I'm ready, I'm recording. Let's do this the final episode of the cole
Jack Saves. That was not the voice of Carl cole Chack, the reporter
known as the Nightstalker, because there was no episode called the Eve of Terror,
while there was, but it was a script and we're going to talk
about that and a few other last things on the final episode here of the
coal Chack Tapes. My name is Mike White. I am joined by Chris
Stashu. As always, folks, I'm here for one last go round with
Cold Check. How so did we determine how long it's been since we started
this podcast? I think we were saying three years. It's been a long
journey, folks, And if you stuck with us this entire time, welcome.
The end is here and we are also joined by our very special guests.
The only guest who's ever been on more than two episodes of the podcast,
I believe when once well we had Mark de Woodsiac on twice, I
think, but he was a guest, he was a special guest. This
is a guest co host, and this is Richard Hadham. To think that
I beat Mark de Widsiac at anything is amazing because He's our hero, so
I'm just glad to be here. He is the font of Colchack knowledge and
Colombo. His Lumbo book is back in print. I highly recommend it to
folks. You know, Mike, if you've gotten in touch with me earlier,
I could. I could have personally done some of the cool Shack voice
and you know I'd happily do the voice over. Richard likes to dress up
as Klshak for Halloween. If you follow him on Twitter, Oh jesus,
I know, man. I wasn't going to post those pictures. Then my
wife did it. It was like revenge porn. It's a really good costume.
You guys, you have to realize the stadness that is my life.
I bought the sear Sucker suit. I tracked down that hat. It cost
you know so much, I'm embarrassed to say. And then I went so
far as to find out the exact kind of tape recorder and the exact camera
he had to make the model. I bought those. I've got the stand
smith sneakers, I got the whole thing. The living wrong with it is
it's super clean, it's not dirty. It doesn't look like guy. I
just crawled through a sewer. Here here's the thing, Richard, I am
the kind of person who appreciates attention to detail, and when I built my
Ghostbusters costume, I did the exact same thing. So I one appreciate someone
who's like I gotta get everything down perfectly, screen accurate. So regardless of
how much money you spent, that your cold Check costume is the best one
that I've seen, because I've seen a lot on the internet, and a
lot of them are just what's the term phoning it in? Well, Chris,
next year, I think we need to go trigger treating together. Can
I be the MATCHI manteau? Well, I was thinking you could wear your
your Ghostbusters out there. I think, oh, you know, you know
that's true. Had there been a voiceover for this episode, it probably would
have gone like this. Most people are familiar with that old Charles Dickens saying
beauty's only skin deep. Yet how many know the rest of the quote,
which continues but ugly ghost the bone. And then we would have had Carl's
voiceover saying Myra Deckbar, a behavioral scientist experimenting in acoustical research, was about
to find out the hard way. April fourteenth nine PM. Doctor Deckbar was
on the brink of an important discovery. Her technician was on the brink two
of death Bump. This episode really speaks to something that we've been talking about
about Cole Chack since pretty much day one, which is the sexism that is
in coal Chack. It is amazing worst. Well, it's either the worst
or the best. I'm really having a hard time figuring out if Stephen Lord
was coming at this as a woke person in nineteen seventy five, or if
he just was making fun of feminism. I think you know the answer.
You just don't want to admit it to yourself. I think you're right.
Yeah, I think it's a little of bo in a weird way. There
was a lot I was wincing at in this script, but I get the
feeling that on some level they thought, hey, we're being super like edgy
and political by taking on a women's movement by making the main character one of
those lady crusader types. But she doesn't even seem like she is one of
those lady crusader types. And I like how they specify when she goes to
a woman's group at one point in this that it is not filled with those
typical women's livers, you know, the real man hating mannish ones. You
know what I'm talking about, right, I mean nudge, Yeah, it's
it's it's a unique group of attractive feminists, the rare bird. Indeed,
it's strange to me this, Like I read April fourteenth, and I believe
the last episode that we covered. I'm not talking about real dates, but
I'm talking about Colchak dates in his world. I believe the last one we
talked about was in April twentieth and twenty first, so this would have been
shortly before that. There would have been before the century happened. But um,
this was supposed to be the episode after the century. If we're supposed
to believe everything that we read. It's an interesting one because this is a
monster that we haven't necessarily seen quite so much. It's kind of like a
werewolf. I would say, isn't it just a werewolf? But with less
cotton balls on their face? Maybe triggered by sound, which I found triggered
werewolves. Oh, triggered liberal werewolves. Oh my god, you is a
woke triggered women liberal werewolf episode, folks. Colejack was ahead of its time.
That's right, it's Doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde, isn't it Like that's
that's They even like make reference to it at the end of the episode.
They do, and they refer to it as her alter ego, like like,
I don't know if they were getting at underneath her professional demeanor. She
has so much rage against the institutionalized sexism of the world that she works in
that the only way she can access it is when her alter ego comes out.
Because they do. They kind of like the victims that she attacks are
like the stereotypes of sexism in one way or another. Right, Spare me
the women's lib crap. Okay, the first one is her lab tech who
basically tells her to go get him some coffee. And then we've got the
vivacious starlet who I'm I'm guessing that underneath the surface, she's shooting a porn
film and I'm supposed to pick up on this, correct, she's a sex
idol. So yes, well, but is it I mean, is it
or is she more like Roquel Welch or you know, Lonnie Anderson, I
thought you was a porn star. I was picturing Raquel Welch type. But
I wasn't sure, just because this was seventy five and deep throwed to come
out. So I was like, is she supposed to be more of a
Linda Lovelace. That's what I thought because of the time period. And then
she kills the guy, Craig Temple, the producer, the playboy of Sexy
Films. Yeah, he's the producer of sexy Films. And I was picturing
when I was reading it. I was picturing Dick Gaudier playing the character he
played in the Werewolf episode. That would have made sense. Yeah, I'm
like, Oh, if he wasn't that guy, he should be this guy.
