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Columbo

1499 statements
294 feature instances
277 referencing feature instances

Columbo	type	TVTItem
Columbo	label	Columbo
Columbo	page	Columbo
Columbo	comment	Columbo is a long-running American Mystery of the Week crime drama starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a beat-down, blue-collar Los Angeles homicide detective whose unkempt appearance, cheap cigars, and clownish antics hide an exceptionally sharp mind. The series comprises sixty-nine made-for-TV movies, including two pilot movies made in 1968 and 1971, every third episode of the 1971â€“78 The NBC Mystery Movie, and a series of occasional revival movies from 1989â€“2003.According to Word of God — a.k.a. prolific TV production partnership Levinson and Link — the film Les Diaboliques (1955) and its shabby inspector, Alfred Fichet, was the major initial inspiration for the character. Other influences include Porfiry Petrovich, the similarly klutzy Russian inspector from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and G. K. Chesterton's humble Father Brown. Lieutenant Columbo (then conceived as Lt. Fisher) first appeared in the short story "May I Come In": the story ends with the detective confronting the killer and uttering the titular words as the story ends. "May I Come In" was then adapted as an episode of the TV anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show entitled "Enough Rope" (with Bert Freed playing Columbo) which in turn became the play Prescription: Murder, with the detective character evolving into a more significant supporting character each time. Eventually the play would be adapted into the Columbo pilot.Columbo is the Trope Codifier and most famous example of the Reverse Whodunnit (also known as the "open mystery"). For as much as the first quarter of each episode, the audience sees the motive set up and then actually watches as each guest villain tries to execute the perfect murder via an intricate — and often high-tech — endgame. Columbo himself then appears in the second act, as the first police presence on the scene; with very rare exceptions, the audience is then left wondering not "whodunnit" but "howzhegonnagetim" (or, as the show's creators dubbed it, "howcatchum").Viewers who missed the first fifteen minutes could pick out the murderer pretty quickly anyway; guest villains included Richard Kiley, Robert Conrad, Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, Johnny Cash, Roddy McDowall, Martin Landau (as twins), Ruth Gordon, Honor Blackman, Vera Miles, Janet Leigh, and Leonard Nimoy, while Robert Culp, Jack Cassidy, Patrick McGoohan (a close friend of Falk's, who also directed 5 episodes) all appeared multiple times. Then again, plenty of guest stars showed up and weren't the killer, including Vincent Price, Leslie Nielsen, Kim Hunter, Don Ameche, Dean Stockwell, Ida Lupino, Julie Newmar, and Martin Sheen (the latter four were, in fact, victimsnote Ida Lupino was on the show twice, and survived her first episode but was murdered by Johnny Cash the second time, while Dean Stockwell was murdered by Robert Culp's character in his first appearance and was framed as a patsy for Robert Vaughn's killer in Vaughn's first appearance). Oh, and the first Mystery Movie episode ("Murder by the Book") was penned by then-fledgling screenwriter Steven Bochco and directed by some random wunderkind named Steven Spielberg.Albeit deliberately structured more like the formal "drawing-room mystery" (think Agatha Christie) than anything like a realistic police procedural, the show was generally an exception to Conviction by Contradiction. While an Encyclopedia Brown-style clue may first trigger Columbo's suspicions, the real chase is his attempts to get enough evidence for an arrest, often by exasperating/panicking the perp themselves into saying or doing something incriminating.Columbo was the master of Perp Sweating (i.e. shredding the Constitution, albeit totally under the Rule of Cool at all times). Though he generally settles on his horse from the outset, he never lets on, instead worming his way into their confidence via fawning adulation, begging their assistance as he "solves" the case. Usually he forces them to weave a huge web of lies until he can finally Pull the Thread — justified because he's always right.note Interestingly, while the Lieutenant is clearly over-the-top, he's arguably using a more true-to-life interview technique than the angry, confrontational interviews common in straight police dramas; flattery and interest in the other person's concerns are a more effective way of obtaining information — which is also why they have been ruled unconstitutional in Supreme Court case-law due to their also being unreliable. A Throw It In! accident during the filming of Prescription: Murder led to the show's most signature mannerism: after each interview with the suspect, Columbo begins to leave, the perp begins to relax — and then the Lieutenant returns to ask a significant and leading question, prefaced by a sheepish "Just one more thing, sir..."Columbo's other trademarks are his weatherbeaten raincoat, a cheap cigar, his broken-down car, his refusal to carry a gun (because of course perps always surrender quietly when the jig is up, though it is implied its not so much an aversion to firearms on his part but more an awareness that his absolutely horrifying marksmanship with one is more likely to put bystanders in danger than the perp), and constant references to his never-seen wife, Mrs. Columbo. Later, in an interesting subversion of Executive Meddling, the network tried to force a permanent sidekick on him. He got one: a shiftless, droopy basset hound that is most often seen being instructed to stay in the car.Another mild running gag was Columbo's first name, never revealed (everyone calls him "Lieutenant" instead). An early episode has him showing an ID badge with the name "Frank", a fact only visible with video technology not available when the episode first aired. Word of God confirmed that this was never intended to be the character's canon name. (In the 1970s, famously, a trivia book author invented the first name "Philip" as a copyright trap. When the answer appeared in the game Trivial Pursuit, he sued for plagiarism. He lost the case, as the defense argued successfully that they had merely been doing research.)Given all this, Columbo can be easily read as an expression of class struggle within the justice system. The perps are almost always powerful, privileged, and well-educated, while Columbo is, to put it mildly, not. Then again, the series creators have said that they weren't trying to send any message, just felt that Columbo would be more interesting as a fish out of water.Columbo's prop-laden buffoonishness is usually considered an act, but if so, it is an act he never admits to. Villains routinely accuse Columbo of putting up a false front, which he promptly disavows even more humbly. In Prescription: Murder, a murderous psychologist provides a (seemingly) perfect analysis of the Lieutenant: He believes he can't get by on his looks or charm, so he has turned his disadvantages into advantages. In "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case", Columbo remarks that he knows he isn't the smartest guy around and attributes his success to merely working harder, thinking longer, and looking closer than anyone else would. In interactions with characters he doesn't suspect — such as other police officers, his dog's veterinarian, or simply people he is convinced are innocent — he does show some of the same personality quirks, though not to the same extent and with a lot less of his trademark absentmindedness, hinting that it's not wholly an act, but something that he does deliberately play up.Columbo has solved every case put before him onscreen (he sometimes claims that he only solves about a third total, but this could well be part of the humility act) and hasn't gotten his man only once — in which case the perp was dying anyway. In true classic mystery fashion, each episode wraps up with the Lieutenant confronting his prey with his train of deduction, culminating in the vital clue; the perp may not confess, but they know, and the viewer knows, they have been beaten. To show the subsequent arrest and trial might be interesting in a lot of cases, but would be entirely superfluous in all of them.Columbo's last appearance was in the 2003 TV movie Columbo Loves the Nightlife.note The character's final filmed appearance was a short in-character skit for the ABC 50th Anniversary special, involving Alias, in which he visits their facilities (apparently created at the behest of Michael Eisner), although Columbo Loves the Nightlife was the final proper episode. A "finale" TV movie was planned and written, but ABC refused to insure it due to Falk's age and subsequent declining mental health, and Falk died in 2011 with the last script still in limbo.In England, Dirk Benedict had done Prescription: Murder in a small run of theater, as the title detective. Also, when the play was first produced, it starred Joseph Cotten as killer Dr. Fleming, and Agnes Moorehead as Fleming's murdered wife Carol. At that time, Columbo was being played by Thomas Mitchell.Columbo was also the primary inspiration for the British Locked Room Mystery series Jonathan Creek, as well as Rian Johnson's series Poker Face.The entire series has been out on DVD for many years. A large Blu-ray box set in a deluxe wooden cigar box-type package was released in 2011 — only in Japan, but it's region-free and has full audio and subtitles in both Japanese and English. Kino Lorber eventually picked up the license for an international Blu-ray release in 2023, being split into two box sets (pre- and post-revival). The series is also available on the streaming service Peacock.
