Created by Peter S. Fischer, William Link and Richard Levinson — the latter two were also the creators of Columbo — this show was originally going to star Jean Stapleton, who turned it down. Angela Lansbury, who had played Ms. Marple in several movies, was the perfect choice to play Jessica MacGill Fletcher, a woman from a small coastal New England town who goes on to become a famous author and mystery solver, if not a serial killer with all of the people who die around her.

If you’re wondering, where is Cabot Cove? It’s Mendocino, CA and Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, CA.

I’m obsessed by this show. The fact that it has so many murders around one woman, the fact that all kinds of exploitation actors show up in it and the fact that so many white-haired dudes are vying to pound it out with Jessica. I watch the Murder, She Wrote Pluto and Roku channels constantly, jumping into episodes and knowing exactly where they are, because I’ve watched them so often. My wife and I own the gigantic early DVD box sets, even the TV movies.

Why should I keep this all to myself? I should share my Jessica Fletcher mania with you.

Pilot episode: The Murder of Sherlock Holmes (September 30, 1984)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

In the episode that kicks off the entire show, Jessica Fletcher travels to New York City to celebrate the release of her debut novel — just in time for someone to get killed at a costume party.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury and were they in any exploitation movies?

Peter Brill is played by Bert Convy, who, in addition to being in two episodes of Murder, She Wrote, also shows up in Jennifer and A Bucket of Blood.

Herb Edelman appears and would later be NYPD Lieutenant Artie Gelber, a role he’d play seven times on the show. He also is in the Hong Kong action film Wheels On Meals.

As Rocky Horror tells us, Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet. She was also in the supernatural TV movie Haunts of the Very Rich and three episodes of this show, starting with this episode as Louise McCallum.

Michael Horton makes his first Murder, She Wrote appearance as one of my most hated characters. Grady Fletcher. He’d be on the show twelve times, always screwing things up and needing his aunt Jessica to come in and save him. Since the show, he’s appeared in several Star Trek shows and films.

Dennis Patrick, who played Dexter Baxendale in this episode, has appeared in several roles on Dark Shadows and played rich man Bill Compton in the early Cannon movie Joe. He’s also appeared in Nightmare Honeymoon, The Time Travelers and many other TV roles.

The doctor in this episode was played by Raymond St. Jacques, a street preacher in They Live, Claude in the John Russo adaptation Voodoo Dawn, opposite Bronson in The Evil That Men Do and also shows up in Cotton Comes to Harlem.

This episode, as you can tell, is packed with stars. Ned Beatty may be the biggest, appearing as Chief Roy Gunderson. He has 163 roles in his career, most of them in major Hollywood productions. Still, we can count 21st Century’s Captain America, Repossessed, Purple People Eater, The Unholy, Rolling Vengeance and Exorcist II: The Heretic as exploitation in my book.

Arthur Hill, who plays Preston Giles, Jessica’s first publisher, in two episodes of this series, also narrates Something Wicked This Way Comes, is the vice president in Murder In Space and appears in Revenge of the Stepford Wives, Futureworld and The Andromeda Strain.

Brian Keith was an actor with 169 roles, including Uncle Ben in the 90s Spider-Man cartoon, Papa in Sharky’s Machine, Dr. Dubov in Meteor and the Dad in The Parent Trap.

Paddi Edwards, Lois Hoey was a secretary in Halloween III! Sure, she’s Flotsam and Jetsam in the Disney cartoons, but this is the role I’m happy for.

The radio show host, Danny Welles, is Luigi from the TV show Super Mario Supershow!

Marvin is played by Stanley Brock, Weird Al’s uncle in UHF.

In the minor roles — there are no minor roles! — we have Johnny Venokur (Savage Streets, Evil Laugh) as a tough, Andy Garcia (!) as his co-tough, Mama Fratelli herself Anne Ramsey as a bag lady, Paula Victor (The Entity), Billie Hayes (Witchiepoo!), Beau Star (Sheriff Meeker from Halloween 4 and 5) as a cop, KTLA anchor Larry McCormick and Sallee Young (Home Sweet Home, Demented and Pandemonium).

What happens?

Jessica Fletcher is a widower and schoolteacher from Cabot Cova, Maine—yes, I know we all know this, but it’s the first episode—whose hobby is writing mysteries. Her excoriable nephew Grady sends one of those stories to publisher Preston Giles, who buys it. Now Jessica has to come to New York City and hates every second. Giles begs for her to stay on for his costume party.