It's a really interesting coincidence. So Carl is on the case of this
murder, the initial murder that happens at the scientific facility because Myra she gets
trapped in a sound booth where they are subjecting these poor test animals to these
high frequency things in order to see if they can control their behavior. But
for her, it turns her into this beast where they It's very funny how
Stephen Lord, the writer describes the transformation, and he will give certain points
in the script where he's like, Okay, this is stage one and she's
got really thick, bushy eyebrows. And now this is stage two over here.
So now we've seen stage one, so make it look like this plus
stage two. And she gets all the way up to stage four before she
ends up being dispatched. Yeah, so she ends up being transformed in this
state too. Yeah, as you said, very much a mister Hyde character
or mis hide in this case. And she even says it. She even
says miss high and then she dispatches of these people hang a lantern on it.
You know, I wonder if, and maybe I'm giving more credit than
his due, but I would if at this point in production there was an
attempt on the page to sort of say, okay, now, now every
time there's an attack, don't don't freak out, studio. Don't think that
we're we're going to need full makeup in six different scenes. This one is
just stage one. It should be fairly easy, fairly cheap, and then
we're going to build up to the full makeup that we will only highlight in
one scene. Because I mean, I've had to do things like that sometimes
in scripts, where you really have to indicate Okay, I know you're picturing
something super expensive, but this isn't right now, it's just this other thing.
So maybe they were doing that. I know that all they ever talked
about is how expensive this show was to make, and maybe that was them
trying to be responsible. I mean, it would make sense it being this
late in the show, that that's what they're going for, and they've kind
of done it in some of the other episodes where they've shown like into of
it and then finally shown it at the end. I mean, that's kind
of feels kind of stock and trade at this point for the show to be
perfectly honest, Yeah, if they even show it at all, did you
guys think that she was turning into a guinea pig monster? Like somehow there
was like a transfer of something. I think that would have been a lot
more interesting than what we got, which was just a bushy monster in a
pant suit, which I mean, I would have loved to have seen that
just for the comical nature of it. The way that they describe it in
the script, it's like it's a it's a bushy creature in a pant suit
and high heels, Like, what the fuck is going on? Like Coleshack
is just given up completely on trying to be serious apparently that gives that gives
Coleshack a lot of opportunities to go. I don't know. Maybe he's some
weird cross dressing weirdough that's aged really well, hasn't it cross dressing weirdo?
How many times they say that in the script is one time more than enough
because they say it like four times. I'm glad that they have a character.
And here that is a masher. I haven't heard that term in a
long time. I was amazing. And of course he had to be punished
because he's a masher, so he got his come uppance when the crazed female
monster killed him. I don't even know what a masher is. Basically,
it's a perv, okay, it's just a guy who's like always on the
hunt, really sleazy. So yeah, that did Gautier type character again from
the Werewolf episode. I mean, that's kind of what I figured because it
was more or less heavily implied. I kept thinking of her looking more like
that little guy from Altered States that William Hurt turns into. I get it
now. I want to go back and watch Altered States. Maybe I should
watch Altered States for the first time. It's a good one Chris, Oh
dude, oh you should, Oh for sure you should do that one on
your thing. Yeah, with that podcast thing, you do that podcast thing
that I do. What is Tom hank movie else? I'll tell you what
though, if we're talking about this at the script being in line with things
we've already read and or watched, its very close. It doesn't break the
mold. It doesn't do anything remotely interesting or different. The only thing in
my mind that it does kind of different is it actually gives col Chack like
a love interest at the end. Well okay, but but but here's the
thing. Would I would give anything if if that were like I would lean
into that because what Gwynneth, the model who lives next door to Myra,
she's just sort of like at the end, of course, I could literally
dragging her around because she's so terrified. I guess she can't control her motor
functions or something. And then at the end she's kind of sitting there.
But like, wouldn't have been cooler if like, somewhere two thirds of the
way through they cross paths and started like team up and figuring things out,
and she could have done a couple of cool things at the end and then
when they walked off at the end, it wouldn't feel just sort of like
the when when Cole Sex says I know what rings my bell? It was
just sort of like, oh boy, well that also again just really kind
of for me rings tone death and like kind of not cringe worthy, but
it has an age. Well it's like, I know what rings my bell?
It's like, oh man, nothing happens down at my feet? Oh
god, Oh yeah, that's oh Jesus, that's oh my god. That's
right. There's that line too. No, don't forget that line. How
could I oh wait, which what the nothing happens at my feet? The
porn starlet type lady. Yeah, yeah, I'll have been your feet.
Yeah, nothing happens down there. Well, you know, in the first
in the first Call Shag movie, where he actually has a girlfriend, it's
heavily implied, or maybe it's even stated out right that she's a prostitute and
you know, he's dating her, and it's not like they've got the most
evolved relationship in the world, but it's clear they have a relationship. They
like each other, he confides in her, she helps him out. You
know, there's they're on somewhat equal footing because she's kind of on the outside
because she's prostitute and he's kind of, you know that down on his luck
reporters, so they almost share the same like social strata. Like like,
if they just could have gone a little more in that direction, this could
have been really fun. Well even had it been you know, I'm trying
to remember the name of that character that was on quite a few episodes that
ended up fitting murdered. I think it might have been on the Ripper episode
where she had some agency and actually was going to be helping out Cole Chack
and don't she gets murdered. I was like, oh, well, that
would have been good had you actually had someone there to help you with this
stuff, right, yeah, Jane Plump, Yeah, that one. Yeah.
They seem to really just kind of miss the mark a couple of times
with these female characters. I mean, look, like we mentioned, it's
nineteen seventy five. That's not surprising, but they're not availing themselves to even
try. But it does make you wonder if they were, if they sort
of would have naturally just found their way to Okay, we need to give
him a character, a person who can talk to somebody that can sort of
be on his side a little bit, you know, outside of the newsroom.