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Columbo / int_10134c97	type	Artistic License â€“ Gun Safety
Columbo / int_10134c97	comment	Artistic License â€“ Gun Safety: "Fade in to Murder" involves an actor who steals various goods from the studio prop department to commit his crime — jacket, stocking mask, and a gun with bullets. Rather odd that a studio — which films TV shows, mostly — would have real guns and live ammunition on hand, instead of prop guns designed to chamber blanks which wouldn't likely even take actual ammunition, let alone fire it. "Columbo Goes to College" has Columbo demonstrating the murder using a pistol loaded with live ammo in the college parking garage. Is he nuts?
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Columbo / int_103e0141	type	Dying Clue
Columbo / int_103e0141	comment	Dying Clue: In "Try and Catch Me", Edmund came up with a really good one. He was left trapped in Abigail's safe, doomed to suffocate, having nothing to write with. Even if he had something to write with, he had no way of knowing if Abigail, the murderer, would be the first person to open the safe. But what he does have is a belt buckle to scrape with, and a copy of the manuscript to Abigail's latest novel, The Night I Was Murdered, stored in the safe. So what does he do? He rips out the middle of the title page. He uses one of the six matches he had in his pocket to scratch out the words "THE NIGHT" in the title, leaving the scrap of paper saying "I WAS MURDERED by Abigail Mitchell." Then he balls up the scrap of paper and hides it in the ceiling light, then draws an arrow on the safe deposit boxes to point to the ceiling. Columbo figures out what the scratches on the safe deposit boxes are, finds the scrap of paper, and nails Abigail.
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Columbo / int_109dbb51	type	Pull the Thread
Columbo / int_109dbb51	comment	Pull the Thread: Columbo's ability to see through cover stories forces the killers to usually come up with an even more complicated web of lies in an attempt to cover their involvement.
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Columbo / int_120d0e3f	type	Adam Westing
Columbo / int_120d0e3f	comment	Adam Westing: Actually rather rare for the celebrity killers, but Johnny Cash, Janet Leigh and William Shatner all did this with their characters. Peter Falk was also quite prone to doing this himself; despite being typecast in the role, he was never unable to get other work, but he loved playing the character so much that he would do appearances in-character frequently, the most famous being Dean Martin's roast of Frank Sinatra and the promo for the TV series Alias.
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Columbo / int_1282bf4f	type	No Celebrities Were Harmed
Columbo / int_1282bf4f	comment	No Celebrities Were Harmed: The killer is sometimes a thinly veiled version of a real-life celebrity. Milo Janus, exercise guru in "An Exercise in Fatality", for example, is clearly Jack LaLanne. Johnny Cash is Adam Westing as an evil version of himself known as Tommy Brown in "Swan Song". Likewise, Janet Leigh did the same — one of her character Grace Wheeler's favorite starring roles was an old Janet Leigh picture. Wade Anders from "Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health" may be played by George Hamilton, but his personality is like Rex Kramer. Alex Bradey in "Murder, Smoke and Shadows" is a rather mean-spirited caricature of Steven Spielberg. Findlay Crawford in "Murder with Too Many Notes" is very Hans Zimmer-esque, being as he is an Oscar-winning film composer who's the mentor to a younger tunesmith, Gabriel McEnery, who's worked on some of his scores (the title also harks back to "Too Many Notes, Not Enough Rests", from Zimmer's Drop Zone) and played by Michael Kamen-lookalike Billy Connolly to boot (Kamen was also inclined to support young talent). The most self-referential example is that Ward Fowler in "Fade in to Murder" is based on... Peter Falk. Ward Fowler stars in a popular TV detective series as Detective Lucerne, and who is causing trouble with the network because he is asking for so much money. This was the first episode of season 3 of Columbo, and renewal of the series had been in doubt because Peter Falk was making such high salary demands. Talk radio host Fielding Chase from "Butterfly in Shades of Gray" is clearly Rush Limbaugh. Sex therapist Dr. Joan Allenby from "Sex and the Married Detective" is a MUCH younger take on Dr. Ruth. Dr. Bart Keppel is based somewhat on real-life market researcher and subliminal advertising "expert" James Vicary. Max Dyson, the murder victim from "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine", is a very thinly disguised James Randi. Emmett Clayton in "The Most Dangerous Match" bears a strong resemblance to American chess master Bobby Fischer, and the match with his Russian rival strongly echoes Fischer's head-to-head with Boris Spassky at the World Chess Championship in 1972 (a year before the episode aired).
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Columbo / int_12b796e	type	Phoney Call
Columbo / int_12b796e	comment	Phoney Call: In "A Friend in Deed", the murderer publicly phones his home from his club and pretends to be talking to his wife. He is actually talking to his accomplice who is cleaning up the crime scene.
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Columbo / int_1300dc5c	type	Inspector Lestrade
Columbo / int_1300dc5c	comment	Inspector Lestrade: Subverted; Columbo is very much a competent officer, but plays up this trope masterfully for all it's worth.
