# Legality of Columbo's trick with the cigar box **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [January 23, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-columbos-trick-with-the-cigar-box/1013310 "2025-01-23T22:24:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 182
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-columbos-trick-with-the-cigar-box/1013310/182 "2025-01-26T19:28:28Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > And in real life Columbo’s trick depends on precise timing. It’s often an all-or-nothing play. I guess, like Hamilton Burger, we just don’t see the 15 cases where Columbo tries the same tricks, but the perp is too smart or clever or just lucky. No convictions don’t make for good TV! Columbo had a few ‘gotcha’ trick endings where he goaded the killer into trying to kill him. They were not my favorite endings-- I think ‘cop goading the killer to try to kill him to get a conviction’ is as lazy a writing crutch as ‘getting the killer to confess, to get a conviction’. Usually Columbo had swapped out or deactivated the murdery part of the murder weapon in that situation, so he was in no danger. But in possibly the most ridiculous Columbo ‘gotcha’ tricks (saying this as one who loves most episodes, even the sillier ones), there’s a late-period ('89) episode ending in which Columbo asks a magician to demonstrate a guillotine trick on him. The trick has a ‘lethal’ setting for chopping cabbages in half to show the audience it’s real, and a ‘safe’ setting to not kill humans. The magician, who is the killer and knows Columbo is on to him, sets it to ‘lethal’, but Columbo is unharmed, having swapped out the labels. He didn’t disable the guillotine completely, he had to count on the killer trying to kill him right then or else he would have actually been killed. Maybe the killer might have thought, hmm, tempting, but it’s a little too obvious to try to kill him this way, and there are cops nearby, so I’ll just set the switch to ‘safe’…oops > **[Episode review: Columbo Goes to the Guillotine](https://columbophile.com/2020/03/29/episode-review-columbo-goes-to-the-guillotine/)** > > After 11 years of reruns, the Man in the Mac was BACK on 6th February, 1989, going head-to-head with a dastardly psychic in Columbo Goes to the Guillotine. A magnificent comeback, or a hideous port… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-columbos-trick-with-the-cigar-box/1013310)._