I wonder if they given a second season, would have just stumbled upon
that and it would have happened, and there would have been a you know,
a female co star under the age of eighty five, And I would
like to believe that they kind of would have have to have. We should
probably talk about the role that Vincenzo and Updike, and I don't think poor
miss Emily even gets a mention in this one does show? Don't you mean
uptight? Oh that joke, Scot Oh good lord, Cole Chack, your
one note joke, over and over an episode and over again. Well,
Vincenzo does come in to tell Cole Shack to go cover Veronica Mason. Why
does you go get interested in sex, Cole Shack? You know, I
mean, didn't that pretty much his approach? Come on, call Shack even
you could get aroused by this woman. You've sex lists. What if he
implant you eunick? Yeah, and then yeah, like anyone who's been who's
over puberty or something, she gives hush slashes every male over puberty. And
that's when Cole Shack says he skipped puberty, which I mean, you know,
clearly Darren McGavin was born that way out of the womb. So so
are you saying that Cole Chack was an end cell? I mean in another
is it in this episode where he implies that he has bald women all over
town who love him? Yeah, hey, man, I got chicks all
over town pulling their hair out over me. But who cares about those ball
headed broads? Yikes, cold Jack, big yikes. Yeah, I think
it back. Miss Emily is in this one when they're talking about the nineteen
thirties and what a better time it was. I don't know exactly how they
get into that whole thing, but yeah, it's definitely there. What was
going to distinguish this episode that it had a political angle to it, but
man, it's handled so clunkily. You don't really get the sense that anyone
in the show like comes around on it, like Cole Shock doesn't go,
oh wait a second, I get it. The people who are getting killed
are people who are assholes. Oh and they're assholes because of their attitudes towards
sex roles. So maybe we need to start thinking about that. I mean,
there's no there's nothing like that at all. Like in the Rock Shasa
episode, at least he was sort of like, Hey, you know,
this is really sad because there's a monster preying on old people, and old
people are a problem that society has to deal with and no one cares about
them, and I'm the only one who cares that they're being killed. So
it was like like one step closer to like integrating whatever the point of the
episode was. Here he never quite gets there. I don't know this episode,
it just kind of peters out as well. It goes exactly how we
think that it would go, pretty much other than Myra actually getting a tape
recorder and recording herself and then that's kind of her confession. I don't think
he necessarily would have put two and two together and figured everything out unless it
had been for that confession. He goes in and he's like, Myra,
there's a man snuck into your lab that night. It's like, no,
no wrong answer, cole check, how are you so wrong? Do you
know? What really confused me is that one of her bosses, who's a
total dick to her, has a female name as a female last name.
And I was just like what is this. I'm so glad I wasn't the
other one. I was the only one. I was like, what,
kim Oh, it's a guy with the last name. I mean, just
wait until the next episode when one of the characters has the name of People's.
And if you put the character with the name of People's in your script,
you deserve to be a fucking smacked up side then, because it is
such a bizarre name choice, Like you had all these names and you went
with People's. Really, all it makes me think of is the Al Franken
vote recount where they're talking about lizard People's and can lizard People's be called an
actual person's name? And they go, well, people can have the last
name of People's. Yeah, they sure can. There you go here,
God, So I think we should talk about that episode, don't you.
There would be narration, But it's actually I guess it's it's just in script
form. It's missing pages. It looks like, but there is narration at
the beginning. And since you did this one, I'll do this one.
That was the scene in Winship County, West Virginia labor trouble in the minds,
wasn't breeding nobility on either side, tempers were worn to the breaking point.
It was ugly, but what was moving into Winship County would make the
strike seem like a wedding party. But wait, did you notice that Coleshack
looks into the camera. Are they saying that he addresses the audience? Is
just another breaking the fourth wall moments kind of what it felt like? Yeah,
well he did that at the end of which episode? Was it The
Century? Yes? I think so, yeah, because that's the one or
the Youth Killer. Well, it was whichever one where the script actually had
him start off in a mental institution. Oh that was Nightly Murders. Nightly
Murders, thank you. Yeah, that wasn't one that we watched. That
was one that we read. Oh that's right. They changed it for the
for the thing because they didn't actually have him in the Looney Ben, right
they Yeah, that wasn't the ending, which, again, bummer because Eve
of Terror looks like, you know, Citizen Kane compared to this episode.
This episode is atrocious. I don't know, I kind of enjoyed it.
I liked it too, Chris, I actually like it better than Eive of
Terror. Just don't tell me you liked it better. Than the Executioners,
because I like the Executioners a lot more than I like this one. It's
colcheck on tour. He's down in West Virginia, and it is this whole
story that's supposed to be about to strike, but then these strange people move
into town, the bunch of Hillbillies pretty much, and then some murders start
happening, and they think that it's all because of the strike. And I
kept being reminded of Home. I kept being reminded of that X Files episode,
because there's this whole thing with the family and you don't know exactly what's
going on, and one of the brothers is completely deformed. We never really
get a good look at him. Then there's the mother character, who it
feels like she's making him worse because she keeps doing the Lord's work. She'll
pray and people will almost come back from the dead or they'll be calmed or
whatever. And when she does that, then the brother acts out wherever he's
at and will break out of his cage or go on a rampage. So
it feels like there's this weird connection between the two of them that the better
she is, the worse he gets. It's almost got like a Twilight Zone
feeling to it. It struck me as interesting that Cole Shack was sort of
involved in a supernatural story. Like it wasn't just oh, there's a monster,
but there was, but there was another character who had a supernatural ability
that he witnessed, which like doesn't happen in this show, Like he doesn't
go to psychics. There is no greater supernatural sort of matrix on the night
stock or other than whatever that particular monster is. So he's interacting with his
family that's got this weird yin and yang that's always battling itself, you know,
I thought was really interesting. This reminded me a lot of the Devil's
Platform. They have touched on this satanic stuff once before. I don't think
it worked very well now compared to the last one. But to be fair,
the last one was hilarious because Tom Scarrett turned into a dog at the
end. I still wonder who ended up with that dog roaming the universe as
the Tom Scarrett dog. That, in and of itself, I would watch
that show. But I'll tell you what again, this episode, like last
one pretty much and trade what we've been seeing with Colchack. It doesn't do
anything particularly different. I mean, to your point, Richard, it maybe
maybe kind of bends the formula a little bit, but it doesn't really change
the formula. It looked like in this one, the police chief, the
sheriff of the town was actually like a reasonable person and human. Colchack seemed
to sort of get along or at least have an understanding at the beginning,
but then it devolved into the typical you know, get out of here,
get away from me, you're crazy, which is really really exhausting. Yeah,
at least this time he didn't have an ulcer that kept acting up every
single time Colchack was around. Hey, how weird was that in the last
one that felt just like the Keenan Wind character the Joe mad Dog's system,
almost identical to a point to a fault. It wasn't even original. They
were trying it was weird. They were trying to play it off as original
and just like you do know you've done this before, right, I mean,
if you're going to have this traveling cast of police captains that are always
blowing their top, you're going to get some real similar characters pretty soon,
I guess. But then they should just use the same character exactly. And
they had mad Dog at least twice, so go ahead, give him a
third one. Keena Winn could use the money. You can't just your voice
over him claimation Christmas right, he's not only the Winter Wizard. Nice,
Oh, very good, very good. It could be wrong. It could
be the Winter Warlock. I'm not sure, but he's not old Chris Kringle.
