masthead facebook blog

glitch

mistakes
Bloopers©, Goofs, Mistakes

bloopers

KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER
GLITCHES
by Whatsits Galore

What is a glitch? Glitches are mistakes in movies and TV shows. They can be technical goofs, continuity errors, or anything that makes you scratch your head and say, "Huh?" This site is devoted to glitches from the original Kolchak: the Night Stalker television series, including the two pilot films.

glitch

THE MAN BEHIND THE CAMERA
KOLCHAK'S PRESS PASS
KOLCHAK SURVIVAL GUIDE
MORE GLITCHES:
LOGAN'S RUN
PLANET OF THE APES
VOYAGERS!
SPEED BUGGY
DISNEY
SCOOBY-DOO
SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES
GILLIGAN'S ISLAND
GET SMART
STAR WARS
MAN FROM ATLANTIS
WHEN THINGS WERE ROTTEN
JONNY QUEST
INVISIBLE MAN
JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS
The Night Stalker

It seems rather extreme to supress the story of a lunatic who thinks he's a vampire. The citizens of Las Vegas already know there's a serial killer at large. Would they really go berzerk knowing he thinks he's undead?

Kolchak sarcastically suggests a feature interview with the two girl victims in Heaven, only by this time, there are three girl victims.

The eyes of the vampire as seen just before his attack on Shelley Forbes make him look like he's still inside the car by the shadows falling across his face.

Carl attaches flowers to the box of chocolates he uses as a bribe, obviously to cover the brand name of Whitman's Sampler.

The unconscious nurse moves her legs aside to prevent an orderly falling on them.

Skorzeny drinks the blood of five women in a matter of a week or so, plus the blood he steals from the hospitals. At that rate, he would have to kill thousands of victims over the decades. The trail of unsolved murders leading to him would be much greater than it is.

For one brief moment, Carl is shown holding a cigarette. In The Sentry, he comments that he doesn't smoke. Maybe he means that he quit.

The police bulletin describes a green station wagon, but Skorzeny's car sure looks blue, although, admittedly, colors do tend to look different at night.

Carl is the only person in the episode to mispronounce Skorzeny's name.

Why does Carl go to the vampire's house before dawn? That's a pretty big risk to take. Sure, he wants to get there before the cops, but all he has to do is to have his stooge Mickey wait another hour before giving the police that tip-off.

Why didn't Skorzeny cover that stained glass window, like he did every other window in the house?

Once the sun strikes the vampire, wouldn't it kill him, making the stake through the heart unnecessary? If so, Carl could've saved himself an infinity of trouble with the police. Another way to show himself innocent of murder would be to remove the wooden stake before the eyes of the cops. Then the vampire would return to life and the movie would start all over.

Kolchak is warned by the police never to tell what he saw or face a murder charge; he himself confesses into his tape recorder that he will never again tell the story. Yet at the beginning of The Night Strangler, we find Carl revealing the whole thing, or trying to.

The Night Strangler

Merissa is a stage name for Ethel Parker. However, we are not told this in the narration; the episode only uses their names interchangably, leaving us to infer the truth.

Merissa frantically waves down a cab when she's being stalked by the strangler. When the cab refuses her fare, however, she's no longer afraid, standing calmly on the corner and lighting a cigarette.

What exactly does Carl want Mr. Berry to research? The reporter doesn't even know about the earlier strangulation murders when he first goes to the archives.

The sign identifies the rear entrance to the "Richard's Clinic." It should be "Richards's."

Carl calls the picture of Richard Malcolm in the newspaper a photo, when it is more properly a photocopy of a drawing.

There are several gas lamps burning in Malcolm Richards's section of Old Seattle. Surely the city gas mains are all turned off by now.

Why does Malcolm Richards allow his place to get so cobweb-infested? After all, he does live there.

Turning off the phonograph is one of the stupidest moves Carl makes in the entire series. What was he thinking?

Although Richards does discover that his formula works best when the blood is used within a few minutes of extraction, otherwise he wouldn't need multiple victims, the doctor never gives a reason for targetting only women. And only attractive women, apparently, as he passes up a chance to get a sample of Wilma Krankheimer's blood.

Kolchak is warned by the strangler to listen, not talk, and the reporter wisely agrees. Minutes later, he's back to questioning, commenting, and interrupting Malcolm's monologue. But then, that's Carl.