She meets composer Peter Brill, Grady’s boss, Captain Caleb McCallum, his wife Louise and the rich Ashley Vickers. Up until the murder- it’s right there in the title- everything is fun, and people are super into Jessica dressing like Cinderlla’s fairy godmother until Dexter Baxendale, a detective, is caught looking around. And oh yeah, Caleb is getting killed, dressed as Sherlock Holmes, to explain that this episode’s title wasn’t lying. Shot in the head, left floating face down in a pool, but then it’s discovered that Caleb is alive, and that’s Baxendale’s body.

Jessica is shocked that, of all people, Grady gets arrested for the murder. Stick around for 12 seasons and see how surprised you will be that Grady gets into some shenanigans. Jessica must solve the case and potentially fall in love with Giles. Except that, well…

Who did it?

Giles is the killer, as he used to work with the detective, and his past crimes would be revealed to him. It looks like Jessica has to get a new publisher.

Who made it?

Corey Allan directed, and he is a veteran of TV shows and an actor who was in Rebel Without a Cause. Fischer, Levinson and Link, who created the show, wrote the story, which Fischer turned into a script.

Mario Di Leo, the cinematographer on The Evil and a still photographer for the berserk Italian movie Top Line, shot this. That last fact is blowing my mind.

Some facts…

Jessica is introduced just like Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack’d, a movie adaptation starring Lansbury. She also types her books on a 1940s Royal typewriter, the same one that Ellery Queen used on the series from the same producers.

How many people live in Cabot Cove? 3,560. Well, for now. By the end of the series, many of them are dead.

Does Jessica get some?

This is a significant point of debate for me with every episode of Murder, She Wrote. Jessica is supposedly in her early 50s, just like me, so she’s still a woman with wants and needs. It seems like many older gentlemen in this show would love to dig up some sand crabs with our heroine, and I say we should champion this.

Preston Giles is one of the few of her would-be men who kisses her full on the lips. Seeing how he comes back to woo her again in season 7, I will say that he could not get enough once he had a taste of her New England baking. So yes, I will say that they at least engaged in heavy petting and perhaps Jessica rubbed up against him. She’s a lady, however, and I don’t think she went into the pants or gave him an Old Fashioned at this early stage of their relationship.

But this dialogue!

Preston Giles: I’m so sorry. I should have told you. For tonight’s party, we’re coming dressed as our favorite fictional character. I know, I know. You haven’t got a thing to wear.

Jessica Fletcher: Well, I could always come as Lady Godiva.

This is cut footage of Jessica directly after they spoke…

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

Yes and no. She does wear an outfit, but it’s for a costume party. This gets her off the hook, but as the show continues, look for Jessica to put on costumes and act drunk more than the Harts.

Was it any good?

There’s some math to do here. Any episode with Grady in it can’t be a perfect ten, as his presence angers me to madness. However, this has a solid mystery, even if it’s cribbed from Agatha Christie’s “The Affair At The Victory Ball.” It’s also a two-parter with a pretty decent plot that sets up all the show’s beats. So I’d say yes. No secret spinoff or Jessica is being wasted, things that ruin later episodes.

Give me a reasonable quote:

“You know, back in Cabot Cove, the only thing we have with claws are lobsters, and we eat ’em.”

Got a TV Guide ad?

CBS really wanted this to be a success because there’s a double-page ad!

What’s next?

In “Deadly Lady,” a visitor who has stopped at Jessica’s house turns up dead, swept away in a hurricane before Jessica even meets him. Get ready to meet Captain Ethan Cragg and Sheriff Amos Tupper, two lawmen I think both slept with Jessica. At the same time? Let’s discuss.

Sure, there were Rambo: The Force of Freedom, Police Academy and RoboCop cartoons and toys, but the fact that The Toxic Avenger got his own cartoon and toy still blows my mind. In the seven years since the movie was made, Melvin Junko went from smashing faces with gym equipment to saving Tromaville from the evil Smogulans, led by Czar Zosta and Dr. Killemoff. Now he has friends like Nozone, Major Disaster, Headbanger and Junkyard.

What’s even more surprising is that Michael J. Pollard is in this as the voice of Psycho and that the pilot was written by future sitcom master Chuck Lorre.

Yes, I had many of the Playmates toys, which had a great tagline: “They’re gross, but they still get girls!”

Troma head Lloyd Kaufman believed that he was getting to make a live-action version of the cartoon with New Line, only to learn that they were using the new property as leverage to get a better deal from Eastman and Laird for the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. He got some money out of it, at least.

There are 13 episodes of this show, and in none of them does someone yell, “I never did me no blind bitch before.” But you know, you have to tone things down when you make a cartoon, I guess.

