Unsolved Mysteries was a great show for its time, but even its host Robert Stack didn’t fully believe a lot of the paranormal stories that were told on the show. He would at times look to his producers and even the director and ask them just what was going on with the material he had to cover, because honestly some of it seemed a little suspect. I can remember gathering around the TV for this show when it came on, expecting to see something new and interesting that evening that might make us all a little wide-eyed and possibly leave us wondering just what was real and what was a bunch of malarkey.
The show was entertaining for the most part but there were moments during the reenactments that kind of left person shaking their head and wondering what they’d just witnessed. At some points it was like watching a bad horror or monster movie from the 50’s, but then again it wasn’t always supposed to be as serious as it seemed. The show was for the most part theater on a much more dramatic scale. It was designed to entertain people and possibly give them something to think about, not really make them believe that the supernatural or paranormal episodes were real. Some of them carried at least a little credibility since they were told by those that didn’t have a penchant for lying or making up stories, but a good deal of them were just drama for the sake of ratings.
What’s really interesting about this show is that aside from coming up with various stories to tell the public about it was also the starting point for a good number of actors that stood in as those that were reenacting the stories. It’s funny to think about but some actors such as Virginia Madsen and Matthew McConaughey had their turns on this show. You can look it up, it’s very true.
Robert Stack however, for all that he might have liked or not liked hosting the show, didn’t buy into it as much as people might have thought. He had his good days and his bad days but he didn’t take the show as a serious program most times, preferring to call it theater more than factual data. He might have had a very good point since the idea that Unsolved Mysteries was something for the serious viewer was like stating that Reality TV is all real.
The show was geared to present actual cases that had happened in the past and some that had supposedly happened but had no real basis, but it was usually done in a manner that almost made fun of the facts. It could be that this was the first spoof of modern day mysteries but it’s hard to know since many folks thought of this as hard-hitting news that was told much later, the type that highlights the glaring errors that were made in the cases the first time and were just now coming to light.
Of course the people that believe that tend to believe that Jesus will be coming back in a spaceship too.
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Your recounting of Unsolved Mysteries was unfair. While it is true that Robert Stack did not invest himself in the paranormal aspects of the show; consider that Unsolved Mysteries actually traveled around America and the world to interview witnesses and film re-enactments on location. Robert Stack himself often participated. Imagine the devotion and the talent of everyone involved. Many of those re-enactments were quite well performed by talented actors and stuntmen, or featured impressive special effects. The background music was excellent. Every show had the same effort put in to it as a short film. Please, name me a single show on television that invests that much in quality. It’s depressing to think of how much has been lost.
Unsolved Mysteries was a masterpiece. A reflection of the peak of 20th century American extravagance and economic power. The crap that passes for television now is a cheap insult to Unsolved Mysteries, and a reflection of how far we have fallen culturally and economically. Your screed minimizes that, and robs the people who made Unsolved Mysteries of the respect they deserve for their sacrifices. Below, I link you to the newly released Unsolved Mysteries “soundtrack”, which features only a few of the songs used in the series. I suggest you listen to it in its entirety, and think about what you’ve done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Z5Gcmzc88
With deep and moving resentment,
Mario Fink
Hi Mario,
Your take on the article is interesting so I thought I’d respond. There was no intention within the article to denounce anything about the show if that was what you took from it, far from it. There was indeed a lot of work put into it and the actors that got their start on the show went on to do great things. I’m not sure how the soundtrack became a part of this discussion but…okay, you’re right. It was well done. As to “what I’ve done”, I have expressed an opinion, one that you took some umbrage with obviously, but one that is still quite true since Stack did consider the show more satire than anything. While it was well-prepared and was a popular show, the ratings were earned based on entertainment value. The research done was to garner just enough credibility to make it look like something that was more than just cinematic fluff so that people might believe in the veracity of the stories. Any good director will add in just enough real intrigue to make something appealing. And again you’re right, reality TV has gone downhill in a big way, whereas Unsolved Mysteries was at least entertaining and engaging and stimulated the though process of the average viewer. But to think that most of it was real and held as much truth as it did is to dial the gullibility scale up to 11 while applying the blindfold to one’s common sense. Thanks for the post.
Tom