![]() ![]() There wouldn’t have been an X Files without Carl Kolchak, and while I thought it was a shame that Darren McGavin turned down the chance to reprise the role of Carl opposite David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in that series, the producers did find another part for him to play. Horror lovers who missed it in 1974-75 found it on The CBS Late Movie and kept tapes circulating where so many other bottom ten shows were just forgotten, and the show then influenced a new wave of supernatural conspiracy television twenty years later. Kolchak rarely made it out of the bottom ten shows on the weekly ratings reports while it was on, but it became one of the great cult shows in American TV history. Our son declared the creature to be “a scary monster, but a good monster, because it was just trying to be a good parent!” He also got a kick out of the police giving Kolchak’s convertible Mustang a great nickname: the yellow submarine. But was it effective for kids? You bet it was. The monster, sadly, moves nothing at all like an animal, but precisely like an underpaid actor wearing a hundred pound costume with a huge head. The final monster of the week is a lizard creature that lives a couple of miles underground and starts rampaging through the endless corridors of a deep storage archive company after a geologist steals some of its eggs. I wouldn’t argue that the show went out on a high note. I have the Pomegranate Press edition (for a while there, that company was behind some absolutely excellent books about teevee), and was amazed to read that it was McGavin himself who orchestrated the early ax, phoning both the heads of Universal and ABC and yelling at them to talk to each other and shut this show down. Author Mark Dawidziak – whose essential The Columbo Phile is back in print for the first time in about twenty years – wrote a book on Kolchak for a couple of publishers. They were supposed to shoot two more installments, and lore has it that a few more story ideas were kicking around for a second season. So “The Sentry” was the final episode of Kolchak. Follow Today In Nerd History on WordPress.You want to know how long these hallways are? If Darren McGavin rides that golf cart any further down that incredibly long corridor, he’s probably going to end up in London and bump into Tom Baker and Louise Jameson filming “ The Sun Makers” on the other end of it.#simonoakland #TheTwilightZone #kolchak #thenightstalker #BlacksheepSquadron #psyco #westsidestory #getsmart #KolchakTheNightStalker #august28 #birthday #TodayInNerdHistory #TheNerdHerd #nerdherd #nerd Oakland played General Thomas Moore on NBC’s Baa Baa Black Sheep, starring Robert Conrad. Oakland appeared once each on the CBS western, Dundee and the Culhane and in another syndicated crime drama series, Sheriff of Cochise, starring John Bromfield. He also appeared in the syndicated crime drama, Decoy, starring Beverly Garland. He made two guest appearances on CBS’s Perry Mason, both times as the murder victim. Oakland played the regular role of General Thomas Moore on NBC’s Black Sheep Squadron. He also appeared in West Side Story, The Sand Pebbles, Bullitt, and the television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. He was in The Twilight Zone (1961-1963, Episodes: “The Rip Van Winkle Caper” and “The Thirty-Fathom Grave” Simon Oakland’s notable performance in I Want to Live! led to his playing a long series of tough-guy types, usually in positions of authority, most notably in Psycho, in which he plays the psychiatrist who explains Norman Bates’s multiple personality disorder. He next appeared in two films released in 1958: as the character Mavrayek in The Brothers Karamazov and then in the role of Edward Montgomery in I Want to Live! The character Montgomery was a real-life journalist, who had reported on the California murder trial and 1955 execution of Barbara Graham, played by Susan Hayward in the film. In 1955 Oakland made his film debut, though uncredited, as a Indiana state trooper in The Desperate Hours. During his career, Oakland performed primarily on television, appearing in over 130 series and made-for-television movies between 19. Simon Oakland was an American actor of stage, screen, and television. ![]() Remembering Simon Oakland, born Augand passed away on August 29, 1983. ![]()
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