The Ripper

The exotic dancer's dressing room door says "Manager." Is she the manager, too?

Carl is wearing an undershirt at the police station, although he wasn't in the massage parlor.

The police would definitely take away the Ripper's cape while he's locked in his cell; they never leave a prisoner with anything he could possibly use to hang himself.

Miss Aigenweiller gives Carl directions to her apartment when he is at the far end of the walk and can't possibly hear her through the intercom.

The electrical box is on the outside of the Ripper's house, something that is never done.

Kolchak loses his camera before he falls from the landing, but has it again later.

Look very closely at the Ripper while he is being electrocuted in the pond. What's that thing on his back that looks like an electrical cable?

The Ripper's shoes are at least 70 years old, yet they look as new and natty as the rest of his clothes. Did they just make things to last back then? Or does the Ripper's aura of agelessness extend to his clothing?

The Zombie

Does Carl drive around town with the key in the lock of his trunk?

That dumpy little gravedigger manages to climb out of the hole and escape, but Kolchak can't.

Hope the zombie has exact change in order to ride the bus. Or maybe he bought a pass.

I know city-dwellers are usually pretty jaded, but doesn't anybody look twice at that mouldering corpse boarding the bus?

They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be

That lady has her Bible opened to the middle when she reads from the book of Revelation, which is found at the very end.

When Leon Van Heusen is killed, the aliens leave his electrical equipment behind.

The Vampire

Catherine Rawlins gets awfully close to that giant cross before Carl lights it on fire, and with no ill effects.

Why would a vampire choose a house so close to a giant cross, anyway?

The Vampire acts as though she can't pass through the fire. Are vampires vulnerable to fire?

The Werewolf

Kolchak says there has never been a documented case of attack by wolves on humans. Actually, there is at least one, recorded in the diaries of explorers Lewis and Clark, although it was a non-fatal attack.

Miss Emily becomes Edith in this episode.

Carl sends Paula, Mel, and Jay to their cabins to escape the Werewolf. Trouble is, Mel is staying in the same cabin as Carl, but the reporter kicks him out, anyway. No wonder the poor guy is later found dead--he had no place to go!

How does Carl learn the name Bernhard Stieglitz? He says no records of the man exist. And why go to the trouble of erasing his records when it would've been much simpler to list him as lost over the side, or even as the psychotic killer himself who supposedly fell overboard?

Firefall

Ryder claims that Felicia speaks only French, yet he talks to her in English. And the one word we hear her speak, "Ryder," doesn't sound like it's spoken with a French accent. Obviously, he's lying so Carl won't ask her any questions.

Carl says Felicia Porter was trying to improve her tan...with her shirt on?

The witness said she heard screams when Felicia was killed, but we sure don't hear any.

Why does Kolchak stop just outside the burning bedroom door? Wouldn't you run like a rabbit if the room you were lately inside just burst into flame around you? What if the ghost does the same thing in the living room?

The dog barks while his jaws are clamped shut on his leash.

Philip Rourke spontaneously combusts while driving. Does this mean he fell asleep at the wheel?

The Devil's Platform

Why doesn't Palmer, as the dog, grab the medallion from Carl as the latter exits the bar?

Susan Driscoll wears an awful lot of make-up for a hospital patient in such serious condition.

Susan Driscoll is hooked up to a heart monitor, but it doesn't beep or anything when her heart stops.

Senator Talbot is shown flipping his car over, but it was Palmer's car that actually rolled.

Tony wears an overcoat in August. Maybe it was unseasonably cold that year.

That photo Carl enlarges several times is certainly clear. It ought to get more and more grainy.

We can see the cover of the book on Carl's desk when he picks it up, but when he slams it, the cover is different.

What's up with Palmer going into the closet and vanishing? Is there a secret door? Carl doesn't even bother to look for one. Is this another of Robert Palmer's supernatural powers, to pass through walls? If so, why do it at all? To tease the reporter he knew was following him? Kolchak just walks around the corner of the basement and ends up in the same room anyway. Later, the dog goes around the same corner. Can't he go through walls in that form?

The click of the recorder is heard before the voiceover stops.

Bad Medicine

The supposedly dead police dog's ear twitches. He could be still alive, I guess, but not one policeman stops to try to aid him.

Kolchak leaves the picture of the dead dog on his desk, but he somehow has it when he visits the kennel.

At the very end of the episode, the tape recorder seems to start talking before the button is pushed.