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Columbo / int_135b9977	type	Bloodless Carnage
Columbo / int_135b9977	comment	Bloodless Carnage: Probably due in part to censorship limitations of the time but many of the '70s Columbo films either feature gunshot wounds that either only have a small red spot or no blood or bullet wound at all. "Lady in Waiting" is probably the worst example of this: The victim is shot in the chest and dragged — face down — across about 20 feet of carpet but leaves no blood whatsoever, which if it had would've blown Beth Chadwick's story open in 2 seconds. This was eventually subverted in the much later films where more blood was allowed, perhaps best seen in "Columbo Goes to College" where not only does blood spray as the victim is shot, but when Columbo and the students find the body in the parking garage, blood has pooled quite heavily.
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Columbo / int_14a8e0a2	type	Villain Opening Scene
Columbo / int_14a8e0a2	comment	Villain Opening Scene: Almost every episode (but not all) used this in tandem with the Reverse Whodunit format. The episode would begin with the bad guy, showing the murder and sometimes showing the events that led to the murder. Only after the deed was done would Lt. Columbo show up.
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Columbo / int_151f47fc	type	Roommate Com
Columbo / int_151f47fc	comment	Roommate Com: The episode "Death Hits the Jackpot" has the murder victim living in an apartment where he has an endless supply of wacky neighbors who keep dropping in after his murder and a pet monkey.
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Columbo / int_15b2cab3	type	Tempting Fate
Columbo / int_15b2cab3	comment	Mark McAndrews combines this with seriously Tempting Fate in "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Upon announcing his upcoming move and dumping Kay (and denying her the promotion she sorely sought), he takes out a gun from his chest of drawers and jokingly dares her to shoot him. She doesn't kill him right then and there, though.
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Columbo / int_170cf4b6	type	Heroes Love Dogs
Columbo / int_170cf4b6	comment	Heroes Love Dogs: Columbo eventually gets a pet Basset Hound, which he sometimes takes on investigations.
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Columbo / int_17501df2	type	Cool Old Guy
Columbo / int_17501df2	comment	Cool Old Guy: Columbo in the ABC run. Particularly in the final episodes where he's completely silver-haired.
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Columbo / int_1777688d	type	Genre Savvy
Columbo / int_1777688d	comment	Genre Savvy: Ward Fowler, the killer from "Fade in to Murder", plays a detective in a mystery show on TV. During the episode he offers "help" to Columbo in cracking the case, often commenting on mystery show conventions while working out details of the case. In the end, when confronted with damning evidence against him, he grudgingly accepts his fate, commenting on the fact that in a mystery story the killer's mistake is always exposed "by the end of the third act". Columbo is highly suspicious of Ms. Demitri in "Rest in Peace, Mrs Columbo" almost from the start, thanks to a dentist calling him at work when he didn't have an appointment just before the murder took place, along with other tiny things. His first task after being handed a jar of marmalade by her is to send it to the lab for testing (it has been poisoned).
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Columbo / int_18aff462	type	Artistic License â€“ Biology
Columbo / int_18aff462	comment	Artistic License â€“ Biology: Perhaps the oddest, most out-of-place moment in the entire series is in "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine", where Columbo gets close to a plant, and the plant begins screaming and shaking in fear because his lit cigar is too close. Despite the institute centering its tests around mental abilities and ESP, and a tour guide stating they were running tests on plants, come on... This was just a bit cartoonish.
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Columbo / int_18d15922	type	Title Drop
Columbo / int_18d15922	comment	Title Drop: This happens a few times, notably "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Sort of with "Undercover" — it would be hard not to use the word "undercover" in dialog as Columbo going undercover is a major plot point, though "jigsaw" is slipped in as well as a reference to the original book title that the episode was based on.
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Columbo / int_18e11001	type	Victim of the Week
Columbo / int_18e11001	comment	In "Double Shock" Columbo visits Julia Chambers (the Victim of the Week's younger widow) who just just happens to showing what good shape's on her apartment's balcony. Given she's played by Julie Newmar, this was probably to be expected.
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Columbo / int_191a3673	type	Graceful Loser
Columbo / int_191a3673	comment	Graceful Loser: Usually. Columbo has the good sense to plan ahead for when this doesn't seem likely. In "Ã‰tude in Black", after his wife contradicts the murderer's alibi, the killer takes a quick moment to apologize to his wife before confessing to Columbo so he isn't too humiliated by being caught.
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Columbo / int_19851b86	type	The Sociopath
Columbo / int_19851b86	comment	The Sociopath: Quite a few of the killers over the years. Dr. Fleming in Prescription: Murder and Leslie Williams in "Ransom for a Dead Man" particularly stand out because their utter lack of conscience or capacity for normal human empathy becomes crucial to Columbo's Batman Gambits against them. Dr. Barry Mayfield in "A Stitch in Crime" is filled with egomania, successfully rigging Dr. Hidemann's heart valve with dissolving suture to attempt to murder him. Nurse Sharon Martin confronts Dr. Mayfield after noticing the suture left on a tray. Mayfield mocks Sharon for her accusation and coldly dares her to notify authorities. When Sharon makes good on her threat and schedules an appointment with a suture supplier (Mayfield eavesdrops), she is murdered with a tire wrench at her car.
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Columbo / int_1b65dfad	type	The Cameo
Columbo / int_1b65dfad	comment	The Cameo: Robby the Robot makes a cameo in "Mind over Mayhem". Robby's Forbidden Planet co-star Leslie Nielsen had previously appeared in "Lady in Waiting", and Anne Francis was on Columbo twice.
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Columbo / int_1ba17583	type	The Ghost
Columbo / int_1ba17583	comment	The Ghost: Mrs. Columbo. We know she exists not just because Columbo often mentions her — which is not just a ruse, since he speaks about her in situations where he has no reason to be lying. But even more conclusively, there are a few episodes where other characters indicate they've interacted with her, most notably the episode in which the Columbos take a cruise. However, she never actually appears on the show, and her husband's descriptions of her vary immensely. He's always describing her to the perp though, so it's unlikely he'd give them an actual description.
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Columbo / int_1d8f9329	type	Deadly Bath
Columbo / int_1d8f9329	comment	Deadly Bath: The victims in "A Friend in Deed" and "Death Hits the Jackpot" are held underwater in their bathtubs to drown.
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Columbo / int_1d976ece	type	Inconsistent Episode Lengths
Columbo / int_1d976ece	comment	Inconsistent Episode Lengths: Episodes can be anywhere from 70 to 98 minutes depending on the complexity of the plot.
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Columbo / int_1e883ed3	type	Badges and Dog Tags
Columbo / int_1e883ed3	comment	Badges and Dog Tags: In "Swan Song", it's mentioned that Columbo served in the Korean War, implicitly in the MPs.
