# Columbo - a few questions for discussion **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [January 2, 2022, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074 "2022-01-02T07:34:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2023, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/221 "2023-04-20T10:41:08Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > My question is the same one I asked about Lee Grant: What the hell is Ray gonna do with all that hot ransom money? Sell it to a fence for a few pennies on the dollar? Doesn’t he grow orchids, plenty of which he says are worth well over a thousand dollars apiece? So I figured he sells one to a guy for a thousand bucks, and then he sells one to a guy for a thousand bucks, and then he says he sells one to a guy for a thousand bucks, and then he sells one to a guy for a thousand bucks, and so on, to change his expensive hobby from _One He’s Almost Breaking Even With_ into _One That, On Paper, He’s Turning A Profit With._ ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2023, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/222 "2023-04-24T00:48:22Z")
Watching S2E7 or thereabouts. Anne Baxter is an aging movie star who accidentally kills her secretary. We talk about how such a luminary as Faye Dunaway shows up later, but getting Anne Baxter is a coup as well IMHO. Sure, The Ten Commandments was a while ago, but still. She dies at age 62, which IMHO is way too young. Almost all Columbo eps are entertaining, but when crazy inappropriateness bits happen, it sure takes me out of it. She literally needed medical attention the night before, and Columbo is immediatly asking her to talk to his wife on the phone cause “His wife will get a kick out of it”. Then he asks if he can have a memento for his wife, a flower from her garden. And is just about to leave when he asks her to come to the police station with him in his POS car. Where she sees the car her secretary burned alive in. This is why you never talk to the cops. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2023, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/223 "2023-04-24T01:46:24Z")
… And what happens to the $300,000 he’s still sitting on? Does that become his Rainy Day fund? 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2023, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/224 "2023-04-24T02:08:05Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > And what happens to the $300,000 he’s still sitting on? Does that become his Rainy Day fund? 🤨 All apologies; I was trying to imply that, every so often, in between _actually_ selling one for a thousand bucks or so and _actually_ selling another one for a thousand bucks or so, maybe he’d merely _say_ he sold one for a thousand bucks or so — and that, since he’s an expensively-dressed guy who (a) talks like Ray Milland and (b) was casually engaging in legitimate high-dollar transactions even before this whole brouhaha, he’s presumably in a good position to launder the money by pretty much just continuing to do what he was already doing; you or I may not have years of pricey orchid stuff behind us on which to easily build that lie, but I figure he was already doing great and could just say he started doing greater. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2023, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/225 "2023-05-02T04:59:41Z")
You know…I see an ep, and I think I don’t have much to say about it and then I find out something remarkable… Nita Talbot is still alive??? Columbo cracks open a boiled egg he’s going to eat…on the murder weapon (A tire iron)…Come on guys. Gross. Come on. You know…the best way to fool Columbo would just act like a normal, empathetic human being. But then such a person wouldn’t murder someone. And for the few that were accidents…the perps are just nervous wrecks. So Nimoy commits the perfect 70’s crime. There’s no witnesses. No forensic evidence linking him. No cameras. And no connection to the murder victim other then her being his nurse. No evident motive. BUT he overcomplicates everything by trying to set up some kind of ‘drug deal gone wrong thing’. So dumb. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2023, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/226 "2023-05-02T05:11:37Z")
Quite illogical. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/227 "2023-05-04T20:41:01Z")
> [@Pavelb1](#): > > You know…the best way to fool Columbo would just act like a normal, empathetic human being. It’s kind of an interesting question: _which killer would you say did the least bad job of acting like a normal and empathetic human-type person, answering Columbo’s questions like someone who cared about the deceased and had nothing to hide?_ (Off the top of my head, I kind of want to say Johnny Cash — but that feels like cheating.) ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/228 "2023-05-04T21:08:47Z")
Right now I’d say one of the female killers, but Im only up to the end of season 2. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/229 "2023-05-04T21:10:59Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > It’s kind of an interesting question: _which killer would you say did the least bad job of acting like a normal and empathetic human-type person, answering Columbo’s questions like someone who cared about the deceased and had nothing to hide?_ Off the top of _my_ head, I’d say **Ruth Gordon**. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/230 "2023-05-04T21:44:57Z")
I was going to say her character too. I think she was in the last 70s Columbo? If not then certainly one of the last. Probably helped that her character was one of, if not the most, sympathetic in terms of motive. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/231 "2023-05-05T00:42:21Z")
I’d say Janet Leigh, probably because she didn’t remember committing the crime. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2023, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/232 "2023-05-14T22:49:12Z")
He was kind of the Bruce Campbell of the Columbo show. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074/233 "2023-05-16T12:22:48Z")
Finished the “Chess episode” with Laurence Harvey. I quite enjoyed it. We spend a TON of time with the killer so it feels more like an episode of Night Gallery or The Sixth Sense. Also, this is the first ep where I feel like the murderer is mentally ill…well…like sick in the head as opposed to some of the psychopaths we see in other episodes if you know what I mean. They get the chess right a lot too. The boards arn’t set up wrong and it seems to be following whatever action is being subscribed. One dude even gets checkmated\* by his opponent castling. \*We DO get the usual ‘check’ and ‘checkmates’ said out loud of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/columbo-a-few-questions-for-discussion/957074.md?page=11)