The Spanish Moss Murders

Carl introduces the episode by calling the weather "stifling hot." Yet we see no evidence of the heat. No one appears to be in particular distress and lots of people are wearing long sleeves; in fact, both Kolchak and Michele Kelly wear coats at various times.

Michelle Kelly doesn't seem particularly frightened of the giant figure glimpsed in the shadows who growls at her not once, but twice. At the very least, it's some large, filthy tramp stalking her, yet she appears barely ruffled at all.

The connection between Paul Langois and Honore Piaget, that caused Peremalfáit to kill the chef, is never explained.

For a guy whose prints are on file with the police, Kolchak isn't very careful when he breaks the window at the botanical gardens.

What is in the sack that Carl brings into the sewer? It seems to hold something a lot more substantial than that Bayou Gum spear. And why carry the spear in a bag at all? It only makes it tougher for Carl to bring it to bear on the monster. It's not like anybody would stop a guy for carrying a stick around.

The Energy Eater

Tony mentions that Walter Greene brought Carl from Lakefront Hospital to St. Vincent's. Does that mean that Greene ignored his own advice and went into the basement after it was filled with liquid nitrogen?

Horror in the Heights

Miss Emily is helping out with the advice column? In other episodes she is the news service's regular advice columnist.

The swastikas inside the old man's apartment are horizontal, as Hindu symbols should be. Those chalked on the walls outside are incorrectly drawn at diagonals, even though Harry Starman saw the old Indian make them himself.

How can there be even a rumor about what York saw before he died? Every other rakshasa victim was dead in two minutes flat. Yet York not only survived long enough for help to arrive, but also managed to give a coherent account of the incident before perishing.

Why does the Indian think Carl is a rakshassa? Shouldn't it be someone the old gentleman trusts, instead of a total stranger?

Mr. R.I.N.G.

The first tape Carl finds in Leslie Dwyer's apartment is a cassette. Later, he sees that she has a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Well, maybe she has two machines.

When Carl picks up the cassette in the library, he's holding it upside-down, but in the close-up, it's rightside-up.

"You said he speaks languages," says Kolchak, but Dr. Dwyer said no such thing in her explanation of R.I.N.G.

Primal Scream

Look at the hospital records: only Helen Lynch's name is written in normal order, first name first.

Again, Carl leaves fingerprints all over the scene of his break-in. How does this guy stay out of jail?

"I had to have a picture of it," says Kolchak. But he does have one: the picture he stole. Maybe he means a shot of a living creature.

Carl finds Rosetta Mason's body in the tunnel. Yet he said earlier that the murder of Rosetta gave the police no new leads. Of course not, since they didn't even know she was murdered yet, only that she was missing.

Why didn't the creature eat Rosetta Mason? Her body didn't look mutilated or even damaged.

The Trevi Collection

Carl commands an impressive vocabulary, which is necessary for a journalist. However, in this episode he makes two mistakes: he confuses the words saloon and salon, and he fails to recognize haute couture, a French phrase heard often enough in English, even though he used the very words to Tony the day before.

The author whose book Carl purchases says that the judges in Salem burned witches. This is untrue; those women were hanged. Guess Griselda was right and he's nothing but a fraud.

Episode after episode, Kolchak endures attacks by all manner of monsters, yet his hat always remains firmly in place. In this episode it finally falls off--as he's getting into his car.

Carl puts buttons and bear claws in his mojo bag, although they were not mentioned in Griselda's note. Maybe he read that in the book he bought.

Madame Trevi says that the doll is somewhere in her office, by which she obviously means her entire salon, since it was hidden in Melody's dressing table.

How will Carl ever get the dye out of that jacket? Or does he own several identical suits?

And what are vats of dye doing next to the models' dressing tables anyway?

When Carl lets go of Madelaine's hands, she continues to hold them behind her back, as if they were still pinned there.

Chopper

Although Neal the morgue attendant says that Joe Morton has loads of oil in his hair, it doesn't look that way when we see him killed.

The last name on the list of corpse's from the cemetary is out of alphabetical order.

Studs gets so angry he punches a box stored in the warehouse, which shows us clearly that the prop boxes are empty.

Actually, four Jokers died at the hand of Sword Man Baker, although Carl says there were three. He must not be counting Turk Pellatier's death nineteen years earlier.

