You know Colombo?

Question

Whatcha all think? I liked it but he was a bit weird

Answer 1

I loved Columbo!! He was a bit weird but thats what made him so watchable!! What happened to Peter Falk anyway? Is he still alive?

Answer 2

He was perfect in the role of Colombo along with his trusty side kick the blood hound, not sure if he ever had a name.

He has retired from the world of acting and now apparently paints good picture as well as working in other medias and has various shows of his work.

The rain coat was defiantly his trade mark along with the car and as for case solving well slightly eccentric but it always work the killer was caught.

Great series and still being shown

Answer 3

Next to Monk, the greatest weird detective ever.
Peter Faulk appeared in 73 Columbo TV movies from 1971 - 2003 and solved every one of the cases. He also wore the same overcoat for over 30 years.

Answer 4

I'm familiar with this "Colombo" of whom you speak. A deucedly clever chap who could doubtless find your missing guests. I've heard, however, that he has retired from his profession. To be brutally honest, Old Top, you're probably better served without him. The reasons for this are two-fold: Firstly, the fellow is quite likely to find your guests, a feat you might rather accomplish on your own or not at all, given the circumstances. Secondly, for all his wile and cunning, from a strict standpoint of hygiene and appearance, the man is an absolute stain. He ambles about, hair tousled, in a rumpled trench coat, like one of those gumshoes that the lower classes enjoy reading about in their Penny Dreadfuls. Worst of all are his cigars - fetid, noxious stumps, the likes of which can be had for 'tuppence a fistful' at any of the lower class markets. No, my good man, if I may offer a suggestion, let your guests find their own way. Or not. You can't be expected to molly-coddle them all, especially after they've been helping themselves to your sherry all night. Right-ho, then. I'm off to strap an errant maidservant for scorching my kipper. Best of luck with that devilish banging problem. I remain, Bibbins

Answer 5

Columbo is the best detective ever!

I have seen so many of these and can watch them again and again, because it's not about whodunnit, we know that from the outset, it's about how he pieces everything together!

He's a very clever man, and if'd I'd just killed someone and Columbo turned up at my door, I'd hold my hands up there and then. He'll get ya!

(That said, the newer ones are not so good, the writing is clearly lacking and Peter Falk deserved better).

Answer 6

Yeah its good, you always knew who did it because he only hounded that one person. He has a glass eye maybe thats why you think he is weird, I hope we are talking about the same Colombo or you will think I am weird to.

Answer 7

Columbo was superb for it's time.His charactaristic cigar and bloodhound were memorable.However only once did we hear his first name and it was Phillip.Steven Spielberg along with Patrick McGoohan were two directors of the show.Various guest stars appeared such as Ray Milland,Janet Leigh.Robert Culp appeared in it on numerous occasions.

Answer 8

Great cop show,always wins in the end,bit dated now seen most of them,but still watchable

Answer 9

Peter Falk did a nice job on that show and it was well-written and suspenseful.

Answer 10

Columbo was an American crime fiction TV series created by Richard Levinson and William Link. A pilot movie was broadcast in 1968; the series aired regularly from 1971 to 1978, and later, sporadically from 1989 to 2003. It starred Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Columbo (partly inspired by the Crime and Punishment character, Porfiry Petrovich) was a shabby, apparently slow-witted police detective — although, as criminals eventually learned, appearances can be deceiving. Columbo used his deliberately deferential and absent-minded persona to lull criminal suspects into a false sense of security; meanwhile, he solved his cases by paying close attention to tiny inconsistencies in a suspect's story and by hounding the suspect until he or she confessed. Columbo's signature technique was to exit the scene of an interview, invariably stopping in the doorway or returning a moment later to ask "just one more thing" of a suspect. The "one more thing" always brought to light the key inconsistency.

Series description
The series is noted by TV critics and historians for the way it reversed the clichés of the standard whodunit story (TV Guide has referred to the basic plot structure as a "howcatchem", though it is more properly known as an inverted mystery). In a typical murder mystery, the identity of the murderer is not revealed until the climax of the story, and the hero uncovers clues pointing to the killer. In most episodes of Columbo, the audience sees the crime unfold at the beginning and knows exactly who did it and how it was done. This allows the story to unfold more from the criminal's point of view, rather than that of Columbo himself; in fact, in some episodes, Columbo doesn't even appear until as late as 30 minutes into the story, the preceding time being taken up by depicting the often-complex nature of the crime.

The audience then watches as the criminal frantically tries to cover his or her tracks, being hounded by the persistent police lieutenant at every step, until the killer finally slips up and Columbo catches him. Columbo's manners are such that, at first, the killer feels safe and happily 'helps' Columbo with his investigation, giving alternative explanations for loose ends, but eventually the killer becomes irritated and finally nervous as he (occasionally she) finds that Columbo isn't as stupid as he seems.

This predictability and the quirky mannerisms of Columbo are part of the attraction of the series. As the killer is nearly always wealthy compared to Columbo's apparently modest background and means, the show also offers some expressions of class conflict, although in a few cases, such as that of Ruth Gordon's avenging mystery writer, the killer is more sympathetic than the victim. For all that, Columbo rarely displays anger toward these privileged murderers, and seems genuinely to like more than a few of them. The episodes are movie-length, between 70 and 100 minutes long, without commercials.

Peter Falk, who played Columbo, has a glass eye and it remained a mystery whether this glass eye "played the part of a real eye" (i.e., did the Columbo character have one or two eyes) for 25 years until 1997's Columbo: A Trace of Murder where upon asking a character to revisit the crime scene with him, he jokes “You know, three eyes are better than one.”

History of the character
The character Columbo pre-existed his eponymous television series. Before Falk assumed the role in 1968, Bert Freed portrayed him in a 1960 TV appearance. Thomas Mitchell then played Columbo in a 1962 stage play

Played murderers
Guest stars who played murderers included

Eddie Albert
Anne Baxter
Ed Begley, Jr.
Theodore Bikel
Ian Buchanan
Johnny Cash
John Cassavetes
Jack Cassidy (three times)
Susan Clark
Billy Connolly
Robert Conrad
Jackie Cooper
Robert Culp (three times)
Tyne Daly
Faye Dunaway
Dick Van Dyke
Hector Elizondo
José Ferrer
Ruth Gordon
George Hamilton (twice)
Laurence Harvey
Lee Grant
Louis Jourdan
Richard Kiley
Martin Landau
Janet Leigh
Ida Lupino
Ross Martin
Roddy McDowall
Patrick McGoohan (four times)
Vera Miles
Ray Milland
Ricardo Montalban
Leonard Nimoy
Donald Pleasence
Clive Revill
William Shatner (twice)
Fisher Stevens
Rip Torn
Trish Van Devere
Robert Vaughn (twice)
George Wendt
Oskar Werner
Nicol Williamson