My big question? Where was Sgt. Kabukiman in this series?

The Troma Blu-ray release of the entire series includes a new introduction from Kaufman, toy commercials, a documentary about the new video game, archival footage of the Toxic Avenger and bonus cartoons. You can get it from MVD.

Directed by Jonas McCord (he directed Paul Hardcastle’s video for “19” and wrote Malice) and written by Shel Willens, “Revenge Is the Nuts” is about a home for the blind. There, owner Arnie Grunwald (Anthony Zerbe) makes life horrible for the patients — Samuel, Armelia and Osgood (Isaac Hayes, Bibi Besch, and Tim Sampson) — but promises to make things better if new patient Sheila (Teri Polo) sleeps with him. By treating them bad, I mean that he has a maze constructed to confuse them and laughs when they slip on marbles, not to mention the enormous dog he threatens them with. He doesn’t even treat his brother, Benny (John Savage), like a human being and may have killed their mother.

“Thanks, pal. For nothing! (to the viewers) I tell you, kiddies. Things are tough all over. What with my hack-spenses going up, and suddenly finding out I owe the Die-RS a fortune, your pal the Crypt Keeper’s had to find himself a second chop. Still, it’s worse for the people in tonight’s terror tale. It concerns a group of inmates at the local home who’ve got a few horrid choices of their own to make. I call it: “Revenge is the Nuts.””

This being a Tales from the Crypt story, he’s about to pay for his sins. And by paying for his sins, he will be blinded and locked into the same maze that he’s put his patients through. This gets in a cute Tales line where Hayes complains he’s been “shafted.”

This episode is based on “Blind Alleys” from Tales from the Crypt #45. As you probably know, this is the same story that’s adapted in the Amicus Tales from the Crypt movie. Also, you know that I prefer that version, right?

Directed by Roland Mesa (the man who made Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation) and written by Rob Ross, this is all about Nelson DeMears (Tate Donovan), a computer programmer whose ideas are taken by Jack (John Caponera), a supposed pal who uses them to get ahead. But Nelson doesn’t need a horrible friend like Jack when he has had an imaginary one for years, Eddie (Peter Dobson). Eddie always wants him to stand up for himself, but when he learns that Nelson has fallen for a therapist named Jane (Michelle Burke), he worries that he’s about to be erased from his friend’s life.

“Oh, hello boils and ghouls. It’s me, your favorite creep from the deep, Shock Cousteau. You’re just in time. I’m about to dive into tonight’s tale. Care to join me? (in his normal voice) Good, then strap on a couple of scare tanks and prepare yourselves for a cold, wet hack-sploration of my favorite kind of marine life: croakers. (chuckles; he fires the harpoon, which hits someone offscreen and makes them scream in agony) Oops. It concerns a couple of boo-som buddies who’re about to put their relationship to rest. I call it: “Operation Friendship.””

By the end, Eddie shows that sometimes, what’s best for Nelson is for him to take over and do things his way. If he has to throw his best friend out a window to do that, why not?

This is based on “Operation Friendship” from Tales from the Crypt #41. That story was written by Otto Binder and drawn by Jack Davis. It’s very different from what ended up on the show, as it’s about a scientist who cuts out most of his friend’s brain to keep it in a vat and hang out with him while the 25% is thrown into his body. His wife never notices.

Master of Horror Mick Garris and writer A.L. Katz crafted this, the third of the premiere episodes of the sixth season of Tales from the Crypt. It’s a deeply meta narrative, where Rolanda (Rita Rudner), an artist for the Tales from the Crypt comic book, grapples with an abusive boss, Vern Caputo (Richard Lewis). He dismisses her, she retaliates, and the police end her life. But the horror doesn’t end there. She awakens in her bed, forced to relive the same day over and over, trapped in a nightmarish cycle.

“Looks like it’s curtains for me kiddies. Then again, maybe the Venetian blinds would look better. I don’t know. When I started this little makeover, I was pretty excited. I thought a little Slaytex paint, some new scream doors, maybe even some scare conditioning. I could turn my little doomicile into a regular pied-à-terror. But, I tell ya, kiddies, between the dust and the ghost overruns, your pal the Crypt Keeper’s going out of his mind! Which is kinda like the woman in tonight’s terror tale. It’s about a comic book artist who’s about to experience a terrible case of déjà boo. I call it “Whirpool.””

