Did Any Other Night Owls Discover ‘Kolchak: The Night Stalker’ During Its Early ’80s Late-Night Reruns?
By the time I discovered Kolchak: The Night Stalker in about 1981, when I was 11, its original run had ended roughly seven years earlier. The creepy and influential series was canceled after only 20 episodes that aired on ABC from Friday the 13th (fitting!) of September 1974, to March 28, 1975.
But even after such a brief run, whose episodes had generally poor ratings and reviews, Kolchak lived on after its death, like so many of the monsters featured in the show, as an enduring cult favorite.
It proved particularly successful for CBS, which aired it at various times in the late ’70s and early ’80s as part of its late night block, and that’s where I, and I’m sure many other night owls, first discovered it, likely with an intro like this one:
Kolchak was one of those cool and spooky late-night titles I happened upon as a kid while staying up and watching TV when I slept over by my grandparents, who didn’t mind (or maybe didn’t even know) that my sister and I would tune in to scary shows like this, or movies like Burnt Offerings and Trilogy of Terror, before a station signed off sometime between midnight and 2am or so (these were the sort of things you could discover in the days before infomercials aired all night long).
That late-night block also helped me discover that the Kolchak series was based on two previous TV movies, which also occasionally aired in that block: The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973).
Leading all of the movies and shows was Darren McGavin with a terrific performance as investigative reporter Carl Kolchak, whose pursuit of weird stories regularly leads him into confrontations with the supernatural and evil. In The Night Stalker, he is the only one who comes to understand that a string of Las Vegas serial killings are the work of a vampire; The Night Strangler presents Kolchak as a Seattle-based reporter, who again must convince people that a series of killings are the work of a monster.
As Kolchak: The Night Stalker moved to series format, it set up Kolchak as a reporter for the Chicago branch of the Independent News Service (INS). Again, the intrepid journalist regularly comes across crimes with ties to the mysterious and otherworldly. Also coming to the show from the movies was Simon Oakland as Kolchak’s put-upon editor, Tony Vincenzo, one of many people Kolchak tends to rub the wrong way in his efforts to get a story.
Episodes of The Night Stalker were mostly bookended with narration from Kolchak, either via voiceover or a scene of him dictating the words into a recorder (his flowery descriptions makes me think Kolchak was probably a bit too over-the-top as a writer, but then, maybe that’s the sort of tabloidy vibe INS was going for).
Courtesy Everett Collection
Episodes themselves are very hit and miss, as I recognized even when watching them as a kid, while still appreciating the effort of a show that basically ended up being “monster of the week” affair. It is hard to sustain something like that effectively, especially with the smaller budget a series has versus a movie; The X-Files, which certainly must have found some inspiration from Kolchak, achieved it well, but they used their monsters sparingly and outside of its main story (and surely had a larger budget). Still, the spirit of Kolchak and its weekly sense of eerie mystery lived on with The X-Files.
Kolchak seemed to have an especially small budget even by television standards; most of the monsters looked quite fake to me then and now, but that was not much different from some of the ’50s and ’60s monster movies I also used to enjoy back then, and even today, there is still a sort of charm about it all.
I still do appreciate the creativity that the producers and writers displayed when it came to coming up with some of the antagonists Kolchak faced each week. There were standard monsters, like vampires and werewolves, that were given novel settings, and there were even efforts made to bring in beings from various mythologies and folklore, including Native American and Hindu legends.
Remind There was even a valiant but ultimately failed effort to offer an updated take on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” in the infamous “Chopper” episode, which features not a headless horseman, but a headless motorcycle rider, who is disturbed from his final resting place and begins cruising the streets, hunting down and beheading the rival biker gang members who killed him.
In his 1981 nonfiction book Danse Macabre, which explores horror in literature and popular culture, Stephen King called Kolchak‘s “Chopper” episode “one of the most tasteless programs ever done for network TV.” I wouldn’t go that far, but seeing it again now, the headless biker is one of the faker-looking creations for the show. (King also didn’t have much good to say about the show as a whole in that book, but he did praise the original Night Stalker movie on which it was based, and he’s not really wrong that the series ultimately does not live up to that.)