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Columbo / int_20f689e9	type	Adaptational Villainy
Columbo / int_20f689e9	comment	Adaptational Villainy: In the original stage version of Prescription: Murder, Dr. Fleming, while still a murderer, was considerably more sympathetic, being genuinely in love with his mistress and offering a confession to Columbo due to guilt over his role in her fake suicide. In the TV movie, he is a stone-cold sociopath who was simply using his mistress as a means to an end, and implies he would have been more than willing to kill her too if she got in his way if she hadn't (seemingly) killed herself first, thereby exposing his true nature to her, and compelling her to turn him in.
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Columbo / int_21304649	type	This Bear Was Framed
Columbo / int_21304649	comment	This Bear Was Framed: "How to Dial a Murder" involves a psychologist who trains his pet dogs to kill a man upon command and uses a phone call as an excuse to say the command to make it look as if the dogs merely became vicious for no reason.
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Columbo / int_225d4412	type	PlayedStraight
Columbo / int_225d4412	comment	Also Played Straight in "Murder, a Self Portrait". Max Barsini murders his ex-wife at a beach, using paint-cleaner on a rag. He forces her to breath it in. She is later found on the beach, appearing to have drowned after Mr. Barsini threw her unconscious body into the water.
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Columbo / int_23473ae7	type	Adaptation Expansion
Columbo / int_23473ae7	comment	Adaptation Expansion: The franchise initially began as a short story by Levinson & Link titled May I Come In?, about Dr. Flemming killing his wife and ends as the detective (then conceived as Lt. Fisher) asks if he can come in. Shortly after, the Chevy Mystery Show contracted them to expand the script into "Enough Rope", starring Bert Freed as Lt. Columbo. After that, the duo expanded the story into the stage play Prescription: Murder, which was followed by the television adaptation that led to the entire 69-episode TV series starring Peter Falk.
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Columbo / int_23a332fa	type	Italians Talk with Hands
Columbo / int_23a332fa	comment	Italians Talk with Hands: A variation: Columbo often seems to think with his hands.
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Columbo / int_246f70c6	type	Identical Twin Mistake
Columbo / int_246f70c6	comment	Identical Twin Mistake: This trope was used to trick a murderer into incriminating himself. The murderer had almost run over a blind man while fleeing from the scene of the crime. Later, Columbo brings in what appears to be the same blind man to identify the murderer. The killer protests that the man is blind. Then Columbo asks why the killer would think that, since the man he has bought in wasn't wearing dark glasses or carrying a white cane. The killer claims that as a trained physician he can spot subtle clues. Then Columbo has the "witness" read from a newspaper. The "witness" is the blind man's identical twin bother, and by claiming the witness was blind the killer showed that he has mistaken the man for the blind man who was almost run over.
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Columbo / int_255cc9bd	type	Nephewism
Columbo / int_255cc9bd	comment	Nephewism: In "No Time to Die", Columbo's nephew has his wife kidnapped on their wedding night. The fact that Columbo's nephew seems closer to Columbo than his own father, barely mentions his parents, and is quirky enough to sing "I'm a Jolly Good Fellow" at the hotel before going to bed with his new wife makes him seem more like Columbo's son instead.
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Columbo / int_26852e3d	type	Persona Non Grata
Columbo / int_26852e3d	comment	Persona Non Grata: Columbo himself is labeled as such from the Suarian legation in "A Case of Immunity" due to his murder investigation, which nearly cost him his job thanks to a tense political situation.
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Columbo / int_2719ab04	type	Special Guest
Columbo / int_2719ab04	comment	Special Guest: The show featured many guest stars as murderers, among them Anne Baxter, John Cassavetes, Billy Connolly, Robert Culp, Johnny Cash, Faye Dunaway, Ruth Gordon, Louis Jourdan, Walter Koenig, Martin Landau, Janet Leigh, Roddy McDowall, Patrick McGoohan, Vera Miles, Ray Milland, Leonard Nimoy, Donald Pleasence, William Shatner, Rip Torn, Dick Van Dyke and Robert Vaughn.
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Columbo / int_294ed981	type	Bilingual Bonus
Columbo / int_294ed981	comment	Bilingual Bonus: None of the Spanish dialog in "A Matter of Honor" is subtitled even though some of it does seem to be relevant plot dialog.
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Columbo / int_29e294a6	type	Stopped Clock
Columbo / int_29e294a6	comment	Stopped Clock: "Candidate for Crime" involves Nelson Hayward killing Harry Stone and then the time of death being established by a broken watch. Columbo figures the watch must have been planted on the victim's body with the time pre-set, because he was a tough sportsman who wouldn't have wanted to be seen dead wearing such a wimpy, fragile timepiece. This happens again in "Death Hits the Jackpot", when Leon Lamarr sets his nephew Fredy Brower's watch and breaks it to try to establish the time of death so that it will look like he was at his Halloween party when Fredy drowned. However, this fails to work when Columbo notices that this supposedly expensive watch is a counterfeit knockoff of a name brand watch... which Lamaar didn't know, as he'd bought Fredy the real deal as a gift some time before, and didn't know that Fredy had sold it and bought a knockoff. And this knockoff was not waterproof, unlike the real watch — so, if Fredy had really been bathing, he would have taken his watch off.
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Columbo / int_2a090d00	type	Lampshade Hanging
Columbo / int_2a090d00	comment	Lampshaded by Columbo in "How to Dial a Murder". Eric Mason makes so many mistakes, that Columbo expresses disappointment in how simple the case was. For one, Dr. Mason was having his heart-rate recorded when he tricked Dr. Hunter to saying "Rosebud" twice, and the heart-rate increased when Dr. Mason heard his trained Dobermans killing Dr. Hunter. Second, Columbo noted that a 911 call was not placed by the person who heard Dr. Hunter dying. Third, Dr. Mason unplugged another phone to force Dr. Hunter to use the "murder phone" and failed to plug it back in. There was also an obvious motive due to the fact that Dr. Hunter was having an affair with Mrs. Mason and Mrs. Mason died under suspicious circumstances. In a final act of desperation, Dr. Mason attempts to command his dogs to attack Columbo, but this fails miserably because Columbo had the training disarmed. This helps prove that he trained the dogs to attack with a secret word.
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Columbo / int_2a7e7af1	type	Limited Wardrobe
Columbo / int_2a7e7af1	comment	Limited Wardrobe: Columbo wore the exact same coat in every episode, with the same hopeless suit below it. Lampshaded in "Now You See Him", when he appears in a new coat that he can't avoid, since the Mrs. bought it for his birthday. He (intentionally) keeps forgetting it, and by the end has traded it in for his old one, albeit a newly-bought copy. In another episode he appears without his trademark raincoat for the first time... naturally it was pouring with rain.