He's not the King of jingle Linge. No, that's the next podcast,
you guys. That's all the Rank and Bass shows and specials. I
think I'm like the only person on the planet who doesn't like those, So
do you and me? Richard our new show. Sorry Chris, Richard and
Mike taking on Ranking and Bass. We could get ourselves claimated. It would
bet as ranking on this guy right here. Now, it's a thing.
You have wield it into existence, and this is your fault. Now,
So I don't think we necessarily get a good look at the creature in this
one. And I want to say that at one point they describe him as
being non symmetrical, which I think is I was super terrifying if somebody isn't
symmetrical, because there's a comic book adaptation of this, We're basically the character
just looks like a hot werewolf, and I'm like, what are you doing?
Why is he a hot werewolf as opposed to this monstrous, shambling,
crazy beasts that I kept picturing as being like the thing behind the door in
the brain that wouldn't die or something, you know, something that can really
terrify you, as opposed to like, I don't know, he looked like
he had tried out for Scooby Doo, and they're like, no, no,
we need something scarier. Are all werewolves not hot? Well, some
of them are a little bit more hulking, but this guy just look like
a dashing werewolf. And again I kept thinking that he would maybe look worse
or get worse, or be bigger or something being fed by when Mama goes
out and does some good, then he ends up being worse. I just
think of holking werewolves. They have more arms and strength to hold you with.
That's what I think about. I'd bet you say that to all the
boys. I think the game we have to play is based on what we've
seen of the creatures in the first twenty We have to assume that is the
level of creature we're going to see in these, which means he won't even
look as good as a hot werewolf. He's going to look like a guy
with some He's probably going to look like the werewolf we saw in the Werewolf
episode. He's he's gonna it's gonna be a dude running and looking like a
hairy ape wolf or something. Is it not weird that they have too were
Wolf episodes back to back. You're considering Eve of Terror to be that?
I mean Eve of Terror is a werewolf esque creature esque. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it's a big, bushy creature in a pant suit. I'm
just focusing on the pants, a mint green pant suit too. I'm going
to try to defend the difference of the monsters conceptually, but again I just
said, we have to imagine it's going to be pretty much the kind of
thing we've seen. So I don't know how they would have differentiated these two
creatures, but I have to imagine the end result would have been disappointing unfortunately.
I mean, I think the real thing about this one is is this
one isn't seen in daylight as much as the other one is, and so
they would have kept this one off screen as much as possible and then shown
it to you right at the end. And that's the big difference between this
episode and Eve of Terror is that in Eve of Terror, you see the
monster a lot. In this you're seeing just glimpse is the monster in a
bush or hiding outside of a door, or busting through a door, and
then you see it right at the end, still probably obscured by darkness in
the minds. If you had five million dollars to make this episode and five
million dollars to make Eve of Terror, I think this episode would be much
much better. Like I think what I don't like about Eve of Terror is
on the page, and no amount of money is going to make me like
it any better. But but if you if you threw a ton of money
and made and went out somewhere that didn't look like Los Angeles, which is
where they filmed it, and you really made it look like some weird mining
town, and you went in the mines and you really had a good monster,
and you could actually put some production value into it, I think this
has more potential to be an interesting episode. I would agree. I want
to talk about the title real quick, because we don't necessarily understand what the
title means. Well, I still don't know what the title means. But
we don't know who Belisle is until right at the end of this thing,
when the mother says that it was Belile's way of tempting tempting me, and
then Colchak has to say Belile the devil, and then she says, yes,
Sonny was a beautiful child. Then the changes began. I was healing
the sick as my God commanded. And that's pretty much it. Like they
talk a little bit more about Belisle, but I still don't necessarily get the
get The definition forget is an offspring or the total of the offspring, especially
of a male animal. So yeah, it's like a really I wouldn't say
like obscure, but it is a very antiquated term that nobody uses anymore.
Well, thank you for finding that. Yeah, I mean it's on dictionary
dot com. I mean it's that's the weird thing. Like I'd never heard
it either, and I looked it up and I was like, I've never
even heard anyone use that until today, all right, Like why thank you
for going in the most obscure direction with the word possible that's the coolest conceptual
part of the whole episode that this demon sort of went to this woman who
already had this power that's associated with God and said, Okay, well,
I'm going to fuck with your kid, and all you have to do is
stop serving God he he he, and you can educate back. And then
she makes the decision where she says in that same little chunk of dialogue,
I had to believe that God is more powerful, you know, than the
devil. Basically, I had to believe that God was stronger than the devil.
So she's like, I'm just going to keep on doing what I'm doing
and trust that God will solve this problem with Balile. So get. By
the way, get comes from be Get, So that's where that comes from.
