The unconvincing gorilla suit was a staple of stage and screen dating back to at least the late 19th Century. Need an exotic menace for an old dark house? Someone to send a slapstick ensemble into a state of comedic terror? A zany bit of zest for a struggling sitcom? Just throw someone with the […]

(excerpts from Van Nielsen’s Field Notes on Prime-Time Draculas) Rollin Handula: Master of disguise, strong affinity towards the moon. Daughter also a vampire of minor reknown. Won an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of another elderly ailing Dracula. Swanula: Do not be fooled by the diminutive stature!!! Has made multiple demonic pacts with terrifying entities […]

Though poor Chuck Cunningham was offered up as a sacrifice to appease the vengeful spirit, its baleful curse would pursue the gang across several more seasons, inflicting the most odious manner of manifestations — first Spike, then Chachi, and finally the grim herald of the sitcom End Times himself under the guise of “Roger Phillips.” […]

Man, this Special Old Ones Cut of Summer School is really weird. Recommended listening:

I’ve been filling out my October smörgåsbord of spooky fare with selected episodes of Night Gallery, thus triggering my umpteenth reassessment of that three-season and oh-so-early-1970s attempt to recapture some of that ol’ Twilight Zone magic. Was it a supernatural counterpart to Love American Style‘s mix of celebrity guest stars and cornball black-out gags? Was […]

It’s like my grandpa used to say: “The only thing worse than a haunted muscle car is a haunted racist muscle car.” Multiple problematic aspects aside, this episode (“The Ghost of General Lee,” 10/29/1979) creeped the heck out of me as a kid, even though it was clearly established as a hoax out of the […]

In Search of… has to be near the top of my personal list of formative TV viewing experiences. The syndicated series covered all manner of topics under the expansive rubric of “strange phenomena,” which was quite the cultural obsession during the uncertainty and turbulent 1970s. The legend of Dracula one week, Amelia Earhart the next, […]

All right, my fellow fiends, it’s time to descend into a realm of truly tragic horror… …otherwise known as “mid-1970s primetime television.” “Vampire,” a second season episode of Starsky & Hutch originally aired on October 30, 1976, is part of the long if not proud tradition of tossing some modestly macabre plot into the mix […]