Kolchak The Night Stalker - Whatever You Do, Don't Piss off Mamalois

 The Italian mob family, Sposato, killed a guy named Francois Edmonds from Haiti...big mistake. They think another gang, led by Fargas' Sweetstick Weldon, is responsible for a rash of back-break kills to the Sposato family. Kolchak, though, investigates and discovers that voodoo might be responsible, practiced by a vengeance-seeking mother, Mamalois (Paulene Myers). Francois will not stay buried, and it seems Charles Aidman's Police Captain Winwood might be a target since Kolchak deduces he's on Sposato's payroll. 

I gotta admit that this particular episode wasn't quite as good as I remembered. Kolchak in a car graveyard pouring salt in a zombie's mouth and sewing it shut to protect himself from a voodoo back break in the murky dark didn't quite give me the willies as much as giggles. The episode hasn't aged well since voodoo in the 70s and 80s often appeared quite westernized as horror film fodder, though I am the first to admit I love "Sugar Hill" and an episode of Miami Vice featuring the religious practice.

Where the episode follows the standard route of Kolchak ruffling the feathers of the police while being subject to a mortician's gambling enterprise is some fun, since Kolchak's always coughing up dollars to get information and a leg up over the rest of his press adversaries. He even ends up at a "voodoo store" with Scatman Crothers as a clerk! Fargas seems to be having a helluva good time as the pimp-costumed Sweetstick, popping up to flippantly disregard the threats of Sposato.

Second episode, The Zombie : **½ / *****