This aired on October 30th of 1976, so I more than likely didn't watch this when it first aired. But I damn sure caught it on multiple reruns over the years that I watched, as they aired all over early evening and late night television in the Milwaukee and Chicago market, which we had full access to back in the day.
This episode may have slapped me with a litte Mandela Effect too. I'll explain shortly.
It's a tough go for the guys in the 12th precinct, as they have to pull 24 hour shifts due to a swine flu epidemic. The Wonderful Ron Glass tries to point out the irony in that fact without insulting his fellow detectives, but he can't bring himself to do so.
Fish takes a call from a dude claiming to be on the verge of entering into a full moon phase of his lycanthropy and claiming he will start to murder people. Wojo and Harris go to pick him up. They have to lock him up due to his freaking out, and in the midst of all this Woj has to deal with his fear of needles as a City Health Office nurse is en route with vaccines. (Today that would get her murdered). Then Harris takes a liking to her, which induces much of his suave debonairness.
Our Werewolf begins to lose his proverbial shit in the cage, freaking out both Yemana and Wojo before, as is his nature, Barney shows up and gets him to calm his ass down.
All around a great episode. But here's what weirds me out.
I swear, that multiple times over years of rerun watching, there was a scene where our werewolf is making growling noises making Yemana and Fish turn toward the cage. And the werewolf is literally upside down in the cell, suspended by god-knows-what with a hideous face, drawing hordes of laughter from the studio audience or the laugh track.
It's not there now. Mandela Effect?
All that aside, this is a great performance from character acting legend, Kenneth Tigar. All over television for decades, genre fans will know him for his appearance in Phantasm II, and very recently as a priest in the Omen TV spinoff, Damien. You genuinely feel empathy for a guy suffering from a mental illness issue, but he plays it for laughs in a gentle way, until during his "transformation", he gets a little bit genuinely out there.
A great Halloween series-based episode. And for the great Kenneth Tigar, there's this:
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