Oh, very Deuteronomy esque, Thanks Colchack. It's fun and educational and
knowing is half the battle. Plus they're in Appalachia, you know, it's
they're in that area where you know, it's kind of Bible, and I
guess in a strange way, the Lord does help out by sending Colchack in
order to pretty much murder the kid. Accidentally, Colchack God's child murderer.
I know he trips over colchack and fallows down a pit that's a mile long,
just like the Eve of Terror. She falls off the building after he
throws the TV antenna that's like an octopus. Somehow, for some reason,
somehow, what they call this parallel thinking, she ends up transforming back into
who she was, and Sonny he ends up transforming back into hisself. And
so, yeah, two weeks in a row, that would have been a
little much. Should we assume that they were going to be aired back to
back? I guess no, But the way that we're reading them, they
are labeled twenty one and twenty two. So I am very acused because I
didn't see a date like how I was saying. The other one takes place
April fourteenth. I don't remember there being a date in colchack Land for this
one. Coleschack Land dates never make any sense. But on the script,
yeah, Get of Bealile is January third, nineteen seventy five, and then
Eve of Terror is dated March third, nineteen seventy five, So they were
three months apart in terms of drafts, I guess. And then from what
I understand, it sounds like the Executioners, which is the last coal Chack
script that was written but not produced. Sounds like that one. Seems like
it was written a lot earlier than these two and it just kind of fell
out of favor or something. What we have to go off is barely a
script. It is like someone filling in the blanks of a script. It's
half baked, kind of like kind of like Mike's dinner right now. Three
quarters baked, folks, three quarters baked. So the intro to this episode
would have been I'm still having nightmares even though I know it's over, Fani
kaput. Luckily, I managed to keep my head while all around me were
losing theirs if you're pardon my little touch of the poetic, losing their heads
or getting hung or poisoned, one of the three. If you were in
Chicago this past August, there we go August, you know what I mean.
So yeah, them placing this at August definitely places at much more in
the first batch of shows than all the way here. At the end of
it, and Colcheck is getting hung apparently they said it was long, and
it was right. Boy, what a weird choice of words. He's getting
hung. Folks are gay. But I'll tell you what this cold check in
this episode. He's very very very very very much closer to the cold check
from the movies than the cold check of the TV show. I would tend
to agree with you on that. Yeah, I mean he's drinking. He's
I mean they mentioned in this kind of synopsis we're reading from this like defunked
Geocity's website, that he's like drinking alcohol and he has sex with like a
student who's much younger than he is. So yeah, it's like I felt,
it was very much shades of like coal check of old, which if
you've been listening to us this entire time, you will know that I missed
that cold check because the tone of the show, in my mind, always
kind of let the character down, because he could have been so much more
hard boiled than he ended up being. Yeah, and the character Beatrice that
he hangs around with the art student, she's an actual character. She actually
portends in the story, she has a voice. They seem to like each
other. It's actually a weirdly appealing relationship. Yeah. I was reminded a
little bit of the reporter that he was kind of flirting with but also tormenting
in Demon and Lace. Its almost say girl Monique Marvel Stained Dog One Love
Monique marvels r P. Monique. God, she's the best character in the
show. She was fantastic. I think it was Rosalind Winters might have been
her name. She worked as a reporter at the college where all those murders
were taking place. Because this one is an art student who knows a lot
of stuff about art. I am very impressed with her knowledge, especially when
she starts talking about very obscure Dutch painters, right, and the theory of
dynamic symmetry. And I like how she's like, that sounds good, right,
put that in the story. I mean, I like a female character
that actually has him put back on Coljack. That's true. Yeah, any
woman who can actually hold her own in a Colchack world, that's great.
And we're not just talking Gabrielle Union holding her own, because that's like formulae
holding her own. Like in this you genuinely can tell that the character of
Beatrice is like actually holding her own against Coljack. That's like ratting out Jay
Leno for being an asshole holding her own. Shocking, shocking. Jay Leno
makes off color jokes that are offensive in other news The sky is blue and
water is wet. This one, it was interesting to read this right after
having read Eve of Terror, because there's that same thing where Tony is immediately
trying to get Karl off of the story, and rather than saying go cover
this starlet who's coming to town, he gives him the choice of writing obits
art or about the ballet. And then, just like how Colcha kind of
lucked into being at the right place at the right time when it came to
Myrna being at the hotel where this starlett was, this is the same thing.
He ends up going to this art place and that's where the painting is,
and that's where the whole crux of this episode is, which for people
listening at home, there is a painting of these executioners, and they sounds
like they keep coming out of the painting and hanging, poisoning or beheading people,
and that always happens in threes, and then it sounds like this has
been happening for a long time. It's kind of one of those Victor Toomb
type things where there's a pattern in history. Jeepers. Creepers asked every twenty
three years, Boy, that's such a it's such an easy trope to go
back to. But you know what, I'm not gonna lie to you,
guys. I kind of like it, Like I kind of always give it
a pass as long as it's mildly entertaining. Well, if there was just
like slightly more of a reason, like like in this version of this draft
that ad Middly I guess is not a final draft. It's happening for no
reason. I mean, you know, God forbid, I bring up the
Nightly Murders. But at least the night was killing people who are trying to
turn his museum into a discotheque. Now there's a solid motivation these guys.
I don't know. It's interesting though, that you bring that up, because
with this episode there's the red herring of the person who had gotten the painting,
even though we find out later that it actually was like a distant relative
of infinite right. It's what he says, which is interesting because it was
kind of like the character and the Nightly Murders, where we're like, oh,
well, he probably summoned this creature or this night because he's so protective
of his museum, whereas this one, it's like, Okay, why did
you hang this painting what are you doing? But there is a connection between
the two. But he ends up being murdered, so it's not like he
had anything to do with it. He is Vego, That's what I'm not.
