A-hem!
I **love ** this show. Robert Conrad as the cocky gym owner (kills his partner with a barbell) was the best. He tied the victims shoes backwards and got busted by Columbo.
Some of the murder plots are pretty far fetched though.
Example- killer shows audience his latest film while he provides live narration. He has spliced in a sibliminal clip of a desert scene to make his victim thirsty (he’s also fed victim salty snacks prior to movie). Victim goes out to lobby for drink of water. Killer slips away from stage while tape recorder continues his narration. Victim shot in lobby. Killer has alibi - the whole audience was hearing him speak behind curtain when shot is heard from lobby!
I remember the series so well from when I was a kid because my Grandfather taped it all the time, along with the 60s Batman 
It occured to me too that Columbo should surely be done for harassment, but then you weren’t watching it for the same reason as other police dramas. It was always so satisfying that the short shambling detective with an old rain coat and battered old car was able to take down the smug ruthless murderer.
In fact, that was what made seeing the murder take place first vital. To see the murderer carry out his wicked deed and then so professionally cover up all trace of it. One murder that I remember was one shot in the reflection of the murderers sun glasses, two film clips, one for each lens recounting how it all happened.
One other thing, wasn’t there an episode with Ruth Gordon?..
So, why has nobody mentioned the episode with Ruth Gordon? That was a classic!
Finally pushed over the edge, I, with deliberate malice aforethought, kill Pushkin.
But I have nothing to fear - my alibi is perfect. And the detective assigned to the case! A little man in a rumpled raincoat…oh, he had some questions regarding some “loose ends” but I was able to explain those away. I won’t be seeing *him * again…
Yeah, like I’m going kill Sherlock Holmes’ brother!
Speaking of episodes nobody’s mentioned - another favorite: The one with Robert Vaughn shot entirely on the cruise liner.
How do people feel about the later made-for-TV movies done for ABC? How do those rate?
:smack:
I wouldn’t worry about covering your tracks. Georges d’Anthès will probably get blamed for it anyway.
LOL! 
For those of you in the Ventura County area in Southern California, KDOC airs **Columbo ** episodes on Mondays and Fridays - tonight’s episode is “Murder Over Mayhem” guest starring Jose Ferrar. This episode has one of my favorite in-jokes: They named the boy genius after Stephen Spielberg, who broke into show business directing Columbo. (Other well-known people who’ve directed Columbo: Ben Gazzera and Nicholas Colosanto. And didn’t Jamie Lee Curtis have a bit part as a waitress in one episode?)
Of the ABC Columbos, I rank the one with the college students as the best. The one with the painter was also good.
I loved teh one with the chess master. The clue to led to his demise was that he failed to murder his victim the first time.
Great. I loved the one with Nimoy as the Dr (Dr Spock?) who tries to kill grandpa Walton It was one of the few times where Columbo loses his cool and shows his utter contempt and anger for the murderer to show.
Have to Love California though, only rich snooty folks murdering people in clever ways. Only to be undone by an expat New Yorker in a rumpled coat and crummy car. Oh yeah and a Dog without a name… I loved Dog.
I love the one with the college students. I spend the entire episode yelling “You smug asshole bastards! I want to smack those sh!t-eating grins off your lying murderer faces!” only to be wholly REDEEMED at the end when Their Young Lives Are Ruined.
I love Dog, too. Dog and my father are the reason why I love Basset Hounds so much. They’re the best dogs.
It sounds like your memory may be letting you down. The point of Columbo was never to solve the mystery, at least not in the conventional detective story sense, because we were always shown who the murderer was and how the murder was committed. The puzzle was to figure out which flaws in the crime Columbo would spot that we, the viewers, hand’t noticed as we watched the crime being committed. Or, in those episodes with few or no actual clues as such, to see if we could figure out how Columbo would manage to nail the villain and/or get him/her to trip themselves up.
That’s right. The Columbo episodes weren’t whodunits. They were howcatchems.
Seconded.
I always thought it was because he was the guest star with the highest billing.
“Y’know, I could swear I’ve seen you someplace before. Weren’t you…nah, why would a rich, successful businessman like you have been on I Spy?”
Favorite Peter Falk anecdote: He lost his eye as a child. Once, during a Little League game, the umpire called a strike when young Peter thought it was a ball. He popped out his glass eye and handed it to the umpire, saying, “You need this more than I do.”
And it wasn’t the dog, it wasn’t the raincoat, it was the Peugeot 403 convertible with its top always up in perfect LA weather.
Another great thing about the show is how the killers are friendly to Columbo in the beginning. They’ll often try to help “solve” it for him (mislead him) and also effectively shoot down his preliminary theories. Then the slide toward harassment begins…
But as someone mentioned earlier, its great to see him bust those pompous rich Californian bastards who think they are so damn clever.
Peter Falk’s from my hometown, as is Cab Calloway. His parents owned a department store next to the high school.
I love that character! Always rumpled, seemingly disorganized, maybe even comes across as a crackpot, but he spots the clues, plugs along fearlessly and protects the public. Remember the one with the werewolf on the cruise ship, and the episode about the swamp monster?
Anybody?
It’s odd that she only appeared on the show once. For 20 minutes. In 1960.
?? Peter Falk is from NY, Cab Calloway is from Rochester NY… opposite ends of the state…