In Search Of...

[Aaron Krueger]

 This 70's/early 80's series was one of the main inspirations for Blair Witch. I remember watching this show in repeats and I loved how dark and creepy it was. I am as fascinated by it as Dan and Ed were. For those of you who've seen it,what were your favorite episodes? I remember loving the episodes about Sharks,Eva Braun,Amityville and ghosts....

[Shadow]

Hey Aaron! Great topic!

As I've mentioned in another post here, I got a bootleg set of all 144 episodes for Christmas. It's been a blast rediscovering the unique style of this series.

"For the first time, our "In Search Of" cameras were allowed to document the ceremony."

Who talks like that anymore? There's just something cool about the way that's stated. And of course Leonard Nimoy couldn't be more perfect for the series.

Bits and pieces of the Easter Island, Dracula, Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, Nazi, Bermuda Triangle, and UFO episodes, along with the production values and music have stuck with me over the years. This'll be more of a list of episodes I've watched recently, or rediscovered, that I especially like or found noteworthy instead of the ones I remembered most---

The Castle of Secrets aka Coral Castle (Good stuff but I have to wonder why they made out like his sweet sixteen was this unknown mystery girl when other, more modern documentaries come right out and tell of her. Probably one of my favorite episodes of the series.)

The Hindenburg Mystery (I was surprised at the detailed plans and old newsreel footage, besides the infamous fiery explosion, that were shown.)

Jim Jones (I've always found this to be a cautionary tale. I often wonder why there isn't a decent re-mastered copy of the Powers Booth movie on DVD? Hmmm, I couldn't guess where some of Dan's Believers movie sprang from.)

The Lost Dutchman Mine (Just an interesting tale that mixes a lot of elements that I like---- Old West, lost cities of gold, Indian mythology---)

Voodoo (Not much here. Documenting of a light and a dark magic ceremony mostly. Really an odd episode.)

Anastasia (What a flat out, bold face liar that old crone was claiming to be the lost princess! DNA tests and time showed her for the fraud she was.)

Siberian Fireball (Now if they'd worked more of this than a throw-away line into the last Indy movie it might have been better----- Ah, who am I kidding?)

The Money Pit aka Captain Kidd (I didn't remember this episode at all. Fascinating! So I'm all, "Well it's been almost 30 years, surely something has been found---". One quick internet search later---- Nope.)

Lost Colony of Roanoke (A real favorite, especially for the FreakyLinks connection.)

Future Life (An interesting snapshot of what 1981 thought 2010 would be like. I expected far flung things like flying cars and of course rocket packs but it was surprisingly down to earth, considering. Most of the thoughts on computers was downright prophetic. I was curious if the city of the future in Arizona did get finished. Take a look here. It seems to be in operation today.

Overall a great series that puts a lot of it's overpadded modern day successors to shame. I recently saw a History's Mysteries about whether Hitler escaped at the end of WW2. In twice the amount of timeslot and for all their CGI recreations and forensic science, they came off less informed on the same subject than In Search Of did almost 30 years prior. Sad.

Anyone else remember the Mitch Phileggi hosted In Search Of around 2000? Their website was very similar to the FreakyLinks site. This is mainly because GMD Studios was responsible for developing both. I'll have to look to see if any of that site is archived.

~Shadow

[SpaceMonkey]

I think there was one that was "In Search Of Glenn Miller"-- a report on how musician Glenn Miller was supposedly killed in a plane crash during WWII...  they were pointing out all sorts of discrepancies with the official story.

Turns out they had it right, since about 5 or 10 years ago it was officially announced that the plane-crash was a cover story, and Miller had actually died when a bomb destroyed the whore-house he was visiting.

[Shadow]

That's a lot of the fun of the show is to use the old 20/20 hindsight to see what has been resolved over the years. Carlos the most wanted man? He's rotting in jail.

~Shadow

[Shadow]

Turns out they had it right, since about 5 or 10 years ago it was officially announced that the plane-crash was a cover story, and Miller had actually died when a bomb destroyed the whore-house he was visiting.

Not so fast there, Kolchak!

I just got around to watching the Glenn Miller episode and did my usual web search of further information. There's a lot of theories out there as to what really happened but there hasn't been any "official" disclosure of anything beyond the original reports.