And I'm not a Ghostbusters too. It's like and then the ink blob
was falling off of the thing. It's like, oh my god, this
is Ghostbusters two, twenty year fifteen, sixteen years before the movie even came
out. Oh Lord, didn't seem like like in the Night We Murders,
hand Conried was upset at all those people too, So there seemed to be
an emotional like there's no it's not like the enemies of the museum curator are
the ones being killed. It's just it appears to be, at least in
this draft, for random people. And by the way, a lot of
random people. I mean it's like this is the third or fourth triple murder
this week. That's like a dozen people, and that's a lot of dead
bodies in a week. And the cops are like, oh, these aren't
connected at all. They all just happen to die the same way. Like,
my god, the cops, the cops in Colchak Universe in this episode
are the most inept that we've seen. The courageous police officers of Chicago,
and I know some of them, and they're the most incredible people. He
could solve this problem quickly. Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison. It's
true. There's a war on our streets and there's three painting globs that are
starting at all. It's pretty it's pretty whack, let's put it that way.
In the middle of the episode, there's this really weird thing I can't
figure out about some old gangster, an Italian guy who has any gun.
What the hell was that? Yes, no fucking clue, what the hell
it was about? Either that I literally figure it out, like it wasn't
that. Oh, I get it, but I don't like it. I
literally I read it four times and I'm like, I don't understand the words
that are coming out of his mouth. What is that? And in this
little synopsis that we have here, they just like gloss over it, They're
like, oh, no, whatever, Like, good job if you're the
ones relaying this information to us, because maybe you have more of this on
hand than we do. Could you fucking explain this? Because this is completely
bizarre. It's a guy with a Tommy guns just shooting at cold check,
like like literally out of nowhere, shooting at cold check. Oh, don't
forget one of my favorite things that the script has too, which is just
you know, some homophobia just thrown in there for good measure. Oh,
the swissy window dresser. I imagine he would have been played to the hilt
up Tike would look like Burt Reynolds. I mean, as much as I
like this, this is a working draft. This is not a final screenplay.
This is I mean, Richard, you're a screenwriter, so you know,
I mean, like this is pretty far from something that anyone would be
like, yeah, let's shoot this like this needs this seeds a couple more
takeovers with the fucking comb Like you got to colmb this down a lot,
like a lot, a lot, you know. I sort of I fell
down a rabbit hole and I was reading this and clicked on a few things
and came up with a tape to interview with David Chase. Have you guys
seen that one where he actually talks a little bit about working on The Night
Stalker very brief. Yeah, it's like just a real brief time, right,
Yeah, he doesn't go into a ton of detail. I mean,
I know would have wanted, you know, ten hours, but but he
does sort of say, you know, they don't all unlike the way TV
shows are written now for the most part, where everyone is in a room,
everyone is collaborating, everyone knows what's going on with everybody else's script.
It sounds like it was it was David Chase working with Michael Kosl a lot,
just sort of the two of them writing stuff, and then other people
sort of on their own doing their own thing, and then more and more
of the scripts would get handed over to David Chase to sort of like,
Okay, here this one is is fifty percent of the way there, get
it right, shooting it next, and so then he would do he would
do the next path. So I don't know if that's maybe that is what
would have been the process with this had had gone forward, probably would have
been the same thing with Get a Balisle and Eve of Terror. It probably
would have gotten to David Chase, go through and to make it whatever it
was finally going to be. I find it interesting that Max Hodge allegedly worked
on the night Stalker movie, at least according to the Font of All Knowledge,
which is the IMDb, which has to be believed because it IMDb.
You are all knowing praise me, do IMDb? It is the mother Father
bought. Yes, it would kind of make sense, especially if this was
more in line with that earlier Cole Check. I wouldn't be surprised if they
said, hey, bring this guy back and have him write an episode out
I mean the Tones track, I mean original Night Stalker does have Colchack straight
up murdering a dude, which is still my favorite thing. And by the
way, in in that parody comic, they go after that bit, which
I was so thankful for. They go after that bit of Colchack just murdering
a guy in broad daylight because Marvel, Yes, that Marvel parodied col Chack
folks so well. Not only did they parody Colchack like outright as what was
his name, Cole Stack, Cole Shaft, Cole Shaft, thank you,
but he also showed up in an episode of Tomb of Dracula, but not
as Colchack. He was another dude who looked exactly like Colchack, and I
was like, what are you doing? So that was good that they brought
him into to Medracula. So that he could hunt down Dracula in that So
are we being led to believe that the biggest revelation of the Colchack Tapes podcast
is that Colchack is part of the MCU. Oh wow? Am I wrong
to say that he could be out there? Kevin Figy call Us. I
always find it interesting how the comics would try to I mean, I know
that EC and Mad. You know that they eventually the EC turns into DC.
But it was always strange to me that Marvel was always trying to eat
their lunch a little bit, and they would have things like this OG comic
or Crazy Magazine where they were again trying to do the mad stuff. And
that's where, if memory serves, I can't remember exactly the story, but
I remember reading Crazy and they're always being a Howard the Duck story in there,
and I never understood, like, is this supposed to be funny or
is this serious? I never could put my finger on what Howard the Duck
was until the movie came out, which just solved everything for me and gave
me the full origin story. Thank goodness for that. Oh my god,
Howard the Duck is one thing, and one thing only duck erotica, inter
species erotica, my man duck titties, and Leiah Thompson wanting to have sex
with a duck. But I don't know if that's not what you're into,
I don't want to be a friend. And all seriousness, back to what
you're saying about Marvel, it is weird that they're like, really just being
kind of aggressively parody concerned, right, because DC doesn't do that. When
did all that? When was the Marvel stuff? When when did back stuff
happen? Well, the Tomb of Dracula one was nineteen seventy six, and
I can't remember when the Argue comic was you have that one up in front
of you, Chris, July fourth, seventy five. That was gonna be
my guess. So yeah, it was at seventy five. So it's the
year that Colcheck is off the air, right right, Yeah, So it
would have just been right after they went off the air, because that would
have been what March twenty second, I think might have been the last episode.
