Do you remember/miss Unsolved Mysteries?

[Guestx]

The year was 1987. The network? NBC. The event? The premiere of Unsolved Mysteries, a TV show that would go on to attract viewers in the tens of millions.

It started off as a series of three specials called "Missing. . . Have you seen this person?" And from this initial series came what we would know as Unsolved Mysteries, hosted by the incomparable Robert Stack. Dealing with a wide variety of speculative topics, the show covered stories ranging everywhere from true crime cases and lost loves to alternative history and the paranormal.

A quick rundown of the show's broadcast history:

*1987-1997: the show airs on NBC but canceled in 1997 due to declining ratings after being moved from Wednesday nights to Friday nights in 1994

*1997-1999: CBS picks up the show for a few limited, six-episode seasons, airing at 9 PM

*2001-2002: Lifetime picks up the show, re-airing old episodes and sporadically producing new ones, airing the show between 11 AM and 3 PM

*2008-2010: Spike picks up the show and revamps it, with a new set, new logo and new host (Dennis Farina), but exclusively uses old cases for their episodes

*2010-Present: Lifetime begins re-airing the revamped Dennis Farina episodes

Personally, I haven't seen the show in years, but last night I remembered watching it as a kid with my grandmother. Those are good memories. I fucking LOVED Unsolved Mysteries. Now I think I'm going to go try to track down as much of the series as I can and re-live that experience.

So who else here remembers Unsolved Mysteries and has some good memories of watching it back in the day?



Dat logo:

Dat Robert Stack:

Dat intro:

 

[highkicknomore]

Awesome show! Watched it religiously along with X Files and Simpsons back in the days.

 

[jmac98]

I really enjoyed this show.

The other I liked was 'Cold Case Files' which was much later.

 

[highkicknomore]

Also Top Cops or something like that. It was also on CBS.

 

[Guestx]

I remember one episode specifically which really freaked me out. It was about a ouija board. Apparently these people got this ouija board and fucked with it and then a lot of really weird shit started happening in their lives. So they destroyed the board by breaking it into pieces and disposed of it. Then the board mysteriously showed back up in the house, in the same place it was usually kept. So then they burned it and all the weird happenings stopped.

 

[jmac98]

They should have just completed the game and yelled "Jumanji".

 

[JohnnyTowers]

Robert Stack kills it every time

 

[Guestx]

I really enjoyed this show.

The other I liked was 'Cold Case Files' which was much later.

I've seen Cold Case Files. It's cool, but not as cool as Unsolved Mysteries for two reasons:

1. No Robert Stack
2. UM covered a much wider variety of cases, not just crimes

 

[Bobby Boulders]

The theme music was extremely creepy.

 

[JohnnyTowers]

Awesomely creepy show too

 

[Guestx]

Awesomely creepy show too

The theme music was extremely creepy.

Oh yeah. You were pretty much always guaranteed to be at least a little freaked out by the end.

 

[blitzk]

Awesome show, I wish they'd bring it back but at the same time not so much cuz it would very likely suck donkey D.

 

[ColonelAngus1]

I remember this one episode that freaked me out. A father killed his family by burning them to death in their station wagon and then disappeared. A few years later, one of his former co-workers was on vacation in France and was washing his hands in a restroom when he looked over at the disheveled homeless guy next to him, and the co-worker noticed that it was the guy who had disappeared. He looked him in the eye and said, "Mark?" (or whatever his name was). The homeless guy looked shocked that somebody recognized him and bolted and hadn't been seen since. The look on the actor's face that played the homeless guy freaked me out for months.

EDIT: It was Italy, not France
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Bishop

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

This was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I was waaaaay into cryptozoology, paranormal investigation, UFO and classic unsolved crime mysterious. This gave me all of that in one place. I was such a nerd.

 

[moonwolf]

unsolved mysteries was good..

sightings was good..

but the GOAT is the one that started it all..

IN SEARCH OF... hosted by..THE Leonard Nimoy.

 

[rocketskates]

Pretty good/creepy. If I'm not mistaken I think you can buy the entire thing on DVD. The creepy faux detective host was a hit too.

 

[Guestx]

Awesome show, I wish they'd bring it back but at the same time not so much cuz it would very likely suck donkey D.

That's the question, really. Apparently the revamped Dennis Farina episodes didn't have the same feel, or at least that's what I've read, I haven't seem them myself. I'd love to see them bring it back and cover new cases, but they'd have to do it in a way that retains the creepy, and I daresay mysterious, feel of the original show.

 

[Guestx]

This was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I was waaaaay into cryptozoology, paranormal investigation, UFO and classic unsolved crime mysterious. This gave me all of that in one place. I was such a nerd.

That's exactly what was so great about it, it gave you a little bit of everything. I can get into good shows about ghosts, UFOs, near-death experiences, true crime mysteries, etc and Unsolved Mysteries gave you ALL of that in a single place.

It was a one-stop-shop.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

In Search Of > Unsolved Mysteries. Neither show was very good.

 

[AshiharaFan]

The theme music was extremely creepy.

This. I was a little ass kid with a typical kid imagination when I used to watch this and I hated to watch it while home alone (and yet I did it anyway). That theme music always brought me just short of pissin' my pants.

What I used to do when I watched it while home alone was have every light on in the house and I kept all my doors locked but had certain, strategically located windows cracked open (in case I needed to escape or yell for help).