He Stalks the Night Nevermore

As Hollywood and the rest of the world reels at the loss on Friday of chicken-boned ghost-investigator Don Knotts, comes word that fellow Night Stalker of the paranormal Darren McGavin also caught a cab that very same day. Age 83. The gruff but loveable McGavin, in addition to being seen umpteen times a year as the gruff but loveable Dad in The Christmas Story - had one of his best roles in the ABC Movie of the Week from the early '70s Tribes, in which his tough by-the-books marine boot camp drill inspector character looked the other way when hippie Jan-Michael Vincent went go a.w.o.l. ... Sadly, my DVD of the Night Stalker pilot arrived mere days before McGavin's passing, leaving him no time to spend the residuals. Hopefully, he's presently someplace on the receiving end of "a major award" - in the form of a table lamp shaped like a fish-net stockinged woman's leg.