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Columbo / int_2a8a7ea6	type	Bury Your Gays
Columbo / int_2a8a7ea6	comment	Bury Your Gays: Played with in "Butterfly in Shades of Gray" (the second William Shatner episode), where the victim was murdered because he was going to help Fielding Chase's adopted daughter become a published author and move out from under Chase's domineering wing. Although the attempted frame job at least tried to play this straight — Chase attempts to frame a gay actor that the victim had recently broken up with — it is quickly found to be a ruse. Played straight with Max Dyson in "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine". A little uncomfortable because Dyson is blatantly based on James Randi, who was still publicly in the closet at the time the episode was filmed. Played straight in episode "Lovely but Lethal", where Shirley Blaine swoons for Vivica Scott, only to get drugged via cigarette and die in a car accident.
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Columbo / int_2b5ea43c	type	Bland-Name Product
Columbo / int_2b5ea43c	comment	Bland-Name Product: Song And Dance in "Forgotten Lady" is basically Universal's version of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's That's Entertainment which was released the year before this episode premiered.
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Columbo / int_2b78c29d	type	And Another Thing...
Columbo / int_2b78c29d	comment	And Another Thing...: The entire show lives off this trope; it's Columbo's specialty, but many other characters end up doing it once or twice in their episode as well.
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Columbo / int_2bdae2ae	type	Awesome, but Impractical
Columbo / int_2bdae2ae	comment	Awesome, but Impractical: The ways in which Columbo can "prove" his targets' guilt are usually very subtle and, for the most part, wouldn't carry much weight in court — the way someone tied their shoelaces, a clean light bulb, a bottle of cider, a lighter stone, a match... A skilled lawyer would probably got all of Columbo's targets off, but that doesn't matter — what matters is the awesomeness of his reasoning, the way he puts the puzzle together with all the neatness and order his clothes lack. On the flip side, while prosecutors greatly prefer physical evidence, there is no legal requirement for it in order to bring a conviction. A skilled prosecutor could convince a jury that circumstantial evidence like those examples cited prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. Columbo himself frequently acknowledges that a lot of the evidence he finds is not conclusive by itself — but throughout any given episode, he's constantly picking up on similarly "inconclusive" pieces of evidence that nevertheless work to puncture holes in the murderer's alibi or link him/her to the murder. It doesn't matter how small the pieces are, if you put enough of them together you'll get a good sense of what the puzzle overall looks like. It helps that murderers in his verse feel obliged to confess or pull out a gun when they've been figured out.
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Columbo / int_2d50bb66	type	Perp Sweating
Columbo / int_2d50bb66	comment	Perp Sweating: This was usually done in a psychological manner by Columbo. While it was rare to see a normal interrogation, they did occasionally show them, the most notable example being "Murder of a Rock Star".
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Columbo / int_2d97c18b	type	Pool Scene
Columbo / int_2d97c18b	comment	Pool Scene: In "Swan Song", Columbo visits Tommy Brown to question him regarding the death of his wife. He finds him holding a party in his backyard with several bikini-clad young ladies lounging round the pool as he plays his guitar and sings.
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Columbo / int_2dc0d2bf	type	Hidden Depths
Columbo / int_2dc0d2bf	comment	Hidden Depths: In "The Conspirators" Columbo shows an amazing ability to come up with clever poetry at the top of his head, enough to rival (and impress) Joe Devlin. He does it one last time at the end of this episode shortly before he arrest Devlin. "The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case" suggests he is extraordinarily intelligent and may have a genius-level IQ, despite his claims to the contrary.
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Columbo / int_2f36d97	type	Older Than They Look
Columbo / int_2f36d97	comment	Older Than They Look: Milo Janus of "An Exercise in Fatality" looks to be in his 30s (Robert Conrad was in his 30s at time time) thanks to lots of exercise and proper meals, but is actually 53.
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Columbo / int_2f52c0af	type	Accidental Pervert
Columbo / int_2f52c0af	comment	Accidental Pervert: Columbo has to collect a porn tape for evidence, and sure enough is mistaken for a fellow customer by another middle-aged man in a shabby raincoat.
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Columbo / int_319e4a2f	type	Even Evil Has Standards
Columbo / int_319e4a2f	comment	Even Evil Has Standards: In "A Friend in Deed", the real cat burglar is appalled at the idea of being framed up for double murder. In "Publish or Perish", Riley Greenleaf has no qualms about killing two people, but is visibly disconcerted at the second victim's description of a limb-tearing mine as "beautiful" and the fact he drinks champagne from lab equipment. Joe Devlin, secret IRA fundraiser and gun runner in "The Conspirators", does a lot of bad deeds like supply guns to the IRA, but he believes in honor and murders his gun supplier when the supplier tries to cheat him.
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Columbo / int_3322dd48	type	Hollywood Law
Columbo / int_3322dd48	comment	Hollywood Law: Columbo basically disguises his surveillance of a suspect by pretending to simply question the person as a witness â€” nonstop throughout the episode. In this manner he thus badgers, harasses and tricks the suspect into revealing evidence that eventually convicts them. This is also breaching many various civil and ethical protections against police abuse and harassment; however, even when suspects complain about Columbo's nonstop harassment in order to end it, this proves no avail, as Columbo will simply claim that it "proves" that the person is guilty, and that "he's touching a nerve." This makes Columbo into more of a Vigilante Man than an officer of the law, since he is always right, and never incorrectly harasses an innocent person. In reality, the law is not made to presume that the police are always right, but to protect the citizen's presumption of innocence. For evidence of why this is necessary, you need to just look at people wrongly convicted of crimes, often due at least in part to overzealous police and prosecutors who are completely sure of their guilt. Columbo has a bad habit of tampering with forensic evidence. The way he handles evidence, there's no chain of custody and most of what he might try to admit wouldn't be permissible in a real court because he would just walk around, pick something up, put it in his pocket, and keep it there until he was ready to share it with the murderer. In "Agenda for Murder", Columbo visits attorney Oscar Finch in his office. While waiting in the office for Finch to come in, Columbo takes a piece of gum out of the wastebasket. Later he shows it to Finch, as well as the piece of bitten cheese from the crime scene.note Finch has a very uniquely shaped canine. The impression shows up on both Problem: the wastebasket is in the office, and does not come under the "garbage is public property" ruling; the trash would have to be out at the curb, in a dumpster, etc. Also, any real forensic detective would have fits at Columbo hauling around a vital piece of evidence like that cheese like that, in a plastic bag, without even an evidence label. Evidence seized without a warrant + broken custody chain of evidence = darn near impossible to use in court.
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Columbo / int_35b241c0	type	Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping
Columbo / int_35b241c0	comment	Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Peter Falk is of Polish descent and Jewish faith, while Columbo is Italian of possibly Roman Catholic faith. In a lot of the later seasons, Falk's voice was noticeably different and a Yiddish accent tended to slip through on occasion.
