Waves of Mystery
In Part One of my tale, I discussed the way popular culture icons can carry a different context for certain people as a result of associated incidents and decades of nurturing “evolving recollections.”
This prompted a note from a reader wherein she related how her older brother confessed to telling her — when they were tykes — that Samantha, the nose-wiggling witch of Bewitched, actually used her powers to kill her original husband (Dick York), creating the more ideal “Darren 2.0” (Dick Sargent). To this day, she cannot help but sense deadly menace in the eyes of Elizabeth Montgomery, and could not remember why until her brother ‘fessed up.
So, good news! I’m not the only one nurturing out-of-context memories of old TV shows…
Rediscovering Hawaii Five-O via Subscription TV
For me — as you may recall from Part One — the out-of-context memory involves Hawaii Five-O.
Since I posted Part One, I’ve had a half-dozen people (and counting) comment on social media or via message that, hey, the Hawaii Five-O theme isn’t creepy.
To them, I issue this blanket statement: You are right - it is not creepy. That’s what makes my particular memory from tyke-hood odd enough to write about. The theme here, remember, is OUT-OF-CONTEXT MEMORIES.
So, to recap Part One:
For some reason, the Hawaii Five-O theme song, all by itself, was/is enough to give me the willies. This seems to be related to some deeply buried recollection of an eerie sequence of events I only faintly remember seeing on my family’s living room TV back when I was five-or-less years-old.
In my initial poking around years ago, I found a pretty remarkable fan site that helped me zero in on an episode that, according to the short synopsis, sure sounded like what I was after.
Wealthy old Sam Kalakua is being slowly driven insane by apparitions of Pele, the mythical goddess of fire. Eleanor: Sally Kellerman.1
I also dug up the occasional YouTube clip, but nothing long enough to show me the eerie visuals and sounds I remembered.
Then, only a few days ago, I learned that the entire run of Hawaii Five-O shows — every single episode — are available on Paramount+.
Every. Single. Episode.
Rediscovering Hawaii Five-O via Subscription TV
I raced over to my Paramount+ app (any Trekker worth his/her dilithium has a subscription) and there is was: The 25th episode of season one, broadcast on March 19, 1969, titled “The Big Kahuna.”
I cued it up on my desktop iMac. Unbelievably, while “The Big Kahuna” was indeed available, when I played it I got sound — and a black screen! This glitch was particularly amazing because this meant I could actually hear the eerie sounds I remembered from half a century ago, but I was being denied visuals!
No panic. No problem. A quick move over to the iPad, and I’m in business.
The episode opens with eerie music and a night view of a large house’s exterior. We see a lantern move from window to window. Finally, we’re inside, and the man carrying the lantern — I recognize actor John Marley from about 100 roles, including as a film producer in The Godfather, and David Banner’s father in an episode of The Incredible Hulk — is extinguishing other lanterns in various rooms.
Then he begins to hear… very eerie sounds. Like a child calling out, with a bit of echo attached.
That’s what I remember!
Our frightened protagonist immediately grabs a rifle and notices an open door. He goes outside of his house and is confronted by…
…. a glowing, writhing, female ghoul.
He begins shooting at the ghoul, to no effect. The camera zooms in closer and closer to this apparition, until….
DRUMS! HORNS! WAVES! The Hawaii Five-O Theme kicks into overdrive.
So, here’s the plot summary: Sam Kalakula, a distant cousin of Kono (a series regular: “Zulu as Kono”) is being scared by his nephew and his nephew’s wife, who are making him believe he is being visited by Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire (that’s the creepy apparation). They want to frighten Sam into selling his land to a real estate mogul — or have him declared incompetent, toward the same goal.
Revisiting Steve McGarrett
The first thing that has to be noted about viewing episodes of Hawaii Five-O via Paramount+ is that this footage is completely remastered and “cleaned up.” It’s a pretty amazing experience to see such familiar, iconic faces — and hairstyles (this is Jack Lord, remember!) — with such clarity.