Yeah, So there you go. I mean, you've got a cold
Check comic parroting it, and it's like, oh boy, you're parenting a
show that's been canceled. Maybe they were acknowledging that the character, like it
was sort of a tribute to that character. Clearly, even at that stage,
they were like, this is a character that if we parody it,
people will know what we're doing. And oh, I mean we appreciate it.
I guess they have Vincenzo in there and everything, and Vincenzo is his
character's name is Vinagretto, right, pretty great, And then it turns out
at the end of Vincenzo is a monster the whole time, which, honestly,
if you think about it, and the fact that colcheck stuff never gets
printed and sometimes he has proof, that's kind of the only explanation that makes
sense. I'm so surprised that they didn't get well, I guess it's under
parody law because they drew Darren McGavin to look really like Darren mcgavan there,
Oh, yes, no fooling that. The first time we see a close
up of him, he looks exactly like him as the night Gawker. All
the things that we read for this episode. That was my favorite because it
was poking fun at it, but also like very much doing deep cut stuff
from the show. It's not just like, oh, let's make fun of
Batman. You know, everybody knows Batman's parents died, so that's an easy
thing to make fun of. It's like, no, but did you know
X Y Z other things about Batman that are like deep cut information to parody,
fitting in with our entire discussion this evening. You know, he goes
out and he's defeating or unmasking all of these different creatures, and he even
shoots a werewolf and then there's the human body on the ground and people are
like, hey, the night Gawker killed this guy. It's like straight to
the point, right, It's completely understands. It unders stands the premise of
the show to a t. And I loved it. I that was great.
I mean, it's like eleven pages on a PDF. It's funny.
You should if you can find it, search it out. It's worth your
five minutes if you're a fan of the show, and if you've never seen
it, it's actually really funny. I mean, you know, I know
that there's a lot of comics out now that from these indie publishers that are
like actual coal chack stories, but this is a cold check story that it's
fun and it honestly still kind of feels like a Colchack story, like a
best like the greatest hits the Colchack. Yeah, did you get a chance
to read any of those books? I didn't because I just didn't get a
chance to. That's fine, things happen, life gets away. I listened
to one and a half so far, and the one that I listened to
fully I enjoyed, though it felt like it ended before it really began.
It was this whole thing of there these seventy two guys who watch over this
cave and they are constantly chanting, and there's like a bunch of people on
the side, so like if one passes out, then he can be replaced
and they have to just keep chanting all the time. And so okay,
it's the whole thing, is what's in the cave. And then eventually coal
check. It's kind of swindled by these people in La his fellow reporters,
who they pat him on the back because he managed to accidentally, basically accidentally
unmask a serial killer. So they're like, hey, you know, come
on with us, and then he finds out that basically they need him as
a cover story because it's this really crazy thing that they're about to do,
which is to go through the jungles of Peru and try to find this guy,
try to find these guys. He's seventy two guys, and there's a
drug lord who happens upon them and take some prisoner basically and take and marches
them through the jungle. I kept thinking of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of
the Crystal Skull, especially when all these ants show up, but they're just
there to show Cole Chack the way to the cave. They get to the
cave, some bad things happened that we don't see, and Colchacks he's almost
again like Indiana Jones. He doesn't open his eyes, he's not privy to
whatever they're seeing. And then all of the people that he was with,
all of the drug lord's people there just happens to be seventy two of them.
After they mastercred the original seventy two and they all sit down and they
start chanting. It's just like, okay. So the end, it was
a really quick read or a really quick listen. It was like three hours
long. It was okay, but it really kind of felt like maybe we
should have seen what was in the cave. It sounds like this is what
happens when you're not tied to a budget right in the le right, Oh,
Like, do you know what made Cole Chack good? Because colcheck going
to the fucking jungle is something I ever even wanted. Well, that's where
all of these ancillary things seemed to be. Are individuals kind of going,
well, you know, here's what would have happened or should have happened.
And I guess they're leaning toward whatever it is they like, if they like
Indiana Jones, maybe they feel like Koleshack is like that. But but every
time I think about the show, and when I first saw it when I
was eight years old, the thing that really blew me away that I couldn't
get over was the fact that all this stuff was happening in a big city,
and somehow that was everything for me. It was just it looks like
a typical cop show, except it's acknowledging that there's monsters and ghosts and supernatural
stuff. And I lived in Los Angeles, so when I was driving around,
you know, my parents were driving the car and I was looking at
big buildings, I was like, Oh, I wonder what I wonder if
there's a monster out there, you know. It brought all that supernatural stuff,
you know, wait home and in a way that felt like the freshest,
most avant garde thing that could possibly be done with a ghost story.
And that's what appealed to me. So if you know, God forbid anyone
ever would gone to my head and I had to write another call shack story.
That is the first thing it would involve. It would be in a
city and it would be what is happening just out of sight, just you
know, underneath the buildings, just in the shadows, the alleys, what's
happening that you're not seeing. I will give the reboot of the show credit
for sticking to that formula, and I agree with you one, Richard.
And I don't know for you, Mike, what drew you to Coal Check,
because initially the entire onus of this podcast was you asking for a co
host and me going I watched a show since my dad bought it for me
on DVD when I was like fourteen, and that's what drew him to it
when he was about your age, Richard, because my dad is probably close
to your age as well, and that was what drew him to it,
and that's what drew me to it as a fan of The X Files.
