I am lloking for a segment from circa 1990 or 1991 where a guy owned a business...I think a car dealership. In the segment, they show a clip from a local commercial that aired wher eteh guy says something along the lines of "Remember kids.." or something like that. I don;t recall what the segment involved (I believe fraud but not sure). No other details are recalled. This may be too vague to get responses but any help would be appreciated. It is one of teh few segments I remember seeing as a 10 year old UM fan that I have not seen since in reruns.

Hmm, doesn't ring a bell, the only thing I can think of is The Dale and Liz Carmichael :lol: But that's probably not it.

Maybe Crystaldawn knows.

Maybe Crystaldawn knows.

No pressure....:lol: You know the only one that comes to mind was the Dale car like ididn'tdoit said. It was a fraud case and they did show some pictures that appeared to be ads if I remember correctly. Of course "Liz" turned out to be a man so I would think that fact would have stuck in your mind. Do you remember anything else about the segment?

not a thing, sorry. I saw the segment only once when I was 10 or 11 years old. I used to come home from church prayer meeting on wed. nights and watch unolved mysteries. I think the guy may have been involved with oil or something but really cannot recall. by the way, the UM volumes are great. are you releasing any more? I breezed through 1-10 within a couple days and sometimes rewatch them to get my UM fix. They are maybe the best $50 investment I ever made. I really wish they would release Unsolved Mysteries on DVD in seasons like they do for sitcoms and pther shows. even though many have been solved, I would still love to see them released that way with updates included and the original music openings, etc

Crystaldawn, do you have the following segments:
-spiral staircase
-a drug dealer running a meth lab (in TX I think). It was pretty high profile if I remember
- the Iron Butterfly member who came up missing
- the Port Chicago shipmen found guilty of conspiracy to commit mutiny
- Butch Cassidy
- a clean copy of the Son of Sam segments (even if off Lifetime). The segment on disc one has part of a sitcom in the middle of cinotti's interview

- psychic artist coral polge
- the missing wife of the guy who ran "school pictures" (I don't remember the name of the family but remember the guy received a ransom letter saying "put these people back in the shape they was in before getting involved with school pictures")

- the 2 guys who ran the fraudulent music school (one got a sex change while the other released a salsa cd)

- shroud of turin

- other missing treasure segments

I think I know which one you are talking about.

Ed Barbar (spelling??) was the owner of a low budget furniture store in Northern California called Furniture USA. To promote his store, he starred in a series of TV commercials which were frequently aired on KICU TV 36, a local San Jose station. They were, to put it mildly, so sleazy they were comical. (The kind of ad used car dealerships used to show, Im sure you know the type. No offer to low, se hable espanol, no credit or bad credit etc.) He ended each one by holding his hand up in the air and saying "Bye kids".

In the UM segment, Ed had made the unlikely transition from the furniture business to gold mining and was seeking investors. He would take prospects, aka suckers, to a cave which he had elaborately decorated with heavy equipment and guys walking around with hard hats and proceed to show everyone a large piece of gold?? that supposedly came from the cave. What happened next is common in the scam business. The investors forked over cash in hopes of getting rich and Ed the scammer quietly disappeared with the money. The cave, equipment, and miners were just part of the ruse.
The gold was a fake too.

I dont recall if there was an update. There may have been but I saw this episode only once and that was a long time ago. This episode for reasons unknown is rarely if ever replayed. Anyway, I hope this helps. If this is not the right one, soz, best I can do.

Christopher

Chris, I think you have the segment. thank you!


Crystaldawn, do you have this segment available?

Crystaldawn, do you have the following segments:
-spiral staircase
-a drug dealer running a meth lab (in TX I think). It was pretty high profile if I remember
- the Iron Butterfly member who came up missing
- the Port Chicago shipmen found guilty of conspiracy to commit mutiny
- Butch Cassidy
- a clean copy of the Son of Sam segments (even if off Lifetime). The segment on disc one has part of a sitcom in the middle of cinotti's interview

- psychic artist coral polge
- the missing wife of the guy who ran "school pictures" (I don't remember the name of the family but remember the guy received a ransom letter saying "put these people back in the shape they was in before getting involved with school pictures")

