BAB Firsts: Weird Wednesdays: "In Search Of"

This post was originally published on July 22 2009

Welcome to a regular feature of Bronze Age Babies: Weird Wednesdays, where we look back fondly on books, TV shows, films, and reportedly real incidents connected with the paranormal. Growing up in the 1970s, I was acutely aware of a whole lot of weirdness out there: it seemed like we got reports of UFO sightings almost weekly, and in my home state of California, sightings of the mysterious Bigfoot were also frequent. Supposed psychics like Uri Geller were making appearances on all the talk shows of the day, and books like “Chariots of the Gods” brought pseudo-scientific theories to mass audiences. Television capitalized on the publics' interest with many shows that featured paranormal subject matter.

One of the most interesting TV shows to deal with the paranormal was “In Search Of”, a documentary series hosted by Leonard Nimoy (yes, Star Trek's Mr. Spock). The series premiered in 1976 and covered a wide variety of subjects: UFOs, witchcraft, lost civilizations, Bigfoot – you name it, there was an episode about it! With Nimoy as our guide, we viewers were whisked off into an unseen and sometimes frightening world. What made it all the more terrifying was the creepy music played on the show! This was not a show to be watched when one was alone in the house!

In general, the subject matter was handled in a serious manner. Eyewitnesses and experts were interviewed for each episode. The show sometimes used “recreations” of incidents, which often added some punch, and frequently left this young viewer having trouble falling asleep at night!

This show was one of my first introductions to the wacky world of the paranormal. The variety of topics covered had me going back to the library week after week, trying to dig up any information I could on things like Atlantis, Jack the Ripper, or Easter Island. “In Search Of” managed to both entertain and encourage further thought. Plus, it was flat out scary! For a preteen, it was a pretty good way to start my Saturday night – with the Love Boat and Fantasy Island to follow!

Unfortunately, the show is not currently available on DVD. To get your ISO fix, you’ll have to head over to YouTube.

Weird Wednesdays: Uri Geller, Super-Hero!

Karen: Mentalists, psychics, mind readers - whatever you call them, they've been around for a very long time. But in the 70s one particular psychic took the world by storm. He was a young Israeli named Uri Geller, and his most famous feat was bending spoons, keys, any sort of small metal object, apparently through the use of his mind alone.

Geller originally claimed that he gained his power through a childhood contact with extraterrestrials; in later years, as charges of fraud mounted, Geller has back-pedaled on many of his claims, now billing himself not as a psychic but a "mystifier". Critic James Randi (aka The Amazing Randi) has been an implacable foe of Geller's for years now, claiming that all of his supposed psychic feats are simple magician's tricks.

Whatever the truth of the matter, he was popular enough in the 70s to actually co-star in a Marvel Comic! In 1976, Geller was featured in Daredevil #133. Geller and the Man Without Fear combat the extremely lame Mind-Wave and his Think Tank - yes, a tank controlled by telepathy. It's as bad as it sounds. Writer/editor Marv Wolfman explains on the letters page of the issue that the team-up came about at the request of Stan Lee. Wolfman met Geller, who not only bent one of his keys, but 'psychically' duplicated a hidden drawing (see letters page). This was enough to convince Wolfman that he was the real deal, and so Uri became a super-hero.

The story includes Geller's origin, which doesn't specify extraterrestrials here but does mention a light in the sky (if it was good enough for St. Paul, I guess it was good enough for Uri). To my knowledge, this was Geller's one and only comic appearance, and alas, there are no Uri Geller Slurpee cups.