial at heart.

It turns out this show was made before all the zombie movies craze that we had in the following decades. OK, Night of the Living Dead was made in 1968, but it turns out there's this little and interesting piece of information about the word "zombie" and Night of the Living Dead.

The word "zombie" is never used. The most common euphemism used to describe the living dead is "those things," mostly by Cooper. Other characters refer to the creatures as "ghouls." However, the film codified many tropes about zombies that have been used in many movies since, including zombies eating human flesh and that zombies can only be killed by shooting them in the head.
- IMDB trivia

So, this may explain why Kolchak still refers to zombies as the dead coming to life with the use of some Haitian voodoo spell. More recently, I remember the theme of the Haitian voudou theme being used in the TV show Constantine, but then there were no longer references to zombies.

Anyway, finding out we were dealing with a voodoo zombie is exactly part of the fun, though I understand that the producers have to find a way to attract viewers, so naming an episode "The Zombie" does the job of attracting viewers, but I wish I had learned about that by following the story, say, organically. What was worse for me is that when trying to find a synopsis to post, I found this at IMDB: "An old black woman uses voodoo to resurrect her dead son to kill those who murdered him, and to kill those like Kolchak who would interfere," which is filled with spoilers. I'm glad I didn't include it.

This episode has its non-PC moments from the old times. For instance, it shows how Black people were portrayed in many shows of the 1970s: as exotic creatures or gangsters. And then there's also the Monique character. She's a woman, and she's overweight, unattractive, she has an unpleasant attitude, she's not very bright (she walks into the line of fire blindly trying to take pictures; she doesn't know how to say "nepotism"), inconvenient, and is there just because her uncle is the news service owner.

Oh, "good times", when this kind of role could be given to a woman. Kidding, these were not very good times for women, but I feel that now, because of the outcry that would follow a character being depicted from what would be considered a sexist perspective, this kind of role would certainly be played by a white man. But hey, at least she had the sense of using a professional camera, unlike Kolchak, who still relies on his Instamatic to take pictures of moving subjects. At night. With no flash. Really, in other words, pictures of blurs most likely.

I still think Kolchak needs a nerd, a researcher on all things supernatural to advise him, because the way he finds some random book that explains how to deal with the supernatural menace of the week is not convincing. He just happens to have access to a book that conveniently explains what he needs to know, like filling the zombie's mouth with salt and sewing its lips. It's not like Kolchak could conveniently find all the answers on the Internet, like Sam Winchester does in Supernatural. Oh, the Internet has made this kind of plot B.S. so much easier for the writers: the nerd character just happens to find the website that solves the case, or a hacker happens to be good enough to hack into a secure site and that gives the hero an edge.

Anyway, in the end, Kolchak's camera broke or something and all of a sudden he lost everything, all evidence. Oh, do they mean, Kolchak was still using the same roll of film from the beginning of the episode? That wouldn't be wise. But that could be chalked up to the fact INS would probably limit the amount of film the reporters could use, so Kolchak would have to make sure he used a roll of film to take as many photographs as possible.

Still, I think Kolchak was building a case. He had a lot of research involved, he had interviews, he had cassette recordings. I don't think his story would be totally discarded just because his camera broke. But the fact is, we've had two cases, and in both of them the story was buried. When is Kolchak going to get anything published. Also, after the voice over narration telling us that, Kolchak starts typing something. But typing what? He has no more story to type.

An OK episode, nothing really special. This one gets 7 special bus seats reserved for seniors, disabled people, pregnant women... and zombies.

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I have to say upfront that this episode was so poorly lit and dark that I could barely make out what was happening for a good 1/3 of the time. It got to a point where I just threw my hands up and guessed what was going on by the vocals. Was this semi intentional because of low budgets?? Or was this show just poorly preserved and transferred that it looks so terrible? I know shows would intentionally film in poor lighting because the special effects and makeup on shows were often poor or mediocre. Keeping things dark is a way to cover up low operating costs. But in other parts of the episode it seems like they spend a lot of money staging huge scenes like the cop shoot out. I get the feeling that this show just sat in the film can for 20 years before anybody did anything to it.