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Columbo / int_362bdb30	type	Out-Gambitted
Columbo / int_362bdb30	comment	Out-Gambitted: Eventually all of the culprits' plots turn out to be this.
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Columbo / int_370aad9	type	Split Personality
Columbo / int_370aad9	comment	Split Personality: Ward Fowler from "Fade in to Murder" keeps slipping into the persona of Detective Lucerne, his TV role, to help Columbo, and practically hands Columbo evidence to hang himself. "Sex and the Married Detective" starts with Dr. Joan Allenby putting on a disguise to murder her cheating lover and business partner. This second "Lisa" personality she put on to murder David does eventually manifest itself, however, leading to an eerie scene where Dr. Allenby is arguing with herself in a mirror with "Lisa", followed by "Lisa" visiting various nightclubs and having bartenders call Columbo with various messages. By the end, Dr. Allenby is so scared of this that she's practically relieved when she's arrested.
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Columbo / int_3892655c	type	Magical Security Cam
Columbo / int_3892655c	comment	Magical Security Cam: Playback ends with Columbo determining that the security footage of the shooting was filmed long before the guard even saw it due to the party invitation being present in the shooting footage, yet gone when the guard arrives. This would be fine except that the camera zooms in on a very clear shot of the invitation, showing legible writing. Given the distance of the camera, at best the zoomed image would be a giant, blurry white square. "A Bird in the Hand" features Columbo playing back the TV camera footage of the explosion, which cuts to various angles & zooms in on command as he needs it to.
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Columbo / int_38d02d44	type	Batman Gambit
Columbo / int_38d02d44	comment	Dr. Fleming in Prescription: Murder and Leslie Williams in "Ransom for a Dead Man" particularly stand out because their utter lack of conscience or capacity for normal human empathy becomes crucial to Columbo's Batman Gambits against them.
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Columbo / int_392372f9	type	Actor Allusion
Columbo / int_392372f9	comment	Actor Allusion: Robert Costanzo (best known as Harvey Bullock from Batman: The Animated Series) has a cameo in "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine", playing a bar owner who happens to be a retired police sergeant. Costanzo was a police officer before he became an actor. Despite being best known for her role as the victim in Psycho, Janet Leigh was in a large number of musicals and dance films. Her character in "Forgotten Lady" had nearly the same acting history (seemingly excluding a horror movie role). From "Murder with Too Many Notes", Billy Connolly plays film conductor Finlay Crawford, both names taken from one of his comedy routines about names he finds annoying. In "Identity Crisis", Nelson Brenner (Patrick McGoohan) says "be seeing you", a reference to the Arc Words of The Prisoner (1967).
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Columbo / int_3ae6199a	type	Psychopathic Manchild
Columbo / int_3ae6199a	comment	Psychopathic Manchild: Alex Bradey is a man child running around Hollywood making brilliant movies, but when confronted with evidence that he'd been responsible for the death of a woman many years ago, he gleefully sets up a way to murder the man who can expose him, seems to enjoy the act of murder and likes to playfully manipulate those around him into doing whatever he wants. Ultimately backfires when his boss gets fed up with him and Columbo manages to manipulate his own scenario to catch the guy.
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Columbo / int_3b4abb27	type	Double Meaning
Columbo / int_3b4abb27	comment	Double Meaning: Columbo himself is quite fond of saying things with double meanings. Especially to mess with a suspect.
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Columbo / int_3d197030	type	Greedy Televangelist
Columbo / int_3d197030	comment	Greedy Televangelist: One episode features a gospel singer who, while frugal, only insists her and her colleagues save money to later build an excessively lavish temple.
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Columbo / int_3e152bdf	type	Surprise Checkmate
Columbo / int_3e152bdf	comment	Surprise Checkmate: "The Most Dangerous Match" pushes this to the absolute limit when a grandmaster falls victim to the Fool's Mate, the quickest and absolute dumbest way to lose a game of chess.
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Columbo / int_3eb0f889	type	Pun-Based Title
Columbo / int_3eb0f889	comment	Pun-Based Title: Most episode names are a pun related to the murder committed. For example, in "An Exercise in Fatality" (an exercise in futility) Milo Janus strangles Gene Stafford and makes it look like an exercise mishap. In "Caution: Murder (Cigarette smoking) Can Be Hazardous to Your Health", Wade Anders kills Budd Clarke with poisoned cigarettes.
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Columbo / int_3f0b2f50	type	Make It Look Like an Accident
Columbo / int_3f0b2f50	comment	In "An Exercise in Fatality", Milo Janus successfully makes the murder look like an accident without leaving any evidence conclusively proving that it wasn't. But then he goes and tries to construct a perfect alibi (which he didn't really need, since the murder looked like an accident), which leads to Conviction by Contradiction when Columbo finishes ripping it apart. If he'd just not bothered with an alibi at all, he might have looked suspicious, but there would have been no evidence of any sort against him.
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Columbo / int_4192763e	type	Malaproper
Columbo / int_4192763e	comment	Malaproper: Columbo has a habit of transposing words — for instance, he claims the secret to a great omelette is "no eggs, just milk".
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Columbo / int_42c9f1ec	type	Downplayed Trope
Columbo / int_42c9f1ec	comment	Justin Price downplays this and may have even gotten away with the fake suicide due to Linwood's history of debt & drinking. However, Columbo notices that the computer where the suicide note was typed has missing fingerprints on the keyboard, which helps him consider someone wants him to believe that this was a "suicide".
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Columbo / int_44bd31e2	type	Trope Codifier
Columbo / int_44bd31e2	comment	Trope Codifier: Of the Reverse Whodunnit, Trope Maker being R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke.
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Columbo / int_4583a262	type	Shirtless Scene
Columbo / int_4583a262	comment	In the "An Exercise in Fatality" Columbo visits Milo Janus and Milo's secretary/lover Jessica Conroy lets him in, there's no real reason why she's wearing a bikini. And the episode balances it out with Milo's Shirtless Scene after a beach workout.
