The Untouchables
You Can't Pick the Number
TV Flash files “You Can't Pick the Number” as hour 11 of 118 in the TV Flash guide — The Untouchables (1959–1963) on ABC, season 1, episode 11, aired 1959-12-24, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E11: listed hour 11 of 118 in the The Untouchables guide, hour 11 of 28 in season 1. It aired 1959-12-24 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The Dutch Schultz Story” (S01E10). Next is “The Underground Railway” (S01E12).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Eliot Ness and the Untouchables set their sights shutting down the numbers racket. The numbers are like a lottery where anyone can place a bet of up to one dollar on a three digit number. The payout for a full dollar bet is $600 so the profit for the mob, who run the racket, is the remaining 40%. Ness wants to shut down that cash flow which can be used for more heinous crimes.
Viewer FAQ
Where does You Can't Pick the Number sit in the The Untouchables guide?
S01E11 is listed hour 11 of 118 — hour 11 of 28 in season 1, season 1 episode 11.
When did The Untouchables S01E11 air?
You Can't Pick the Number aired 1959-12-24 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with Stack's Ness and Winchell's newsreel bark in early Chicago-raid form. The granite stare and the tommy-gun morality are the brief.
In the series
Why this series still plays
The Untouchables is Eliot Ness versus Capone's Chicago: Robert Stack's granite stare, Walter Winchell's newsreel bark, Desilu muscle, machine-gun morality in sharp suits. Watch it in 2026 as violent prestige crime that pushed 1950s network boundaries — raids as spectacle, and a national argument about blood and stereotype.
The work is a raid with newsreel grammar. ABC's *The Untouchables* (1959–1963) makes Robert Stack's granite stare into crime-drama law: 118 episodes, four seasons, Eliot Ness and an incorruptible squad, Walter Winchell's rat-a-tat narration, Desilu production gloss, machine-gun morality in sharp suits. Loosely inspired by Ness's Prohibition-era memoir. Quinn Martin's later crime empire would refine the procedural; this was the loud opening statement. Justice came in fedoras and final shootouts.
Filed against
- Robert Stack as Eliot Ness
Robert Stack’s Eliot Ness granite-stared through The Untouchables — Capone’s Chicago, Walter Winchell’s newsreel bark, machine-gun morality in sharp suits — then put on Unsolved Mysteries’ trench coat until the theme song became a…
- Nicholas Georgiade as Agent Rossi
Nicholas Georgiade’s Agent Rossi rode The Untouchables’ machine-gun morality in a sharp suit — 1950s Eliot Ness versus Capone’s Chicago, Robert Stack’s granite stare, Walter Winchell’s newsreel bark, Desilu muscle. TV Flash files him as…
- Paul Picerni as Agent Youngfellow
Paul Picerni played Agent Youngfellow on The Untouchables, 1950s Eliot Ness versus Capone’s Chicago — Robert Stack’s granite stare, Walter Winchell’s newsreel bark, Desilu muscle, machine-gun morality in sharp suits. Violent prestige…
- Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti
Bruce Gordon played Frank Nitti on The Untouchables — Capone muscle opposite Robert Stack's granite Eliot Ness, Walter Winchell's newsreel bark, Desilu machine-gun morality in sharp suits. Violent prestige crime that pushed 1950s network…