MANNIX - "The Mouse That Died" (1970)

 

This Saturday Night Special is brought to you courtesy of Lord Litter in Berlin. There were 194 episodes of Mannix made, and I sure as Hell don't have time to sort through them all, so it's pretty cool that I have somebody I can trust to find one for you, and this is a good one!

 

"The Mouse That Died" was episode five of the fourth season of "Mannix," and aired in 1970. 

 Mike (Voodoo Woman) Connors is "Mannix." Mike's real name was Krekor Ohanian, and in his first few films he was billed as Touch Connors.

Mannix would be lost without Peggy, as played by Gail Fisher. Gail was a multiple beauty contest winner, and was the first black actress to win an Emmy, and she was also the first black actress to win a Golden Globe award.

"Mannix" is shot from a lot of different angles, and at times it feels like you're watching a German Krimi movie. The music swings like a German film too, and was composed by Laurence (Meteor)  Rosenthal.

Mike Connors was born in 1925 in Fresno, California, and lived to be 91 years old!

In this episode, Mannix has been poisoned, and the whole time is spent trying to find out who did it and why, because it's unknown what the poison is, but what they do know is that it's slowly killing Mannix.

Mannix suddenly finds himself in the middle of some ritual he doesn't understand!

And then he dies!

What was really going on was he was having some severe hallucinations, and he finds out about it when he wakes up in the hospital after falling down a flight of stairs.

Mannix keeps feeling worse but insists on trying to get to the bottom of the whole thing

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While riding in the car he hallucinates that they are being attacked by an armed helicopter.

This is a very oppressive looking logo.

Hugh Beaumont has a small part as a guy named Hammond. Most people when they see Hugh's face immediately think "Leave It To Beaver," but Hugh also had some good monster movie creds like "Lost Continent," "The Mole People," and "The Human Duplicators."

Mannix is just getting sicker and sicker, and now has received the bad news that the mouse had died. They had taken a mouse and shot it up with some blood from Mannix, and they were monitoring it to see how long it took for the poison to work. That's where the title came from.

Mannix is getting so weak and pale, he's starting to look like Barnabas Collins.

Of course the guy causing all the problems, and doing all the poisoning was Walter White!

Longevity says a lot about quality. "Mannix" was on television for eight seasons from 1967 to 1975. I think that about says it all!