As the episode draws to a close, a startling revelation emerges. Rolanda is, in fact, Vern’s superior, and the entire narrative is a product of his comic book. He’s ensnared in a time loop, experiencing the same abuse he once inflicted on her. It’s a jarring role reversal that plunges us deeper into the twisted world of EC Comics.

This is based on “Whirlpool” from Vault of Horror #32, written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Johnny Craig. In that story, a woman is trapped in a world of unending horror, which may or may not be all in her mind.

As we start a new year, it’s time to begin a new season of Tales from the Crypt. The sixth season premiered on HBO on October 31, 1984 — along with “Skin Deep” and “Whirlpool” — and was directed by Russell Mulcahy (The Hunger, Highlander and early innovations in music videos like Ultravox’s “Passing Strangers,” Billy Joel’s “Allentown,” numerous efforts for Duran Duran — “Rio,” “Save a Prayer,” “The Wild Boys,” “The Reflex” and so many more — and even the first video MTV played, The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star) and written by Ron Finley, one of five episodes scribed by this author.

The Crypt Keeper starts the show by cackling, “”From overseas and underworld, it’s the Crypt Keeper Noose Network. Good evening, creeps. In the news tonight, wolfman bites dog, vampires say life sucks, mummy takes the wrap after years in “de Nile,” and illiterate zombies insist they’re better dead than read. This just in. And our top story tonight is a nasty little soundbite about an ambulance-chasing lawyer who is about to bleed in the toughest case of her life. I call it “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime.””

This starts a lot like Nothing But Trouble. As lawyer Geraldine Ferrett (Catherine O’Hara) passes through the small town of Stueksville, she’s pulled over for having a bad license plate—well, a vanity one that states SUE EM —and hauled in front of three judges (all played by Joseph Maher) and defended by a public defender who knows so much less than her, Austin Haggard (Peter MacNicol).

Perhaps if she wasn’t so busy handing out her business card to people in wheelchairs and bragging about her past cases, she might realize that this hamlet is filled with weirdness, like the anachronistic pictures of public hangings in the lobby.

Haggard lives up to his name, a poor lawyer who gets her sentenced to a dungeon and a hundred lashes. Again and again, she tells him,  “I’d rather be dead than you.” With each judge she meets, the punishments become harsher and the supernatural lifts up its head, as she’s visited by the ghosts of patients who died once she shut down a pacemaker company.

The true punishment is that she’s given community service and takes over Haggard’s role as he goes to the electric chair for his crimes, happy to be free of this town and what could have been decades of cases like this. He tells her, “I’d rather be dead than you,” as he gets zapped.

This has some more cute wordplay in it. Stueksville may be “the sticks,” but it’s also purgatory, a place where the river Styx could flow. The title comes from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado — “My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time. To let the punishment fit the crime.” — and explains the punishments of The Lord High Executioner, which are similar to the three judges in this episode.

The title of this episode, “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime,” is in name only when compared to the EC Comics story that appeared in Vault of Horror #33, written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Jack Davis. The tale is about a town wondering what the punishments for crimes will be as children parade coffins through the streets, inspiring the theme of justice and punishment in this episode.

Directed and written by W. Peter Iliff (Point Break, Varsity Blues), this episode stars John Stamos as Johnny Canaparo, a kept man in the employ of Ruth Rossi (Eileen Brennan), the widow of a powerful mob boss who killed her husband and took over his mob outfit. He never learns, as any woman he sleeps with gets killed, and now he’s couch dancing with Lucy Chadwick (Kate Vernon), a waitress at a club that Ruth owns.

“Welcome back, spurts fans, to game seven of the World Scaries. It’s the Fright Sox versus the Boo Jays. I’m your announcer, Vin Skull-y. Can the Sox keep their winning shriek alive? That’s the big question today. Wait a minute! (glancing at his TV set with the binoculars) Looks like there’s going to be a pitching change. The Jays are bringing in their rot hander, and while they do that, we’ll take another look at the defense. We have Ooze on first, Guts on second, and tonight’s “Terror” tale on third. It concerns a young lady who’s pretty fond of die-amonds herself. And doesn’t mind a little squeeze play to get ’em. I call it: “Till Death Do We Part.””

As a baseball game plays on the radio, Johnny and Lucy get caught cleaning out the safe. This gives our loverboy a choice: either shoot new girl in the head or get killed by his old lady’s men. Maybe a dream sequence will help him figure it out.

This is based on the story of the same name in The Haunt of Fear #12.  Written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines — whose names show up on a tombstone in the Crypt Keeper’s opening — and drawn by Joe Orlando, it’s a totally different story with a criminal not realizing that he’s already a ghost.