The acting on Unsolved Mysteries was excellent

The music creeped me out as a kid

Watching this and Rescue 911 as a kid made me a nervous nellie. Now in middle age (41) I'm still scared of most things. It's not as bad as before, and I'm sure I avoided a lot crap by not participating in life, but I wish I'd never watched those shows. Seeing some of the awful things that happen to people was not safe for my developing mind.

I’m the same age as R2 and I loved looking forward to Rescue 911 on Tuesday nights and then Unsolved Mysteries on Wednesday nights.

They aren't actors, OP, they're...re-enactors. Similar but different set of skills. They have their own union, SRG.

Thanks, OP

The majority of re-enactments were done by the people involved.

I cry at some of these episodes, they’re just so good.

Wow, thank you R5. I wondered if actors today appeared on Unsolved Mysteries. I thought David Keith appeared on this show, there was a guy who looked just like him in a western re-enactment, but I don’t think it was him. Keith was around years before Unsolved Mysteries.

David Keith

Yeah, I agree the actors doing the reenactments were really good. I think it's because they weren't tasked with being "stars," but with conveying a message of what happened.

[quote] The majority of re-enactments were done by the people involved.

True, R6. My crazy neighbour reenacted walking her dog on the beach and “seeing” Cadborosaurus. She was [italic]not[/italic] a good actress.

An article about several other cameos.

Thanks for that, r12. Another Mad TV alum who appeared is Stephnie Weir

[quote]An article about several other cameos.

If they were going to include Jon Bon Jovi, they should have included Henry Rollins, who came on to talk about the murder of his roommate/best friend/possible lover/Jaclyn Smith's stepson Joe Cole.

It's amazing to me the production values the original Unsolved Mysteries had. They'd crash cars, blow up buildings...try and find a show willing to spend that kind of coin now.

I grew up on UM in the ‘90s (mom was a frequent watcher) and I still will sometimes put on the Pluto TV channel and just let them play. The re-enactments are sometimes silly, and other times utterly bonechilling. They really knew how to strike a chord with some of them. The show as a whole has an almost surreal ambiance to it—in a strange way, I find it calming to watch because I associate it so much with my childhood.

The one about Travis Walton was the scariest.

Wow, OP, I didn’t know we’d already made it to Pluto!

[quote] I grew up on UM in the ‘90s (mom was a frequent watcher) and I still will sometimes put on the Pluto TV channel and just let them play. The re-enactments are sometimes silly, and other times utterly bonechilling. They really knew how to strike a chord with some of them. The show as a whole has an almost surreal ambiance to it—in a strange way, I find it calming to watch because I associate it so much with my childhood.

My parents were also watchers and that was how I got into the show as a kid in the 90s. When I was in the 5th grade, I found out other kids were watching it too and we used to talk about episodes at recess or lunch periods.

I also loved the show Sightings which was similar to UM, but it focused more on ghosts, UFOs, and other paranormal subjects. Sightings used to come out on Fridays at 9 pm on the local Fox station. It was fun watching UM in my area at 7 and then watching TGIF sitcoms for awhile and then tuning into Sightings. I wish episodes of Sightings were available on a streaming platform. That show didn't have the budget of UM for re-enactments, but some of their alien abduction or UFO segments were still scary as fuck.

Yes, OP. They were light years ahead of Tri-State’s Most Wanted’s Leslie LeMoyne.

“Come closer to the edge, my dear.”

I love this show and Forensic Files. The Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix was done well. The new episodes have been delayed until October. They were originally supposed to come out this summer. There are only going to be 3 which is a total bummer.

I've seen part of the Forensic Files reboot and the narrator isn't that great and instead of using lookalike re-enactors they now have production employees (with their faces obscured) playing the murder victims.

Did anyone see this episode where there's some land of lesbians and only women live there. They haven't seen a male in ages?

What was it Outer Limits? Beyond Fiction?

R21 That was either Wonder Woman or Michfest.

Damn i was upset when Forensic Files left Netflix. That show has lulled me to sleep on so many nights (original narrator)for YEARS - and I have crazytown insomnia. I know it's on Pluto, but i really hate watching stuff on my computer instead of my sub-standard tv which I've really only used for Netflix and Amazon Prime. Plus, commercials.

R23 They took it off around New Year's Eve a year or two ago. I only managed to finish 7 out of the 9 sets of episodes. There were still over 90-100 episodes from the original series that were not included for some reason.

It was just this last year they took it off; the licensing ended. I know because i would religiously put it on at night to go to sleep. And then poof! After NY's it was gone.

My favorite performance has to be the Ethel Nation reenactor.

"Your mother was a SLUT. Your mother was a WHORE!"

Unsolved Mysteries was my go-to afternoon TV show when I was sick and stayed home from school in the late-'90s/early-2000s. They ran it like crazy on Lifetime. To this day, one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen was a post-mortem photo they aired of a John Doe who had been found stuffed in a suitcase. This was very unusual for an Unsolved Mysteries episode, and they gave a warning about the graphic nature of the photo, but I looked anyway. I remember I was watching the episode while home alone one afternoon during a rainstorm. I was so scared my heart jumped out of my chest and I threw a blanket over my face. That image haunted me for years. I remember reading up on the case some years later, and they'd managed to find out his identity and arrest his killer. He was an elderly man who had been abused and murdered by his caregiver. A really sad story.