I didn't even know the connection until after I watched the show. It is
that out of the corner of your eye in a city, because I grew
up in Dallas, it's the same thing. It's like, you know that
God knows what's going on underneath, but the veneer on top is you know,
a normal city. And like that's what drew me to Colcheck. And
that's why I'm saying, like the whole thing about I don't need to see
cold Check in the fucking jungle and any many more than I need to see
Colcheck in space, like fu fuck off, Like I don't need to see
it. Like that's putting the character so far in one direction that it almost
loses any of the charm of what made the show so great. And that's
why I will still contend the show should have been set in Vegas the entire
time, because Vegas was the perfect setting for coal Check because of the twenty
four hour nature of this city exactly, and that whole sin city and just
people looking the other way. I mean, yeah here, Yeah, we've
got monsters in Chicago, but we've got a mob presence in Las Vegas just
as much, if not more so. That would have been great. There
could have been stories with the underground, you know, just yeah, there
could have been so many things. And then you can easily move him to
La story, a desert story, just so many different places he could have
gone had he needed to go there. Yeah. My biggest issue with the
show was moving into Chicago, because Chicago, as interesting of a setting as
it is, it's not unique. And I think what Barney is Barney Miller
said in Chicago is it's in New York, New York, Okay, so
you know it's gonna it's There's no monsters in Barney Miller, but there is
a Vogoda, so you know. And you will definitely see what New York
of the nineteen seventies was like, as represented through humor in this one.
And I will tell you one other thing about Cole Check, because if I
had my way, if someone put a gun to my head, Richard,
my Colcheck story would be It's kind of already got written in the X Files,
where you had an older Coalchack running into Molder and Scully. That would
have been my story I wrote because being able to have those characters play off
of each other would have been amazing, and it feels like that felt like
a natural thing. And obviously Chris Carter and them did that in X File,
so you kind of get it a little bit. I mean, Aguamala
is a really bad episode unfortunately, but for me, that would have been
my story to tell with Cold Check because it's blending the things that I love
that brought me to Colcheck. What about you, Mike, what would your
Colchack story be? Colchack fights monsters the end, likes a purist because some
really good monsters. Yeah, invisible monsters. Yeah, no, invisible monsters,
thank you very much. The Mark of Kine. I mean, there
have been so many things that we've talked about that are like coal Check.
I don't know if anything really measures up to it. But again, going
back to your earlier point, it's the coal Check of those first two movies
that I really like the most because he seems desperate. He seems like he's
a man living on the edges much more luck Yeah. I mean, he's
a hard drinker, it seems like he's a womanizer, and he seems so
tame on the TV show YEP, I agree and that the TV show's tone
was always The issue that I've had is that it was too jokey. It
wasn't serious, and how can it be when he's fighting an invisible monster.
And at first I thought that that came from the relationship that he had with
the other people in the newsroom. But the more that we've talked over this
whole series of podcasts, the more I've fallen in love with Updike and Miss
Emily and of course Vincenzo, and the more I actually wanted them to be
on adventures with Carl, at least a little bit more presence than what he
ended up having with them. And I don't know how much this played into
the development of the stories. But the show was on at eight o'clock and
I was eight years old when I was watching it, and I was watching
it with my brother and my cousins, and they were all, you know,
none of them were more than twelve. And now that I'm an adult,
people my age discovered the show at that age, I think they became
aware that kids were watching the show and kids were really into it, and
I think maybe that sort of fed into all right, maybe let's not have
him drinking in bars and sleeping with hookers. Let's have him be you know,
let's have it be a family. You know, he doesn't get along
with his brother, you know, Rod Updike. Dad Vincenzo is always yelling
at those two, and Grandma Emily is you know, hanging around, and
it just it became much more kind of family friendly, tgif friendly, so
that you know, the people who are wanting it could keep watching it.
It's like one of my favorite movies, Fletch, which if you've read the
books by Jeffrey McDonald, they are like Jeffrey Rice's Cold Check. I mean,
he is a maturer character, and in the movie he's not a maturer
character. I mean, he's still smart alecky, but it's more comedic for
no one's a teenagers but kind of. And it's that same thing I mean
in the in the initial Fletch book, he fucks up like a teenager and
like sheet eyes, and that's you're never going to put that in the movie
because they want him to be a sympathetic character. But my point being is,
like you said, with Cold Check, at least we got to see
in one version of Cold Check in the medium of film or TV. At
least we got to see that version of cold Check that's closer to what Jeffrey
Rice intended, because that's always has been for me. The biggest disappointment with
my other favorite investigative journalist, Fletch is that you never see that in his
version. It's always kind of the jokey guy, which it works. But
cold Check I do like that we do get to see even just that little
two episode you know movies feature linked movies of him. But again, yeah,
like reading that executioner script really made me yearn for more of that,
which again the show just didn't provide. Well, it's been a lot of
fun talking about Cold Check for the last three years, even talking about three
years next month. Yeah, even talking about the reboot was kind of fun.
There were some good times. We did a justice. I want to
thank John Walker for doing our theme music. Always appreciated. I'm hoping that
I can maybe talk to John into scoring our next podcast if we do that,
or maybe the ranking on Bass podcast. Wow, this shit's gonna happen?
Are we just gonna? I think we should add just the three of
us yet another podcast to the ever growing stable of podcasts. Well, I'm
not doing this dreams for sale thing anymore, so might as well. Wow,
boy, that's just dissolved real quick, happening anymore. Thank you so
much, guys for being a part of this, and thank you Richard for
actually listening to us and wanting to come on board and be our co host
on many of these episodes. You guys, it was the greatest discovery.
And I'm so glad I've found you. I realized now I found you about
a year and a half into your journey, but I'm glad I could help
drag you a class the finish line. And here's the thing, folks,
do not hesitate to reach out to your favorite podcasters, because look what happens.
Look what happens. It's a success story. In reality people really win.
Make friends. You make friends, and you get to be on podcasts
and talk about some stuff. We've got to get to work on ranking on
bass. And I want to thank you so much Chris for coming on this,
ja for being brave enough to volunteer to be part of this. Again.
I've said this before and I'll say this again, and I am a
emotional guy at my core. Whether or not Richard believes me, this is
the first podcast I have ever done that has wrapped. This is it.
This is the final episode of this show. I mean we're going on and
doing Barney Miller, but the Coal Chack Tapes, for all intents and purposes,
is done here. And so I'm so thankful Mike that you, you
know, you said yes to me being your co host. I am thankful
for the opportunity and it has been a lot of fun. And if you
haven't liked my opinion, that's okay because it's just my opinion, it's not
yours. That's perfect way to Joppa the car. H m hm