Ok this one revolves around two separate groups of gangsters and a wacky Haitian Voodoo priestess. The woman basically resurrects her grandson so he can enact revenge on the people that killed him. The Zombie grandson goes on a rampage and breaks his victim's back and then is killed himself only to be resurrected with chicken blood and spells. It initially starts out that an Italian Mob has been targeted by the Grandson so they naturally want to know who's behind the hit. A black mob lead by Antonio Fargas (Huggy Bear on Starskey & Hutch) gets intertwined with the Italian mob looking for the person who's responsible for the killings. Meanwhile Kolchak is right in the middle of everything trying to get a salacious story for his newspaper.

There's also a subplot involving a police captain that may be on the take. There's also a small comedic sub-plot about the publisher's overweight clueless niece from Brooklyn.

Kolchak does some "Voodoo Research" and figures out a way to finish off the Zombie and the final confrontation at an old junk yard.

Random Thoughts:

*At first I thought the episode was taking place in NYC or New Jersey because of the NYC actors in it. I mean those gangsters were stereotypical NYC gangsters played by NY/NJ actors.

*To me there were way too many subplots and characters going on in this episode. I think it would have better if they edited out a lot of the storylines. I thought the parts with the police captain wasn't needed. And the part with the overweight nepotistic relative felt shoe horned into this episode.

*This series feels very cartoonish to me or like a comic book. And then other times it seems very violent & sexual and adult themed.

*Kolchak also seems to pull things out of thin air like some of the characters on UFO. He finds some kind of Voodoo book and suddenly knows how to destroy a zombie.

*Some of it felt very cheesy, especially with the makeup on the dead grandson.

*This episode was co-written by David Chase (Sopranos). I imagine he wrote all the NY/NJ gangster stuff.

Parts of it were pretty good, I give it a 6/10.

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According to Brimfin this was supposed to be the first episode of The Night Stalker. I usually don’t like it when the ‘powers that be’ interfere with the episode order of a series. I think they damaged both American Gothic and Brimstone by mixing up the order so much the stories did not make sense. However, this time I have to say good call. I thought The Ripper did a better job all around. Better story and better introduction to the characters.
Did not like:
I really don’t get the Monique character. Was she going to be the Updyke character and before filming of the episode ended they knew it was not working? I could see the benefit of such a character but it was not working. Was Kolchak supposed to be acting fatherly or protecting of her? Well he did not. Was she supposed to be an incompetent thorn in his side? This also was not working for me. A funny sidekick. Nope. I did not see her bring anything to the story or to the other characters. Kolchak actually showed his softer side more to Updyke than to Monique. I think the idea of a young female cub reporter could have worked but I thought this character added nothing.

Once again this episode did little things that I liked:
• The phone conversation between Kolchak and Vincenzo when Kolchak was in the morgue was done with a hint of genius. Right up there with ‘Who’s on First’.
• The garage:
With all the ‘improvements’ but “None of its original quant charm had been lost”.
No way better to describe Kolchak than a smart aleck (well there is but not in PG forum)
“That’s right ‘licoricestick’”, “sweetstick”, “whatever”.
“What’s a Kolchak.”
• Having the old gravedigger telling them they cannot be there and then in the next scene he is digging with Kolchak. Once again we are able to fill in the blanks.
• How they have Vincenzo come into the captain’s office. So often this kind of scene is overdone but he truly looks just bed hair ruffled.
• I liked the captain office scene so much I watched it three times. Once again letting the audience fill what had happened before Vincenzo had entered.
• Kolchak certainly shows his blundering side in this episode and it could have almost gone into camp but I think McGavin somehow plays it just right.

I liked this episode. We see more of what is going on in the city. The warring gangs and some police corruption just to add to the supernatural aspects. I think having ‘The Monk’ was a little too cute for its own good. They were trying to go for a dark mood but I think it came off silly. Just have a regular informant. We already have Zombies we don’t need a “The Monk”.

Torn between a 7 or an 8. Some things did not work but there was so much to like. So
8 out of 10

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madp

It turns out this show was made before all the zombie movies craze that we had in the following decades.

Launched with the double-punch of Dawn of the Dead and Luci Fulci's Zombie 2, both in '78 and '79. Zombies had already largely shed the Voodoo angle long before, simply meaning the dead re-animated. There're a lot of movie from B through Z grades involving mad scientists, often on remote islands.

