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it occurs to me that while i watched a hell of a lot of television when i was a child, i don't remember much of it. i can remember the premises of most of what i watched, and occasionally some episode plots, but generally it's all one big blur of cartoons and huge television families.

there is one particular show that stands out in my memory, though it wasn't aimed at children: Unsolved Mysteries. for those not familiar with the show, unsolved mysteries re-enacted criminal cases that were, well, unsolved--kidnappings, murders, missing people, and the like. they also covered more questionable material like ufo abductions and ghost hauntings, but the bulk of their material revolved around unsolved murders and missing person cases, at least as far as i remember.

i'm not sure of my exact age when i saw mysteries for the first time, though i know i was pretty young -- approximately five or six. now, i wasn't supposed to see Unsolved Mysteries; i was on vacation with my cousins in rhode island, and all of us children had been put to bed by the time the show aired. the thing was, i was staying in the loft of the house we were in, which wasn't seperate from the common area, just above it. while it wasn't possible to see the tv from the loft, you could easily hear whatever was on.

Unsolved Mysteries absolutely terrified me the first time i saw (ok, heard) it. mysteries had a rather memorable theme song that, in retrospect, was probably the most frightening thing about the whole endeavor, since the crime re-enactments were uniformly terrible. it was creepy enough so that even to this day, no matter where i am, if i catch the show on re-runs on Lifetime or whatever network might still be airing the show (IS any network airing the show at this point? possibly not) -- i get chills, even in broad daylight.

i can't remember the details of the cases covered in that first episode i encountered; i only remember one story, and that only in a general sense. iirc, there was a girl that had been kidnapped from her home, and i think the evidence that the police had found had led them to believe that the girl might have been murdered, though they weren't sure. naturally, the perpetrator had yet to be found. i don't remember where the crime occured, but i do remember staying awake all night, convinced that whoever kidnapped the girl would come to our house next.

seriously, that show messed me up for years. i had an incredibly hard time adjusting to sleeping without a nightlight, and it took me years to be able to sleep next to a window without freaking out about someone breaking in and chopping me to bits. even now, i can't sleep next to a window comfortably unless it has opaque curtains i can cover it with.

despite all this fear Unsolved Mysteries fostered in me, i couldn't stop watching. granted, my parents weren't too keen on me seeing it; i'm not sure if they knew i had been listening to them watch when they thought i was asleep. in any case, i ended up watching (or more precisely, hearing) the show more often than anyone my age should have, and spent many nights in my bed hiding under blankets and flinching at every unexpected creak i heard. (incidentally we had a pretty old house, so there was a lot of creaking.)

so there you have it: a mildly-creepy (but to a 5-year-old-mind, utterly frightening), semi-realistic crime show is what i remember most from childhood. given how difficult it became for me to sleep soundly for years afterwards, it probably would have been better if i had never seen it, but i've a strange fondness for the show still. there is something thrilling about being scared witless, after all.

(good god i did not expect to go on for so long. lol)

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