The Untouchables
The Night They Shot Santa Claus
TV Flash files “The Night They Shot Santa Claus” as a desk essential hour — The Untouchables (1959–1963) on ABC, season 4, episode 1, aired 1962-09-25, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S04E01: listed hour 89 of 118 in the The Untouchables guide, first listed hour of season 4. It aired 1962-09-25 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The Monkey Wrench” (S03E28). Next is “The Cooker in the Sky” (S04E02).
Essential hour: “The Night They Shot Santa Claus”. The Night They Shot Santa Claus — season-four ignition on a blasphemous holiday title, the series still daring the censors.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
It's Christmas eve 1930 and Eliot Ness and his men are investigating the murder of a close friend of his, Hap Levinson. The man had been playing Santa Claus at a children's orphanage and had just left when he was gunned down by a passing car. Levinson was the front man in a nightclub-speakeasy and he and Ness had spent many hours together laughing and passing the time of day. As Ness looks into his old friend's background, he learns that he may have had a girlfriend named Renée that he kept in a downtown apartment.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Night They Shot Santa Claus sit in the The Untouchables guide?
S04E01 is listed hour 89 of 118 — first listed hour of season 4, season 4 episode 1.
When did The Untouchables S04E01 air?
The Night They Shot Santa Claus aired 1962-09-25 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…