We're in a frustrating era where when somebody says "zombie", I have to ask whether they mean traditional zombies or the current Romero knockoffs - except that I always think "Ya mean 'real' zombies or Romerotypes?" I've been on a losing campaign to make the term 'Romerotype' popular for no better reason than that it sounds like 'daguerreotype' and thus sounds cool to me. I could be Kolchak's obnoxious nerdboy. I do like the Romero types...

madp and JohnQ both

This episode has its non-PC moments from the old times.

On many levels! You and John covered that well, including some bits that glided right over because I accept it as the ethos of the era. That almost lowered the score for me, when I had been initially thinking 7 or 8. Instead, in writing it up I talked myself higher for the way the theme of power struck me as a strong thread throughout.

He just happens to have access to a book that conveniently explains what he needs to know, like filling the zombie's mouth with salt and sewing its lips.

This I give a pass to mostly, because the first episode did show how Kolchak raided the library for everything they had on the subject. The first movie did as well, and the second confirmed that he does exhaustive research, but maybe those examples should be discounted - it's what's in the series that counts. It would get tiresome to see him poring over a stack of books every week, with Kolchak muttering to himself, "Well, that one was dodgy, this one is clear bunk, but that first book seems well-researched". Having it established once, I take it as a given now. OTOH, maybe it's necessary after all to combat the impression of him being a fanciful loon.

How does he keep from getting fired, anyway, when nothing he writes gets published?  Okay, it's indicated by dialog that his forte is hard crime. Stories involving violence or death, so most of his assignments must be down-to-earth and thus publishable. We only see the odd ones that a take a left turn toward the bizarre.

Geez, I sound defensive as a fan! Sorry, the show's not above criticism. What is it with him and that camera? So he "works alone". Fine, Carl, get the right camera for the job and learn how to use it!

JohnQ on the visual quality being too dark:

Was this semi intentional because of low budgets?? Or was this show just poorly preserved and transferred that it looks so terrible? I know shows would intentionally film in poor lighting because the special effects and makeup on shows were often poor or mediocre. Keeping things dark is a way to cover up low operating costs.

Both. I hate to say anything about what's coming even if it isn't a spoiler, but that latter point? Yeah. Er, occasionally a BIG yeah. Part of it is that the style of the storytelling is the idea that 'less is more', the less you see of the menace the more menacing it becomes in your imagination. To see it clearly diminishes...even more so when the costume or makeup are unconvincing.

K:TNS was back on the air again in under half a decade and has stayed that way on an off ever since. It would be a long time though before digital restorations were possible. They could have done it by now, but Universal is notoriously cheap in such matters.

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Over the last few years I've become a bit "Zombied" out due to over saturation, with the Walking Dead TV show the Zombie that broke the gangsters back (see what I did there). So I was a little bit wary of an episode called Zombie.
Turns out it was great.

The episode has a fast pace to it. Lots of locations, nuggets of information discovered along the way and a new character added pretty much each time.
I agree with others that this makes a better second episode that it's intended first place. It's a while into the episode before they elude to Kolchak's past handling of cases, which occurs early in the Ripper and much less time is spent in the newsroom fleshing out those characters.

I am enjoying the humour so far in the series. The writing is very witty and there are plenty of little sight gags. I especially enjoyed Captain Windwood's response to Kolchak "You gonna break my arms Captain", "Would I want to do a think like that to you Kolchak, just ask yourself."
I also laughed at Kolchak reeling in his tie when he is watching the voodoo ceremony.

The sidekick for this episode was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one side Monique is trying hard and just wants to be given a chance. I liked how she shifted round the office so she could best eavesdrop. But she runs into danger and is generally very whinny and that accent gave me flashbacks to Janice from Friends or the Nanny. So I am glad she was a one episode deal.

I did struggle as has been mentioned by the lighting. This was the NIGHT stalker, peering into the gloom trying to guess what was happening. I am glad they lingered on the coffin for so long as at first I was sure if there was a body or not. It was nice of the Zombie to turn up at that point to dispel any doubt.

The Zombie itself as Simian_Jack and madp have mentioned is not the Romero archetype. It was used sparingly and was unstoppable and brutal.
The final way of disposing of it was not one I have heard of. But after some quick research (read the main page on Wiki) pouring salt in the mouth is a method. This led to the very tense scene of Kolchak having to crawl up beside it.

Overall a great second episode. Looking forward to more.
8 gloomy scenes out of 10.