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Columbo / int_45de345c	type	The Peter Principle
Columbo / int_45de345c	comment	The Peter Principle: An example in "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Kay Freestone, a network assistant executive with high goals, dictates and practically directs a film that the network wants and guarantees it will be a success. When she is told she can't have her boyfriend Mark McAndrews's job after his promotion to New York (as he doesn't feel she's qualified note McAndrews tells her, she "doesn't make decisions", she "makes guesses". ), she shoots and kills McAndrews in his office to get the job. Afterwards, her plans to bring Valerie Kirk, an old friend and former star who also happens to be a pill junkie, out of retirement for a TV special fall apart (Kirk herself thinks she's been out of the game too long, and she's right), and the film the network ordered is a massive bomb when it airs (mostly because she desperately put the film up to replace the cancelled special, thus running it suddenly with no advertising beforehand). When her boss meets her, he points out several of her flaws: in addition to airing the aforementioned film suddenly (he specifically states she "threw away" said film), he's aware that the director of the cancelled special repeatedly warned her of issues with Kirk that Kay ignored, and he's displeased that Kay planned to move to the deceased McAndrews' office, not long after his murder. When she tries to protest that she did well considering the circumstances, he cuts her off by pointing out she was responsible for said circumstances.
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Columbo / int_4604fd4d	type	Worthy Opponent
Columbo / int_4604fd4d	comment	Worthy Opponent: In many ways, this is Columbo's unique stock-in-trade Ken Franklin in "Murder By the Book" seems to have this attitude upon being caught. "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case" is set at a Mensa-style club, with the killer, Oliver Brandt, being an Insufferable Genius who considers the victim, Bertie Hastings, and the other members of the club, to be inferior to his own intellect. When dealing with Columbo, he occasionally gets glimpses through Columbo's faÃ§ade, and by the time of his arrest, is relieved to have been caught by someone now considered a peer, intellectually — since Columbo solved the intellectual puzzle Brandt suggested to him with a very logical solution. Abigail Mitchell invokes this when he catches her. She states that if Columbo had been on the case when her niece had been murdered, she wouldn't have needed to kill her nephew-in-law, who killed her niece.
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Columbo / int_46754750	type	Inadvertent Entrance Cue
Columbo / int_46754750	comment	Inadvertent Entrance Cue: In "The Most Crucial Game" Columbo is talking to the murderer and muses that he can't think of a motive for the crime... at which point the murdered man's (very attractive) wife shows up and begins crying into the murderer's arms.
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Columbo / int_469e3e2f	type	In-Universe
Columbo / int_469e3e2f	comment	Done In-Universe in "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Kay Freestone, a network assistant executive with high goals, dictates and practically directs a film that the network wants and guarantees it will be a success. When she is told she can't have her boyfriend Mark McAndrews's job after his promotion to New York (as he doesn't feel she's qualified), she shoots and kills McAndrews in his office to get the job. Afterwards, her plans to bring Valerie Kirk, an old friend and former star who also happens to be a pill junkie, out of retirement for a TV special falls apart, and the film the network ordered is a massive bomb when it finally airs (both because she desperately put the film up to replace the cancelled special, thus running it suddenly with no advertising beforehand and because not only was it implied to be controversial in content because of a suicide scene, but replacing a cheerful musical performance with a gritty violent drama with no prior warning is a huge Mood Whiplash to say at very least). As Mark McAndrews told her, she "doesn't make decisions", she "makes guesses". Getting arrested by Columbo for murder doesn't really help either, but her career is really over well before that.
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Columbo / int_4764ce3a	type	Military Moonshiner
Columbo / int_4764ce3a	comment	Military Moonshiner: In "By Dawn's Early Light", Colonel Lyle Rumford incriminates himself in William Haynes's murder by going on a crusade to track down the boys who are making alcoholic apple cider (hanging the bottle outside in the wee hours of the morning to help it ferment). Columbo is able to show that the only way he could have been aware of it was if he was standing by the academy cannon while rigging it to explode.
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Columbo / int_48c99e19	type	Death by Adaptation
Columbo / int_48c99e19	comment	Rudy Strasse in "No Time to Die" wasn't technically caught either, as he was shot dead by police officers. (Making this a case of Death by Adaptation, since in the novel it's based on, Klausnote his name in the novel is shot, but survives.)
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Columbo / int_49f20c6a	type	Gory Discretion Shot
Columbo / int_49f20c6a	comment	Gory Discretion Shot: Some examples: Dr. Mayfield in "A Stitch in Crime" is seen raising a tire-wrench to cause head trauma. Next, a shot of the victim's purse hitting the ground is shown, followed by a shot of Mayfield stealing contents from her purse next to her lifeless body. Subverted in "Troubled Waters". Despite the censors at the time the episode was aired, it was one of those moments where blood had to be shown, as the murder Victim of the Week was shot in the back while she was wearing a backless dress. All that was done here was downplay the amount of blood that would normally pour out. Professor Rusk dies from a bullet in the head in "Columbo Goes to College". Kensington Gore is shown hitting the side of the Professor's car. Some broadcasters (Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, for one) skip the gore and simply show Rusk falling over with Bloodless Carnage.
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Columbo / int_4aaffbd5	type	I Never Said It Was Poison
Columbo / int_4aaffbd5	comment	I Never Said It Was Poison: In "Publish or Perish", Riley Greenleaf stages a minor car accident while pretending to be drunk in order to establish an alibi. He gives the couple he hit the card of his insurance agent and tells them to call him the next day. The next day, he pretends to have blacked out and cannot remember anything of the night. His lawyer comes out while he is talking to Columbo and reports the accident. Greenleaf pretends to be relieved, saying that if it weren't for "those people", he might have been suspected of murder. Columbo chews this over for a moment, then asks the lawyer how many people were in the car. The lawyer says two, and Columbo asks Greenleaf if his amnesia is wearing off, because he just said "those people", despite not knowing who was in the car. In "A Deadly State of Mind", Columbo finds a witness to a crime — a blind man. So they bring in their suspect, Dr. Collier, and have a guy in shades walk in, sit down, and identify Dr. Collier as the man who nearly ran into him while driving away from the Donner house on the day of the murder. Dr. Collier says his medical training tells him the man is blind, and hands him a newspaper... which he reads perfectly. Columbo reveals it's actually the blind man's similar-looking brother, and there was no way Dr. Collier should've thought he was blind. Unless, of course, he saw the real blind man while fleeing the scene of the crime. In "Negative Reaction", Paul Galesko incriminates himself by grabbing the incriminating camera used to take pictures of his wife. The mistake is that he grabs the correct one right away, instead of mistakenly grabbing a different one from a shelf full of cameras. In "Butterfly with Shades of Gray", there is a subversion, since Fielding Chase mentions that the victim was shot in the back. Most viewers assume that Chase only knows this because he is the shooter, but Chase does give a reasonable explanation to make it seem like he didn't commit the crime (since he made it seem like he was on the phone with the victim when he was killed), by stating that the victim would have told him over the phone that someone was aiming a gun at him, but since he didn't, he obviously was turned away from the shooter.
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Columbo / int_4ae690ca	type	Laughing Mad
Columbo / int_4ae690ca	comment	In "Short Fuse", Roger Stanford goes Laughing Mad when he realizes that there is no bomb and he's just exposed his M.O. in front of witnesses.