- the 2 guys who ran the fraudulent music school (one got a sex change while the other released a salsa cd)

- shroud of turin

- other missing treasure segments

- Ed Barber (or Barbar) this was the segment I was looking for

- the guy who wa s amiser and lived on peanut butter

not a thing, sorry. I saw the segment only once when I was 10 or 11 years old. I used to come home from church prayer meeting on wed. nights and watch unolved mysteries. I think the guy may have been involved with oil or something but really cannot recall. by the way, the UM volumes are great. are you releasing any more? I breezed through 1-10 within a couple days and sometimes rewatch them to get my UM fix. They are maybe the best $50 investment I ever made. I really wish they would release Unsolved Mysteries on DVD in seasons like they do for sitcoms and pther shows. even though many have been solved, I would still love to see them released that way with updates included and the original music openings, etc

Crystaldawn, do you have the following segments:
-spiral staircase
-a drug dealer running a meth lab (in TX I think). It was pretty high profile if I remember
- the Iron Butterfly member who came up missing
- the Port Chicago shipmen found guilty of conspiracy to commit mutiny
- Butch Cassidy
- a clean copy of the Son of Sam segments (even if off Lifetime). The segment on disc one has part of a sitcom in the middle of cinotti's interview

- psychic artist coral polge
- the missing wife of the guy who ran "school pictures" (I don't remember the name of the family but remember the guy received a ransom letter saying "put these people back in the shape they was in before getting involved with school pictures")

- the 2 guys who ran the fraudulent music school (one got a sex change while the other released a salsa cd)

- shroud of turin

- other missing treasure segments

ekpentz, I just sent you a pm letting you know which ones of those I have. I'm glad you enjoyed the volumes. I may do a volume 11 if there's enough interest. I've already had some people ask me privately if I would do another. I do have a lot of old segments still as well as a lot of the newer ones.

Chris Billings - impressive! I have never even heard of that segment you described. It must be one of those gems that never made it to Lifetime. I would love to see it but don't know of anyone who has it recorded.

Glad I could help. But its sounds like by answering one question I have created another.

Did anyone on the board tape the original episode?? Hmmmm.......
I do have some good news tho. If you are interested in finding out what happened to Mr. Barbara, the local newspaper has some old articles available for sale online:


http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SJ&p_theme=sj&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=allfields(Furniture%20USA)%20AND%20date(1/1/1985%20to%201/1/2007)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=1/1/1985%20to%201/1/2007)&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=("Furniture%20USA")&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no

a volume 11 would be great! After getting the 1st 2, that's all I've wanted to do is lay in the bed on weekends and watch UM for hours on end. I know I'll wind up with all of them....so many forgotten cases over the years, and some I don't remember at all so it's like a brand new show!

Glad I could help. But its sounds like by answering one question I have created another.

Did anyone on the board tape the original episode?? Hmmmm.......
I do have some good news tho. If you are interested in finding out what happened to Mr. Barbara, the local newspaper has some old articles available for sale online

I'm curious, does anyone know when this episode aired? I was looking through the episode guide and I found this description from the episode that aired on 12/13/89 that sounds like it may be this story... "the search for a New Mexico man, who bilked investors in a phony gold mine"

I used to have the Lifetime version of this episode recorded and I don't remember such a story.

It's fishy because the articles Chris Billings found, as well as others I found on Newsbank, indicate that Ed Barbara was convicted and sentenced in July 1988. UM wasn't even on the air then. He was a fugitive at one point in 1987, but his case certainly wasn't a part of any of the specials. If the case was resolved in the summer of 1988, I find it hard to believe that UM would profile it in December of '89, unless Barbara had cohorts who were on the loose, but I couldn't find any articles alluding to that.

Does anyone have any more substantial information? Kane, do you remember this story?

I did some digging on Newsbank and it appears that Barbara fled during court proceedings and was convicted and sentenced in absentia. He did keep in touch with his defense attorney though. According to the defense attorney, Barbara claimed he had cancer and couldn't go to prison because his health was failing. I never did find any more information after this article (which was published in August of 1989). So, I think it's safe to say that Barbara's story was aired on the 12/13/89 episode, and I presume, was not shown on Lifetime. The next question is was he caught . Also, does anyone actually have this episode?