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After comparing this episode to last week’s, I think ABC made a grave error back in 1974. Jack the Ripper may have sounded more intriguing to them, but from an execution standpoint this zombie episode beats that one hands down in just about every area.

This week we see more of Carl the reporter, not just at a press conference but interviewing people and trying to record a secret meeting between mobsters. He even takes some photographs that actually come out. Plus some of the crooked characters remember insulting comments he made about them in the newspapers. This lets us know that Kolchak’s articles on crime are memorable and helps explain how he manages to make a living even if his monster stories never get printed.

The interplay between Kolchak and Vincenzo is funnier this week. First, Tony tries to flatter Carl into mentoring the relative of some company bigwig. (“The last time you called me a ‘co-worker’ I spent three days rewriting obituaries” complains Carl.) Later, there’s a funny phone scene where Vincenzo is trying to talk to Kolchak while Carl is talking to a medical examiner. It’s not quite Abbott and Costello, but it’s still pretty good. The attempt to turn Monique from a paper pusher to a crime reporter predictably fails, but has a clever twist at the end. I like Carl’s “take charge” manner in which he cons Monique into hiding in the trunk and then just calmly slams the lid down and runs back to the case. Later, when she freezes up he just shoves her into a cab, tosses money to the driver and says, “Brooklyn.”

Once again, Kolchak’s reporter commentary is a highlight. From his opening salvo about “ruthless men who fear nothing” followed by “This should debunk that myth.” Then there’s the mob guy who’s “incompetent even by mob standards” with the only smart thing he ever did being marrying the boss’s sister. But my favorite line regards the long-standing, tempestuous relationship between him and Captain Woodward. “It was like the Crusades – without the chivalry.” I think that was one of my all-time favorite Kolchak one-liners.

And such colorful characters. We have Antonio “Huggy Bear” Fargas as Sweetstick, leader of a Black mob, and Joe Sirola as Ben Sposato, leader of an Italian mob (with Val Bisoglio as his lieutenant, Victor Friese.) I loved when the two mobs meet, and Sposato calls Sweetstick “Licorice Stick” to annoy him. I also loved how Friese says that Sposato has a memory like a steel trap, never forgets anything. But later, when Ben realizes he was the one who approved the hit on the zombie who’s now chasing them down, it’s Friese who gives him every detail of the incident and Sposato who’s saying, “I don’t remember any of that.”

There’s also “Gordy the Ghoul” the M.E. who takes bribes by having a lottery of the birthdays of his “clients”. Mama Lois, the innocent-looking voodoo priestess who puts a hit on Kolchak just for asking a few questions, The monk – an informant who never took the vow of poverty. The caretaker, who complains about Kolchak digging up a grave because it violates union rules and then has to help him dig. And of course, Monique, the ever-annoying beneficiary of nepotism, who can’t even pronounce the word nepotism. The only slightly weak spot is Charles Aidman. I might have gone with someone else since he usually plays timider or nicer characters and it’s a little strange to see him doing the tough guy bit. But since he’s supposed to be a respected cop who turns out to be on the take, I guess maybe he does fit the bill after all.

My temptation was to award this episode a 10. I couldn’t think of any real reason not to. Someone in our group said that a 10 had to be a perfectly done episode with something extra. I tend to feel that way too. And for me, the something extra was all those wonderful characters – and I forgot to mention Scatman Crothers, also great in just a one-scene role. So I award this episode 9 junkyard hubcaps, cleverly used by Carl to put the candles in to help snuff out the zombie, plus one “2 dollar hat” bringing this episode to a 10.

Random thoughts: Madp wondered last week if all the victims on future shows would be female. Fortunately not. All the victims this week were male, and a female was the brains behind the murders.

Poor Kolchak had to pay, pay, and pay in this episode. Money for a lucky number he never got. Dollars to the monk. Cash to Gordy the Ghoul. And how much money did he toss to that cab driver to take Monique to Brooklyn? No amount of money he was carrying on him would have covered that, of course; but then this is a show that features zombies and 150 year old serial killers.

Loved how Carl tried to tell people that those mean columns were written by one of his brothers – Sidney Kolchak or Marshall Kolchak. I wonder if those names were a shout-out to somebody connected with the show.