“Chopper” was first professional writing credit for Robert Zemeckis and writing partner Bob Gale (each had a “story by”), who would go on to earn an Oscar nomination for their Back to the Future screenplay and cowrite a number of other films. Zemeckis would also be an executive producer for the similarly themed Tales From the Crypt series that aired on HBO from 1989-96.
Another notable first came with Kolchak: It was Sopranos creator David Chase’s first regular staff position in Hollywood. He served as story editor and, though not officially credited, he helped rewrite the series’ final 12 episodes.
Among Kolchak‘s guest stars, one could often see a mix of big established names (Phil Silvers, Jim Backus, Stella Stevens, Jackie Mason and more) and people who just started becoming bigger in the ’70s, or would become big soon (Erik Estrada, William Daniels, Jamie Farr, Eric Braeden and others).
This video from MeTV breaks down a few of the Kolchak guest stars who were also regulars, had recurring roles or guest starred on M*A*S*H around that time:
Out of those featured in the video, I mostly remember seeing Larry Linville on Kolchak (also in the “Chopper” episode, and playing the same sort of jerk as he did with Frank Burns on M*A*S*H).
Speaking of MeTV, that classic television network has picked up the mantle from the old CBS Late Night Movie block and has been showing Kolchak: The Night Stalker late on Saturday nights for a while now.
It’s been a great chance for me to revisit the series, and while I admit, looking back, that it’s not terrific (even McGavin reportedly had his frustrations with the series’ direction), I appreciate what it tried to do, and for the thrills it gave me staying up late in the night to watch it long ago.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Kolchak: The Night Stalker airs regularly on MeTV Saturdays at 12am ET (late-night)
Aside from its regular airings of Kolchak, MeTV, as it has been doing during Halloween’s spooky season, will again be featuring late-night, five-episode marathons of the series in October 2024. Check out this year’s schedule below.
MeTV Kolchak: The Night Stalker Marathons October 2024 — All Times Eastern
Late-Night Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 (early morning Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024)
1am: “The Spanish Moss Murders” — A research experiment in dream deprivation conjures up a moss-covered creature straight out of New Orleans bayou mythology (the moss monster is played by guest star Richard Kiel, who would soon become famous as “Jaws” in the James Bond franchise)
2am: “The Werewolf” — Kolchak sets sail on a singles cruise to interview passengers, but discovers a bigger story when a murderous werewolf strikes during the full moon. Eric Braeden, six years prior to beginning his fame as Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless, is a guest star.
3am: “Mr. R.I.N.G.” — An escaped android programmed for survival will do anything to ensure that survival — including killing.
4am: “The Vampire” (pictured below) — An episode referencing the original Night Stalker movie, this one finds Kolchak on an interview assignment in Los Angeles, only to also end up facing off with an overlooked female victim of the 1972 film’s original vampire, Janos Skorzeny, who is now on a killing spree of her own. William Daniels is a guest star.
5am: “The Ripper” — In the episode that launched the series on Sept. 13, 1974, Kolchak believes that a black-caped, seemingly bulletproof serial killer of women is actually the original Jack the Ripper.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Late-Night Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024 (early morning Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024)
1am: “Horror in the Heights” — One of Chicago’s Jewish neighborhoods is terrorized by a flesh-eating Hindu demon called the Rakshasa, who can appear to people as someone they know and trust. Phil Silvers is among the guest stars in this one.
2am: “The Trevi Collection” — Kolchak steps into the world of high fashion when he investigates a witch who will do anything to stay on top in that industry — including putting sometimes deadly hexes on her competitors.
3am: “Chopper” — (Read more about this episode earlier in this article.) Larry Linville and Jim Backus are among the guest stars.
4am: “Primal Scream” — Defrosted ancient cell samples from the Arctic grow into a prehistoric ape-man. Jamie Farr is a guest star.
5am: “Bad Medicine” — Kolchak tries to stop a Native American shaman spirit called the Diablero who can take animal forms and has been on a killing spree (another monster of the week played by Kiel).