Theories range from Miller's plane being hit by Allied bombs from an aborted bomber squadron mission to him being a spy who was caught, tortured, killed, and left on a brothel doorstep. The brothel story has all sorts of mutations as well. They range from him having a heart attack there to being accidentally shot by MPs. 

Here's a good link on the subject: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1905/did-band-leader-glenn-miller-die-in-a-french-brothel

Something is fishy there but nothing concrete yet.

~Shadow

[Shadow]

Here's some FANTASTIC news for the Haxan boys and any other fans of the In Search Of series!

In Search of... - DVD Plans for the Legendary '70s Series Narrated by Leonard Nimoy

Just licensed by VEI, with plans for the USA and Canada

Posted by David Lambert
2/08/2012
 
In some other news today, we mentioned that our contacts at Visual Entertainment Inc. (VEI) of Toronto were back in the office now, following "some recent travel to sign a couple of deals for other upcoming home video titles." One of these is for USA and Canadian DVD sets of the legendary '70s show starring Leonard Nimoy, In Search Of..., which he took up following his roles on the original Star Trek as "Spock," his addition to Mission: Impossible as "Paris," and his return to playing "Spock" on Star Trek: The Animated Series. Nimoy narrated the program through 146 episodes which examined the scientific, the supernatural, the historical, and the mythical. Topics included "Ancient Aviators," "The Bermuda Triangle," "Bigfoot," "Killer Bees," "Martians," "Nazi Plunder," "Amelia Earhart," "Dracula," "UFOs," "Inca Treasures" and "The Magic of Stonehenge"...and those are just examples from the first season out of six!

VEI informed me today that they have licensed the North American rights to the complete series of the program, with the only issue being that a pair of episodes have not been fully cleared from a legal standpoint for home video release. One of these episodes is "In Search of... Lee Harvey Oswald," concerning the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy: the famous Zapruder film of the actual shooting would require separate clearance, which VEI is going to look into but - as the deal for the show itself has just been completed! - cannot guarantee yet that they'll be able to affordably do. Time will tell. VEI hopes to have the title out before this year is over, but it's too early to set a solid timeline on it, of course. Even if we have to wait until next year, it's GREAT to know that this highly-wanted program is finally on its way to home video.

Want to get even MORE excited about this item? VEI is in talks with Leonard Nimoy to participate in bonus material for the DVDs, which hopefully would include "recent updates" to the topics of each installment, considering that knowledge would have grown in the past 4 decades for much of this. We're VERY excited over here, and we know you are, too! It may be quite a while before we have any, but stay tuned for updates as further developments occur.

Taken from here: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Search-DVDs-Planned/16499

It's also really great to hear of the Nimoy updates! This notion couldn't be more perfect!

When you hear things like Shout Factory responding to fans request that they put out the series by saying, "Who would be the audience for a dated, thirty year old series?" and then you get the people at VEI with the vision to not only release it but update it, that gives me hope that FreakyLinks will one day finally make it to DVD.

~Shadow

[Shadow]

While waiting for In Search Of to make it to DVD, I ran across this oddity in my Amazon recommendations---

Mysterious Monsters

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002EIJ98K/

It's an interesting look at 1976's view of paranormal investigation, primarily Big Foot with our host Peter Graves.  I told an older friend that has worked in the theater business for over 35 years about this film. He remembered how it was the biggest sell out movie in the mid '70s before Star Wars, with crowds around the block for the theater he worked at.

Well, Star Wars it ain't. In fact the studio that released it on DVD says it all---

Cheezy Flicks was created expressly for the promotion of a specific genre of movies - "Cheezy Flicks". By that, we mean terrible B movies - classic, horror, sci-fi, sword and sandal, euro-trash, you name it. They just have to meet our "cheezy" standards; typically b movies involving things like horrible acting, an abysmal story line, and the worst set props possible will qualify a film as a ?Cheezy Flick?.

Over the last thirty years, we've amassed a collection of thousands of B movies, the cheeziest flicks known to humankind. We have fun here at Cheezy Flicks - but we are very serious about producing our DVDs. Every B movie we release on this site is produced in our own state-of-the-art, digital post-production and DVD duplication facility in Portland, Oregon . B movies are stupid and strange, but not boring! We hope that you will enjoy our Cheezy Flicks as much as we do!!!

Here's a link to their site: http://cheezyflicks.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=178

Browse around, you never know what you'll find or never knew existed.

I would only recommend you pick this one up on the cheap but it is cheezy fun!

~Shadow