KOLCHAK PAPERS: Episode #10- The Energy Eater

Airdate: Dec 13, 1974 Directed by Alex Grasshoff. Written by Arthur Rowe and Rudolph Borchert

Guest Cast: William Smith, Elaine Giftos, Tom Drake, Mike Strong, Robert Yuro, Joyce Jilson, John Alvin, Robert Cornthwaite, Michael Fox, Dianne Harper

Carl realizes that Matchemonedo, a monstrous restless bear-like spirit, is eating up the structure of a new hospital built over its resting place and draining patients of their protein. He asks Native American Jim Elkhorn for help.

Despite not having much of a monster and our second dive into Native American monsters this one is pretty good owing much to William Smith as Jim Elkhorn who agrees to help “Charles” Kolchak— it’s a funny joke that he can’t get Carl’s name right.

The energy eater is an entity that objects to the building of a hospital on sacred Indian ground and it sets out to destroy the project and anyone involved with it.

HOW’S THE MONSTER? It’s an eyeball if the photo is any indication, but a monster offscreen is always a better choice than a man in a rubber suit (unless it’s Richard Kiel in a gilly suit as the Spanish Moss monster).

WHO’S THE COP WHO HATES CARL? Robert Yuro is Detective Weber, he’s a bit generic but we’ve got a bunch of hospital administrators and doctor’s to also dislike Carl to make up for it.

HOW ABOUT THE ODDBALL SIDE CHARACTERS? This one has quite a few; Elaine Giftos is good as Carl’s girl friday, we get a cameo by Fox Films resident psychic Joyce Jillson who plays a neighbor of Elkhorn’s with a muffin problem (she was also on Columbo- another connection between the two shows). Jillson often played ditsy blondes and she’s pretty much that here.

Ned Glass is a building super who helps Carl out and he’s great— we’ll see him again in the very next episode. Ned had a very long career as a character actor and his credits include WEST SIDE STORY, CHARADE and Boris Karloff’s THRILLER.

Johnny Silver is Pepe aka Morris the Street Performer who has an even longer resume than Glass, including GUYS AND DOLLS, SEINFELD, BARNEY MILLER and yup, COLUMBO. He’s a Jewish guy from the Bronx who came to get into organized crime in Chicago but didn’t make the height requirement so he took up with street fiddler’s and makes his living keeping their donations straight.

Tony Vincenzo has a side story about his addressing a journalistic conference and he’s trying out his speech before the office crew and for some reason wants Carl’s input but Carl is too focused on his story to give him anything worthwhile. Ron Updyke and Emily are part of the crew and we see several other unnamed members of the INS team— a nice bit of insight into the workings of a news office.

Vincenzo’s speech should be played for Journalistic students today, they could learn something from it.

KOLCHAK DIALOGUE:
Receptionist: Here you are, Mr. Kolchak. 

Carl Kolchak: Thank you very much. Anybody important here today? 

Receptionist: No, just a bunch of reporters.

KOLCHAK RATING - 4.0 Overall a really solid episode.

Next up; The Best Episode in the Series