Demon in Lace

The police radio at the INS office suddenly comes to life with a call after about ten minutes of silence. But would it really stay quiet for so long without any calls? In Chicago?

Carl has battled many monsters over the course of the series, but now, for the first time, we see him beat up a human adversary, that pushover C. Evan Spate.

Legacy of Terror

Rita Torres, played by Mina Vasquez, appears in the credits, although she is nowhere in the episode. Was there a scene filmed, with Pepe's mother, perhaps, that was edited out of the final footage?

The Knightly Murders

Carl mistakenly says K.A.L.C. instead of C.A.L.C., the Canadian-American Leisure Corporation.

The Black Cross Knight is awfully slow-moving. Brewster hocking probably could've run right past him and escaped if he'd been a little more resourceful.

Rausche quotes Hamlet incorrectly.

Even though Mattencoeur is a ghost, he apparently can't pass through walls or materialize at will; he must walk all over the city to reach his victims. And nobody ever sees him, not even when he takes the elevator or stairs up to Minerva Musso's 39th-floor apartment. And just how does he get in and out of the museum? Does he have his own key?

Okay, this time Kolchak must wind up in prison. He trashes a lot of valuable displays in the Hydecker Museum, and his fingerprints are everywhere. Hopefully, the new owners, Hocking's heirs, won't bother to press charges.

What is the knight doing upstairs in the museum that night Carl comes for him? Looking for the men's room?

The Youth Killer

If just one of those corpses had ID, the whole story would be changed. Luckily for Helen, each one died wearing exercise togs.

Carl gets the ring stuck on his finger, but isn't wearing it later on in William Cubby's apartment.

Kolchak reads the scroll in Cynthia Tibbs's apartment as though he's never seen one before, although he previously found and read the exact same thing at William Cubby's place.

Hecate is portrayed in various myths as the goddess of the wilderness, of childbirth, or of the moon, among other things, but never of youth.

If Kaz is Greek, he probably should use the Greek name "Artemis" instead of the Roman "Diana."

Hecate isn't much of a goddess; she needs Carl to tell her about the glass eye.

Although Helen is rain-soaked and screaming, she turns into a stone statue with a perfect coif and composed features.

The Sentry

Kolchak tells Chapman he wants to find what the monster is looking for and bring it topside. Wouldn't it make more sense to give it to the creature so it will end its rampage? Thankfully, that's exactly what Carl does when the time comes. Though, why he originally said he would do otherwise is a mystery.

Why does Kolchak take the nest but leave one egg? I mean, he has the egg in his hand, but puts it down on the table, picks up the nest, and exits.

kolchak advertise

advertise

advertise

CARL KOLCHAK'S PRESS PASS

kolchak

carl carl carl kolchak

MEET CARL KOLCHAK
THE MAN BEHIND THE CAMERA

In The Youth Killer, Kolchak tells Bella the matchmaker that he has no hobbies because he works all the time. Truly, we see Carl continually at work on one story or another and know almost nothing about his personal life. Here are the very few items we learn about Carl Kolchak, the man behind the camera.

kolchak

They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be
Staunch Cubs fan

The Werewolf
He can dance
Father is not living

The Spanish Moss Murders
Fears dentists more than anything

Horror in the Heights
Trusts only Miss Emily
Mentions attending college

Mr. R.I.N.G.
Likes fishing
Found four years of high school boring

The Trevi Collection
Mentions mother

Chopper
Used to swallow goldfish

Demon in Lace
Has been present in two wars

Legacy of Terror
Listens to Duke Ellington

The Knightly Murders
Mentions grandmother
Descended from Slavs

The Youth Killer
Never married
No hobbies

All characters & images © Universal and are used for fan purposes only
All other content © 2008-2024 Whatsits Galore

email

Links:
The Wacky Races
Skits & Bits
A Christmas Quiz
Disney Pages
Dragonmaster Game Variants
The Incredible Jack McGee
Star Trek Poster Gallery
Six Flavors of Quark
Greatest American Hero Fed-Speak
Sherlock Holmes
Brisco County, Jr. & The Orb
The Ballad of Gilligan's Trial
The Kolchak Survival Guide
Tarzan's Dictionary
Collectibles For Sale
Testimonials
The Spooks of Scooby-Doo
Get Smart Catchphrases
Dwarf Identification Guide
World's Longest Yard Sale
Live Forever
Panini Stickers
Site Map
Home Base