Unsolved Mysteries - Creepiest TV Show Ever?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Steve McGarrett, May 23, 2015.

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  1. Steve McGarrett

    Steve McGarrett Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    If there ever was a show that I probably shouldn't have watched before hitting the hay, it was this one. The show was on from 1987-2010 on a few different channels, including CBS and Lifetime, starting with NBC. Those NBC years (87-97) are the golden years for this program and it's mainly because of this freaking guy...

    [​IMG]
    Robert Stack. As one commenter on a YouTube video said, "He could make a corn flakes commercial sound scary". Stack hosted the show from its beginning until 2002--a year before his death at the age of 84.

    It wasn't the best gig he ever had as an actor, but he did an exceptional job at giving you sweaty palms with his deep voice and poker-faced delivery of lines as he filled you in on the details of some of the most absurd and heinous stories of the 20th century. Arguably one of the best casting choices in network television history. His sardonic on-screen character as the trench coat sporting, investigator-looking guy made me believe he was handling all of these cases himself--and by-God he won't sleep until they're solved.

    Murders. Kidnappings. Alien abductions. Ghost stories. Missing persons cases. These are just some of the lovely topics this show covered in its realistic segments--all based on actual cases. In fact, this show was so popular in the early 90s that it helped producers and law enforcement agencies crack many cases over the years. There were more than one thousand cases and it's been estimated that more than half of the episodes based on wanted fugitives have been solved.

    It was the flashing of a hotline phone number that heightened the anxiety as a viewer because you immediately thought: "****, that could happen to me".

    Mental Floss has an article titled: 27 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Unsolved Mysteries. It can be read here. Very enlightening.

    In addition to the weighty topics and crypt-keeper narration, the theme music added a whole other level of anxiety to this show. Who knew that synthesizers could be so spooky?

     
  2. Jack White

    Jack White Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I loved that show.

    Stack was great.
     
  3. Lord Summerisle

    Lord Summerisle Forum Resident

    The music still creeps me out.
     
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  4. swandown

    swandown Under Assistant West Coast Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Unsolved crimes, long-lost relatives, and supernatural mysteries -- what a great combination!
     
  5. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident

    That show you used to scare the hell out of me. I was afraid to leave the house after watching it.
     
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  6. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I preferred "In Search Of..."
     
  7. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I loved the show and Stack, but I never found it creepy.
     
  8. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
    I watched this all the time with my mom and it was creepy as ****. The settings where Stack hosted always added to the creepiness (churches, mausoleums, etc.).
     
  9. Steve McGarrett

    Steve McGarrett Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Cincinnati, Ohio

    Apparently they filmed most of his segments at a Masonic temple in Pasadena, California. The creator of the show, John Cosgrove, said in that interview with Mental Floss:


    “We liked it as a set because it evoked ghostly spirits and things like that."


    To give you an idea of the effect this show had on me, I used to watch it in the living room of my old house back in the 90s. I had a deck/patio at the back of the house and a big set of sliding glass doors with vertical blinds. Well, it was pitch black looking out those windows at night. Dark as dark gets because it was a wooded area behind my house. Needless to say, after watching an episode about some guy who watched people as they were in their house, I made it a habit to draw the blinds.
     
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  10. AxC.

    AxC. Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    I used to love watching the show, didn't find it creepy though.
     
  11. Daniel Plainview

    Daniel Plainview God's Lonely Man

    I really enjoyed it as a kid. I liked the UFO and paranormal stuff. Haven't seen it since it originally aired. I only remember there was one episode where several members of Mister Rogers Neighborhood cast appeared as extras in a re-enactment (including Chef Brockett).
     
  12. jackson123

    jackson123 Forum Resident

    This show was so creepy and so good. Ghost hunters and those other shows are pretty weak compared to UM.
     
  13. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    I used to watch this show all the time when I was a kid!
    I don't think I ever saw any of the later episodes (I had no idea it ran until 2010!)... but I probably caught most of the episodes in the late 80's and early 90's when Robert Stack was the host.
    The show seemed really spooky when I was younger, but of course when I re-watched some episodes on YouTube years later, it just seemed cheesy. The theme song is definitely still creepy, though. ;)
     
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  14. Sammy Banderas

    Sammy Banderas Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Diego, CA, USA
    Add me to the list of folks who were creeped out watching UM as a kid. The music still haunts me on dark and scary nights ... gulp!

    What scared me even more back then was the music they played whenever they has an"update" on a case. :-( My brother and I clung to each other for dear life ... lol.

    And yes, Robert Stack earned every bit of his pay for scaring the public into tracking down all those criminals!

    Awesome thread!
     
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  15. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Is it anything like Monsters and Mysteries? I think that show's hilarious. Re-enactments with people who look nothing like the actual participants who then appear in an interview and then some fruit-loops telling us what it was like to be abducted or to come face to face with a werewolf in the bayou with no alternative opinions offered. Of course, the worrying thing is that if just one of those stories is true...
     
  16. Steve McGarrett

    Steve McGarrett Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    It's a quality show. It's hard to find re-runs of it. They had DVD sets out for awhile but they're OOP. The copyright holders force YouTube channels to take episodes down all the time so I don't know. I haven't watched the show in years and it's made a lasting impression on me, and I've watched a lot of different shows/movies since. For what that's worth.

    The best thing about UM is that the segments looked very realistic. I always remember being engrossed in the plot, even when the segments had bad acting because then they'd rely on veteran Robert Stack to narrate. I found out there was a reason for that--they used documentary film-makers as directors of episodes. The old episodes are the best. The show pulled monster ratings all the way up until NBC cancelled it because they were shifting to a "younger demographic".
     
  17. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Irmo, SC
    This show really scared me as a kid, especially when the creepy droning music played over pictures. I got really scared during an episode on Amelia Earhart where they showed how she would look if alive today.
     
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