Fun facts: Again, this episode aired in the family viewing hour when it was repeated. The scenes with the zombie’s face in close-up in the car were removed, almost making it look like Carl was performing a pantomime where you saw what he was doing but nothing else. They didn’t even show the creature opening his eyes so you just saw Carl react in terror and run without knowing why.

But there is one other thing I distinctly remember from the show’s original 10PM airing. When the zombie was lifting up Sposato to kill him, just after he was pleading for help, they showed a silhouette of his body being held up by the zombie and then the shadow of his body being bent upwards into a slight upside down “V”, breaking his spine. Then they showed him toss it back down. When they repeated it, this sequence was cut out. But surprisingly, it isn’t even on the DVD version. You see him yelling, and then you see the zombie tossing him aside. Did they just find the scene a little too grotesque and remove it, or do I have a faulty memory? Seems hard to believe I imagined something that vividly. I still get chills just thinking about it. Anybody else here remember that? I should ask this separately on the message board as well.

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by Simian_Jack » Likewise again with John Fiedler, who was all over television as well as being the voice of Piglet - I'll always think of him as a lawyer in an episode of Star Trek (oddly enough, one that featured Jack the Ripper as an inhuman entity that repeated the same crimes throughout the centuries)

Yes, that's the character I associate this actor to, especially now with the Jack the Ripper factor.

by JohnQ1127 » It's a Brooklyn accent. | Joseph Sirola (Ben Sposato) had a Northern New Jersey accent. He was from Carteret N.J. | Val Bisoglio (Victor Friese) has a New York Accent. | Simon Oakland (Vincenzo) has a New York Accent. | Antonio Vargas (Sweetstick) is from NYC. | For a moment I thought this episode was taken place in NYC or New Jersey.

Oh, thank you very much. This is rather confusing to me. I know Southern California rather well, but I've never been to New York, State or City. First of all, we can't mistake Brooklyn with Brookline... And I wasn't sure how many Brooklyns there were... Perhaps one would be a New York State county, and the other a New York City borough, but apparently they are one and the same. But now I see Brooklyn is in Kings County. But Queens is both a county and a borough. Perhaps... I have also learned that Brooklyn is a former city in Alameda County, California, now annexed to Oakland, California. But that has NOTHING TO DO with SIMON OAKLAND. And New Jersey is an entirely different state, though I wouldn't be surprised if there were a New Jersey county or borough in New York also.

Whatever...

by Cloister56 » The sidekick for this episode was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one side Monique is trying hard and just wants to be given a chance. I liked how she shifted round the office so she could best eavesdrop. But she runs into danger and is generally very whinny and that accent gave me flashbacks to Janice from Friends or the Nanny. So I am glad she was a one episode deal.

OK, I'm glad I got that right. It seems a think Brooklyn of Jersey accent is supposed to indicate the person is uneducated, unsophisticated. "Janice" was no refined lady. "The Nanny" was a good example of an ordinary person relating with a rich, sophisticated English family. I also remember a little show that ran very quickly and was cancelled after a few episodes, "Made in Jersey," but I just remember it because it starred Janet Montgomery. It was about a lawyer who had a thick Jersey accent. Her accent and family background showed us that she was just working class, more of a blue collar, trying to bring some ordinary common sense to a fancy Manhattan law firm. Ironically, Montgomery's original accent is closer to that of Kate Middleton.

by JohnQ1127 » I also don't understand who works at this news service. Where was Updike and where's Ms. Emily??? They only have a 3 person staff + the editor? They don't have any kind of photographer?? All they have is Kolchak's 110 camera.

It seems the budget allows just so many actors, extras included. The 110 camera situation is beyond ridiculous.

How about the police captain incredulously asking "You brought a FEMALE here"??? He was acting like Kolchak brought a zoo animal with him or something.

The zoo animal comparison is great.

You're right about the exotic creature part. I seem to remember that almost every show in the 1970's would have at least 1 episode with some black person who was into voodoo or was an African witch doctor. Or else the token black person was a clairvoyant or a fortune teller or a medium and had the ability to communicate with the dead. Or else the token black person was a con-artist pretending to be a clairvoyant or a fortune teller.

Yes, I remember old comics as well. Exotic dark-skinned characters like mediums or fake mediums were a common plot device.

When I was in the US, I heard some people had an image of Brazil being "exotic." Perhaps we are in some parts, but the region where I live seems pretty ordinary.

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