K is for : Kolchak, The Night Stalker!!

After The Twilight Zone and before The X-Files, there was a little show about an investigative reporter who stumbled upon all sorts of stories that just couldn't be explained.

It was called Kolchak: The Night Stalker and it was one of the few shows, that scared the bejeebus out of me, that I would watch regularly.

The plot revolved around Carl Kolchak (played by Darrin McGavin), a reporter for the Independent News Service (INS) and how he would manage, each week, to find strange and "unexplainable" cases to report....much to the gastric distress of his editor, Tony Vincenzo. (played by character actor Simon Oakland)

The show started out as books in the early 70s, then made for t.v. movies before being turned into an ongoing series.

Carl Kolchak was on of those "pain in the @$$" reporters....too tenacious for his own good, but never backing down from a good story. Always wearing a crumpled blue suit, a porkpie hat (which I think was even out of style for the early 70s) and never without his trusty tape recorder and camera, Kolchak tracked down everything from vampires, to mummies, to zombies, to evil spirits. Usually it was only Kolchak and, maybe, one other person who ever saw the true nature of the supernatural threat and, almost always, any hard evidence Kolchak collected was destroyed by some freak accident. It was as if the universe wanted him and only him to know what was going on.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker is said to be one of Chris Carter's strongest influences in coming up with The X-Files and that he wanted McGavin to reprise his role as Carl Kolchak on that show, as well. McGavin didn't want to come back as the intrepid INS reporter, but he did appear as retired FBI agent, Arthur Dales...described as the "father" of the X-Files division.

In 2005 ABC tried to reboot the series with Stuart Townsend and Gabrielle Union, but it never took off. I watched a few of those episodes and could see why.

Even though it only lasted about twenty episodes, Kolchak: The Night Stalker remains an influential show as well as an awesome "cult classic".

Honorable Mentions: Knight Rider, Kojak, and Kung Fu

Tune in Monday for love.....exciting and new......