Some things I noticed via this new, sharp imaging:
The pre-drone zoom-in to the top of a building, where the camera flies up to Jack Lord on a balcony of the Ilikai Hotel, is pretty astounding.
The subsequent (and iconic) Jack Lord “turnaround” is also great — I always thought it was a freeze frame at the end of his turn, but with the new hi-res I can see that it’s not. It’s just Jack Lord staring you down, not moving a muscle.
There’s a pretty fascinating — and somewhat uncomfortable — shot in this very episode where the character walks right into the camera, filling the whole frame of view before the scene switches.
Hawaii is America’s hottest state, yet law enforcement professionals evidently must wear a suit and tie as if they’re not chasing bad guys in 90-degree weather. The new hi-resolution reveals quite a few moist faces.
Jack Lord goes one step further and wears a DARK suit, which, I’ve since learned, is unheard-of on the islands.
More wardrobe: there’s a scene where McGarrett is seen wearing a shoulder gun holster that seems to have no visible means of support — just a loop around his shoulder. Turns out this is something 5-0 fans notice on more than one episode.
As most of us recall, McGarrett constantly refers to one of his detectives as “Danno” (as in: “Book ‘em, Danno”) which I always figured was his last name — something like “Jim Danno” would be cool, right? It turns out the character’s name is “Danny Williams,” and — because he was “the young guy?” — it was somehow appropriate to use the informal nickname constantly.
“Danno” wears a constant, subtle smirk.
Solved
One of the other interesting things about the episode is that McGarrett pretty much has this thing solved nineteen minutes into the story. All they need to do is figure out how the gaslighting is occurring — which is accomplished when “Danno” visits a hip/happening/drugged film crew called “Theater of Madness” and examines some of their film stock.
The hippy director calls “Danno” a “square.” I’m not kidding. However, it’s pretty clear he’s capable of projecting ghoulish images where needed.
Sally Kellerman plays the wife of Sam Kalakula’s nephew, who is portrayed by Robert Colbert — the Time Tunnel actor with a perfect TV announcer voice. These scoundrels need Uncle Sam out of that mansion and property so they can sell to a realtor who is offering $100,000 to anyone who can merely facilitate a deal for him; Mr. Kalakula’s big house is sitting on some Prime Property, evidently.
“Danno,” in fact, talked to that same realtor before we see him speaking to the conspirators — he’s on a golf course during both of our encounters with him, because, you know, he’s a realtor.
“Danno” is offered a finder’s fee as well. And, evidently, there are no other big-time realtors on the Big Island.
The hippy-dippy film crew has provided the means by which creepy images can be projected around Sam Kalakula’s property and, aided by some narcotics snuck into his system, the imagery can be used to scare him into selling; he is observant of “the old beliefs,” which they use against him.
Kellerman’s character is the person in costume and filmed by the hippy-dippy film crew as Hawaiian goddess Pele — not a wise move; McGarrett figures this out by watching film confiscated from the hippies (I didn’t see the resemblance, frankly).
The episode’s conclusion is pretty graphic. Kalakula confides to his nephew that he is going to a high, remote mountain spot called The Pali to pray with his Kahuna. The nephew passes this information along to his conniving wife, and Kellerman’s character confronts and spooks the drugged Kalakula on the mountainside, intending to push him to his death (she had grown impatient with the whole “let’s scare him into selling” game).
Fortunately, McGarrett and “Danno” had sped to the location and come upon the scene in time to call out Kalakula’s name, which causes Kellerman’s spook to lose her footing and fall to her evident death.
A Happy Ending
In the epilogue, we see Kalakula walking with McGarrett on his property — his former property — which is now overtaken with construction crews and equipment, busily building a Children’s Hospital in the name of the Kalakula Foundation.
The other happy ending, of course, is the fact that a mystery that followed me from childhood is now solved, and I now know exactly why the otherwise upbeat and thunderous Hawaii Five-O Theme sends a little shiver up my spine every time I hear it.
Book ‘em, Danno….
Sally Kellerman passed away in February, 2022