Pop Culture Affidavit Episode 114: Unsolved Mysteries of the Unknown

It’s Halloween and that means it’s time for me to actually get seasonal … for once. I’m here and talking about some oddities of entertainment from the late 1980s and early 1990s. First up is Time-Life Books’ best-selling series Mysteries of the Unknown, whose commercials were some of the creepies of the time. Then, I move into the area of true crime (among other subjects) by looking at a classic Robert Stack-era episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Plus: listener feedback!

You can listen here:

Apple Podcasts: Pop Culture Affidavit

Direct Download

Pop Culture Affidavit podcast page

After the break, here’s some extras for you, including four of the classic Mysteries of the Unknown commercial …

To start, here is a picture of the adult reading room of the Sayville Public Library, circa 1979. The stacks I talk about were on the perimeter, upstairs and downstairs.

Oh, and while this is a picture of the children’s section of said library, it does feature some lovely orange carpeting. Talk about comfort decor.

By the way, these pictures were taken from the Sayville Public Library’s official website and you can read about the history of the library (with more pictures) here: Sayville Public Library History.

Next up is the Atlas Obscura article I mentioned several times, “The 1980s Book Series that Literally Claimed it had to be Read to be Believed”

And here is a rundown of all 33 of Time-Life’s Mysteries of the Unknown titles (some of which can still be found in libraries, used bookstores, or on eBay and Amazon):