# What was the best episode of Columbo
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** tv-shows-scripted
**Created:** [June 13, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126 "2022-06-13T19:33:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/21 "2022-06-15T12:02:17Z")
I think Monk would have the greater problem here. Columbo looks so disheveled that it would give Monk fits!
`//i\\`
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/22 "2022-06-15T12:06:35Z")
And Columbo will eat a sandwich that he’s had tucked away in a jacket pocket; Monk would not like that.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/23 "2022-06-15T12:28:15Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> Columbo routinely puts on an act
No, it’s not an act. He’s genuinely clumsy, and has habits that annoy people. We see the same happening when he’s buying lunch, or taking his dog to the groomers, and so on.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/24 "2022-06-15T16:54:49Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> No, it’s not an act. He’s genuinely clumsy, and has habits that annoy people. We see the same happening when he’s buying lunch, or taking his dog to the groomers, and so on
Granted; but he takes that as his starting point, and then builds from there for his process. Like, take Negative Reaction, where he _isn’t_ clumsy enough to destroy the evidence of a man’s innocence — and isn’t dimwitted enough to fail to realize what he’s done — but everything depends on it being plausible that he _is_. Or take Death Lends a Hand, where he only says some woo-woo-sounding stuff about palmistry because he’s innocuously reaching out to feel a man’s hand for another reason altogether, kind of like how his go-to move in Dagger of the Mind is to cough into his hand as a prelude to planting something incriminating in front of a room full of potential witnesses: that last bit would, if anything, presumably work even _better_ if he were up against a fastidious germophobe — just like his feigned gullibility in Sky-High IQ is _tailored_ to irritate a perfectionist into demonstrating howdunit, and much like his faked absent-mindedness in Double Exposure is a bluff so the murderer will fill in the blanks.
(Admittedly, that last one didn’t actually work; but the point is that he _hadn’t_ actually forgotten — just like he hadn’t actually been suckered in Short Fuse, and hadn’t actually let his guard down to gloat while shooting pool in How To Dial A Murder, or whatever.)
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### Author:  [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/25 "2022-06-15T17:22:34Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#):
>
> No, it’s not an act. He’s genuinely clumsy, and has habits that annoy people. We see the same happening when he’s buying lunch, or taking his dog to the groomers, and so on.
Which causes everyone to underestimate him everywhere he goes.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/26 "2022-06-15T18:04:15Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> woo-woo
please don’t.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2022, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/27 "2022-06-16T02:39:09Z")
If i had a time machine i would fetch Jack Cassidy to play Voldemortrump in a feature film. Oscar’s in the bag.
Cassidy is the smarmiest actor in the history of made for tv movies.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2022, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/28 "2022-06-17T00:34:39Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#):
>
> I will admit that “Columbo Goes to College” isn’t the best of the mysteries, but I do enjoy so much the sneering college students and their mockery of Columbo, and how it all ends for them.
I’m watching this episode right now on Vision TV. One thing that strikes me is that even though it was filmed in 1990, no one has a cell phone! The plot might have fallen apart if they had, since the empty cartridge was found in the street. If they could have called from the garage, there would have been no need for Justin to drive to the security officer.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2022, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/29 "2022-06-17T00:54:06Z")
Cell phones weren’t that popular in 1990 (about 2.5 phones per 1000 people if my Googling is right).
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2022, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/30 "2022-06-17T00:59:49Z")
Considering the amount of electronic gadgetry in this episode, I’m surprised that even the rich college boys didn’t have at least one between them.
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### Author:  [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2022, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/31 "2022-06-17T03:08:25Z")
Cellular phones were like a brick with an antenna, and we’re rate outside of showoff businessmen. Certainly not common on college campuses
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2022, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/32 "2022-06-17T11:30:40Z")
That’s how I remember 1990.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2022, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/33 "2022-06-17T14:03:53Z")
The very cusp of when cell phones began to make plotting much more complicated!
But I’ll bet Robert Culp’s character had one.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/34 "2022-06-18T20:04:04Z")
The people I worked for in 1990 had a cell phone. Not only was the phone itself the size of a brick, the unit that lodged it was a bit larger than a typical answering machine. They kept it in their car (which would probably be called an SUV today).
When I returned to Moscow in 1992 after having been gone for two years, all of the yuppies who had come to Russia to make a killing carried a cell phone. I used to sit in the business lounge at the Radisson watching them parade back and forth carrying their new toy and status symbol.
I think the episode with Shatner as a radio host was the first Columbo to feature cell phones. It came along just four years after the college episode. Columbo was always in the dark about such new technology in the early '90s.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/35 "2022-06-18T20:38:27Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> It came along just four years after the college episode. Columbo was always in the dark about such new technology in the early '90s.
A lot of Columbo episodes involved “high tech” by the standards of the time - like a fancy typewriter in “Now You See Him” (1976), or a multiple line phone system in “Candidate for Murder” in 1971
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/36 "2022-06-18T20:46:59Z")
I haven’t seen all of the episodes, but my favorite is Columbo vs. Mensa Guy. My favorite scene is the one where he drives up to a junkyard murder scene and a police officer tells him he can’t drop off his car because it’s a crime scene.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2022, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/37 "2022-06-18T22:25:30Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> A lot of Columbo episodes involved “high tech” by the standards of the time - like a fancy typewriter in “Now You See Him” (1976), or a multiple line phone system in “Candidate for Murder” in 1971
And a VCR to create an alibi in the first Shatner episode.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2022, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/38 "2022-06-18T22:54:31Z")
Yep. And “Columbo goes to College” had closed circuit TV and radio controlled toys
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### Author:  [@Kelby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kelby)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2022, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/39 "2022-06-19T00:18:11Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#):
>
> I haven’t seen all of the episodes, but my favorite is Columbo vs. Mensa Guy. My favorite scene is the one where he drives up to a junkyard murder scene and a police officer tells him he can’t drop off his car because it’s a crime scene.
OK, that one, as the kids say, made me LOL!
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2022, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-episode-of-columbo/966126/40 "2022-06-19T00:20:23Z")
Almost as good is the one in which Columbo goes to a Catholic mission and is assumed to be a homeless man.
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