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Unsolved Mysteries
Unsolved Mysteries Logo
Genre	Crime, Drama, Mystery
Starring	Robert Stack
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	553 [1] (plus 7 Specials)
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC CBS
Original run	January 20, 1987 – September 20, 2002
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Unsolved Mysteries is an American TV show that was hosted and narrated by Robert Stack. It was regularly broadcast from 1987-1997 and sporadically broadcast from 1997-2002.

Somewhat like a documentary, Unsolved Mysteries, as its title indicated, was devoted primarily to the reenactments of unresolved real-life crimes or paranormal phenomena.

Very popular during its early years on the air, Unsolved Mysteries is sometimes credited as one of the first television programs to endorse the documentation of real-life crime scene investigating, which resulted in a thriving genre represented by programs like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Unsolved Mysteries featured segments filmed in documentary style, with actors portraying the victims, perpetrators and witnesses. In most cases, however, victim's family members and police officials were also featured in interview segments that were interspersed throughout the dramatization. Before an episode begins, the following message was related to the audience: "This program is about unsolved mysteries. Whenever possible, the actual family members and police officials have participated in recreating the events. What you are about to see is not a news broadcast." Each episode of Unsolved Mysteries usually featured three or four segments, each involving a different story. Stack offered voice over narration for each segment, and appeared on-screen to begin and end segments, and to offer segues.

Viewers were invited to telephone, write a letter, or, in later episodes, use the internet to contact the program if they had information that might help solve a crime. The toll free number, 1-800-876-5353 (U.S.), and website (shown below) are still active today although the show is long out of production.

Unsolved Mysteries segments, all of which involved actual events, generally fell into one of four categories:

criminal activity 

accounts of abductions, suspicious deaths, murders, robberies and other miscellaneous unsolved cases, where either the suspects were unknown or could not be located. According to the show, about 40% of these episodes resulted in the capture of a suspect or suspects.

lost loves 

accounts of individuals trying to reunite with someone from their past; often involving closed adoption or people separated by circumstances.

unexplained history 

"alternative" theories of history (among them the theories that outlaws such as Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy did not die as history recorded it, that the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov survived the 1918 regicide that killed her entire family, that the assassination of Louisiana senator Huey Long may have been an accident, and that the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr was in fact a conspiracy).

paranormal matters 

accounts of miracles, alleged UFO/alien encounters (including examination of the Roswell UFO Incident and the Phoenix UFO Incident, or scientific questions about life on Mars), ghosts, Bigfoot, Beep Club, other inexplicable phenomena.

Viewers were given updates on success stories, where criminals were brought to justice and loved ones reunited.

The show also featured, in many of its later episodes, journalist Keely Shaye Smith and television host Lu Hanessian as correspondents in the show's telecenter, where they provided information on updated stories, and actress Virginia Madsen as Robert Stack's co-host.

The show is also famous for its eerie theme song, which makes striking use of a Phrygian mode.

Robert Stack, Host

The show aired on NBC from 1987 – 1997. When it first appeared on television, Unsolved Mysteries was a smash hit. Part of this popularity might be credited to older viewers who recognized host Robert Stack as Eliot Ness from the popular 1960s television hit The Untouchables, and Stack's Unsolved Mysteries persona seemed to echo his portrayal of Ness: he was garbed in a trenchcoat and depicted wandering through foggy landscapes. Unsolved was also one of the few prime-time shows of its era to appeal to fans of the supernatural, and used effective special effects to enhance tales of the unexplained.

In 1992, NBC aired a short-lived spin-off series called Final Appeal.

By 1997, however, the show started to lose its audience, and from 1997 – 1999 it ran as The New Unsolved Mysteries on CBS. Despite the network switch, the ratings continued to fall. Unsolved Mysteries slowly faded, but in 2001, the program regained some popularity with a somewhat new audience, when it was revived on the Lifetime cable television network, where new episodes aired sporadically until 2002. Old episodes still run in syndication on several television networks (notably Lifetime) in the U.S., Canada, and Australia; but as of August 14, 2006, Unsolved Mysteries is not being aired on Lifetime. On January 1, 2007, the program moved to Lifetime Real Women, which is mostly on digital cable.

During some shows, callers give tips to the telecenter. When the show aired on NBC and CBS, the number was displayed on the bottom of the screen. When it moved to Lifetime, the number was removed and an address was put in place. Strangely enough, Lifetime kept the telecenter segments in the broadcast, despite the fact that this wouldn't make sense to a viewer who had tuned in after the show was taken off NBC and CBS.

Some viewers blamed the decline of Unsolved Mysteries on the addition of co-hosts Keely Shaye Smith and Virginia Madsen, while others blamed the show's late-era "makeover", which involved the changes to theme song and putting its telephone center on camera. Ratings also declined when the program moved from its original Wednesday evening to Friday evening beginning in the Fall 1994 season (which is less popular for television viewing). Also, many point to the inception of Fox's America's Most Wanted series as being somewhat detrimental to the popularity of Unsolved Mysteries. Despite these changes, Unsolved Mysteries still remains a favorite amongst its audiences.

Six 4-disc DVD sets have been released, each with a different theme.

• UFOs (September 7, 2004)
• Ghosts (September 14, 2004)
• Miracles (October 26, 2004)
• Psychics (January 25, 2005)
• Bizarre Murders (January 25, 2005)
• Strange Legends (February 15, 2005)

The sets were re-released on June 21, 2005 with a lower suggested retail price. On March 21, 2006, a compilation set called The Best of Unsolved Mysteries was released, which contained selected segments from each of the earlier DVD sets along with some new content. A special boxed set featuring the first six sets along with the new content from the Best of collection was also produced.

• Early in his career, Matthew McConaughey appeared as a murder victim in an Unsolved Mysteries re-enactment; this segment is collected on the "Bizarre Murders" DVD set.
• Stack appeared as himself in the film BASEketball, in a parody of his Unsolved Mysteries persona; he also appears in the dramatic film Mumford, where his role as Unsolved Mysteries host plays a small but important part in the plot.
• A parody of Unsolved Mysteries, called Mysterious Mysteries of Strange Mystery, appears in Invader Zim.
• Unsolved Mysteries was also parodied in Amazon Women on the Moon in a segment called Bullshit Or Not?

• Unsolved Mysteries official site
• Unsolved Mysteries on the Lifetime (TV network)