R27 Was it that middle aged women who pretended to be elderly and opened a care home, where she killed her patients, buried them in her garden and cashed their welfare/social security checks? I think her name was Dorothy Puentes.

Yup r28 she killed a lot of boarders for their ss/welfare income. what a sinister woman. i can't recall how she died, but i hope it was a painful death.

R28 / R29 it wasn't that case. I did some Googling and the victim was Jasper Watkins.

Oh, r30. there was definitely an older/elderly woman who took in elderly borders, killed them and continued to collect their checks for years until she was discovered. i'm sure i saw it on either FF or UM. i'll let you know when i find the case.

Here it is, Dorothea Puente, Sacramento CA. Convicted of 3 but 9 were attributed to her.

"Puente has been featured on numerous true crime television shows, including Crime Stories,[12] Deadly Women,[13] A Stranger in My Home,[14] World's Most Evil Killers,[15] and Worst Roommate Ever."

I'm sure I saw this on FF or UM or some other popular crime series besides what's listed above.

This UM segment/case has always stuck with me. Also the Lenny Dirickson disappearance, and the Blind River Rest Stop murders—fucking creepy as hell. There are so many more. This show offered true nightmare material.

How about the sheer number of homicides courtesy of the Green River Murderer? Gary Ridgeway.

Stephnie Weir from MADtv was an actor on UM.

While UM is available for streaming, many of the cases have been edited out due to the statute of limitations of the family asking them to.

Taran Killam from SNL was in UM. Robert Stack was his uncle.

I remember the Lifetime reruns. At one point, Lifetime would air a couple of episodes late at night on Saturdays in the early 2000s. I remember watching the Allagash Four episode and even though I had seen it before, watching it late at night scared the shit out of me.

I’ve always thought the best reenactments were on Locked Up Abroad.

The biggest unsolved mystery on the Dennis Farina version is why anyone ever thought those clothes and hairstyles and make up were a good look.

Yes, Dennis Farina was awful. He looked like someone's old, drunken, swinger, car salesman uncle. He should've been wearing a gold nugget pinkie ring and should have been holding a scotch on the rocks in one hand.

I remember the repackaged Dennis Farina version and it was awful. They edited down the stories and Farina's narrations sucked. At one point, I did wonder if Jessica Walter could have been a good narrator for an Unsolved Mysteries type show.

Is there a list of the cases that have been edited out?

The re-enactor of the Canadian camper was so handsome

The older brother from Terms of Endearment (Tommy) is in a reenactment now. He’s so cute. He played Curly Green.

I'm laughing reading this thread because it reminds me of the GAWD awful acting in the true crime reenactments on the ID channel and all the terrible Canadian actors.

I used to really like "Disappeared" on ID. It was one of the better true crime series, but JFC, the recent revival series is god awful. They've ditched the narrator, haunting music and structure of the series, and they just have the parents narrate and we follow THEM around and...nothing happens. They also seem to only be focusing on missing people in their 20s and recent cases.

R47 agree, some of those early Disappeared episodes are scary as hell. It’s the only show I can think of in the UM vein that was just as creepy. The newer episodes somehow lost their edge; part of it is the stories profiled, but I think the stylistic/tonal change of the show also made it much less eerie than it initially was.

New season trailer out

No lost loves? ^

[quote]The older brother from Terms of Endearment (Tommy) is in a reenactment now. He’s so cute. He played Curly Green.

Thanks, R45. I always thought the young Curly Green actor was cute. It was such a poignant story, too.

By chance does anyone know the actor who plays Donny Hansen, the twink who was suspected of murdering his twin sisters? I've always wondered if he went on to act in anything else. He's quite easy on the eyes.

The story he was featured in was horrific and tragic, but McConaughey was a hot piece of ass in that segment.

I didn’t know it was on Pluto. Thanks.

R33, the mystery of that case was indeed spooky, but I remember it more for Tyrone Rollins playing himself in the reenactment and looking very cute doing so.

𝐔𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐌𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞

An Illinois girl who went missing six years ago has been found safe in North Carolina, according to a Facebook post from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Kayla Unbehaun was 9 years old when police said her mother, Heather, abducted her in July 2017 from South Elgin, Illinois, about 45 miles northwest of Chicago.

A photo of Kayla as well as a photo of her mother were shown at the end of a 2022 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" on Netflix. According to television station ABC Chicago, a store owner in North Carolina who had seen the show recognized the girl at an Asheville shopping center and called police.

Her mother was arrested ​Saturday in Asheville and charged with child abduction, a felony, before being released on bond, the South Elgin Police Department said in a news release.

R21 r22 I think it was a Twilight zone episode maybe?

Lesbian aliens cut off the power to a neighborhood and observe how men fight with each other.

I think it was loosely made into a film called The Trigger Effect.