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Columbo / int_4bdbca25	type	Irregular Series
Columbo / int_4bdbca25	comment	Irregular Series: It started as a Made-for-TV Movie, then became a series which aired as every third episode of The NBC Mystery Movie. Later, it became a series of TV Movies which aired with decreasing frequency.
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Columbo / int_4df647d9	type	Billed Above the Title
Columbo / int_4df647d9	comment	Billed Above the Title: At the beginning of the actual credits, 'Peter Falk as...Columbo'. Before the actual episode begins, at the end of the Mystery Movie title sequence, we hear the great Hank Simms intone, "Tonight, Peter Falk as Columbo!"
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Columbo / int_4e3d253b	type	Downer Ending
Columbo / int_4e3d253b	comment	Downer Ending: "Forgotten Lady" is one of the very few episodes in which the killer isn't caught, because it turns out that Grace Wheeler has a weakened artery in her brain which not only causes her severe issues with recent memory but will kill her shortly. She has two months to live at most, and could very well die at any time. She doesn't even remember shooting her husband, and to make matters worse, when her former dancer partner, Ned Diamond confesses to the killing in her place, she now has to watch an old friend taken away for what she had firmly believed to be a suicide the entire time. Her only solitude left is to watch an old movie that means a lot to her. It doesn't help much that the episode is full of small downer moments leading up to this but the major plot twist was very subtly foreshadowed, and many people didn't see it coming.
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Columbo / int_4e7c4536	type	Wham Line
Columbo / int_4e7c4536	comment	Wham Line: So often, just when it looks like the killer has gotten away with it, one sentence makes them realize they just fell into Columbo's trap. From "A Deadly State of Mind": "Always pack a bulky sweater and some heavy underwear..." For context, this is the supposedly blind witness reading from a magazine the killer gave him. As Columbo points out, why would the suspect believe the guy was blind unless he'd seen him before? From "A Friend in Deed": "He doesn't live here. I live here." From "Suitable for Framing": "No, we're not looking for your prints." From "The Most Dangerous Match": "I'm sorry, Mr Clayton, but along with all the other trivial evidence that we've talked about, the murderer in this case just had to be a deaf man." From "Columbo Goes to College": "But it is not Dominick Doyle's car. It's my wife's."
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Columbo / int_4e7f703c	type	Wham Shot
Columbo / int_4e7f703c	comment	Wham Shot: In "Suitable for Framing", Dale, really losing it now, starts yelling about how Columbo is trying to set him up and has planted his prints on the paintings just now when everyone's attention was distracted. Columbo, by now clearly fed up with this guy, just silently removes his hands from his pockets where he's had them all throughout the scene... only to reveal he's been wearing gloves the whole time.
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Columbo / int_4e95743e	type	Cutlery Escape Aid
Columbo / int_4e95743e	comment	Cutlery Escape Aid: In "No Time to Die", the bride of Columbo's nephew is kidnapped and trapped in a room. She uses vinegar left with her dinner to help remove the rust from the door hinges, while lubricating the pins. She scrapes away the rust with a fork and is able to push the pins out, freeing herself from the room. Sadly not from the rest of the house.
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Columbo / int_4eddbc06	type	Animated Credits Opening
Columbo / int_4eddbc06	comment	Prescription: Murder, being the first film, hadn't yet set the formula. It opens with a trippy animated ink blot title sequence, features music not heard elsewhere in the series, and Peter Falk has a much shorter haircut than we were familiar with. Columbo himself isn't even seen until 33 minutes into the episode. Seeing him harangue the murderer's mistress to the extent of actually shouting is also pretty startling. Falk also appears in several scenes without the familiar raincoat, which coupled with his haircut makes him look a good deal like Jack Webb.
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Columbo / int_4f4372e9	type	Early-Installment Weirdness
Columbo / int_4f4372e9	comment	Early-Installment Weirdness: Prescription: Murder, being the first film, hadn't yet set the formula. It opens with a trippy animated ink blot title sequence, features music not heard elsewhere in the series, and Peter Falk has a much shorter haircut than we were familiar with. Columbo himself isn't even seen until 33 minutes into the episode. Seeing him harangue the murderer's mistress to the extent of actually shouting is also pretty startling. Falk also appears in several scenes without the familiar raincoat, which coupled with his haircut makes him look a good deal like Jack Webb. "Death Lends a Hand" features a still shot of Robert Culp's face with his cleanup of the crime scene reflected in his glasses. It's also the only episode in the entire series that features one death, committed accidentally by culprit Culp. While other episodes included an accidental first death, the killer or killers invariably cemented their guilt by trying to cover up the crime either by killing someone who knew too much, or someone attempting to blackmail them. The episode also ups the weirdness ante in the sense that many of the murderers attempt to clearly frame an innocent party for their own crime. While Brimmer (Culp) certainly tries to impede the investigation, he never plants evidence or tries to frame anyone for the crime, not even the man that his accidental victim was having an affair with. He seems content to just muddy the waters and leave it as an unsolved crime. Possibly justified in the sense that Brimmer is a private investigator and very intelligent, and thus may be acutely aware that trying to frame an innocent party will backfire spectacularly. It has in every other instance it's been used in the series, possibly making Brimmer one of the most Genre Savvy characters in the series. The same episode also features Columbo setting up an elaborate sting operation to catch the culprit. Lying to his suspect about a piece of evidence, and setting up surveillance to see if the guy goes to look and destroy the aforementioned evidence. This is far more proactive than Columbo would generally do, instead coming to rely on unravelling the suspect's web of lies. "Blueprint for Murder" features a similar sting, though in this case it's more Columbo anticipating the criminal's actions than provoking him to act. "Ã‰tude in Black" features a zoom-in view of the flower on the floor in the killer's sunglasses.
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Columbo / int_4f84cdef	type	Smug Snake
Columbo / int_4f84cdef	comment	Smug Snake: Many of the killers. Roddy McDowell was a good example. Another, played by Leonard Nimoy, was so smug that Columbo has one of his few moments of anger with him.
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Columbo / int_4ff0627a	type	Suspect Existence Failure
Columbo / int_4ff0627a	comment	Suspect Existence Failure: The episode "Last Salute to the Commodore" starts out as a normal episode, with us seeing Robert Vaughn disposing of the victim's body and setting up his alibi, Lt Columbo comes in and starts his usual harassing of the suspect, and then half way through Robert Vaughn turns up dead, and the episode suddenly turns into a Whodunnit.
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Columbo / int_537dd8fe	type	Affably Evil
Columbo / int_537dd8fe	comment	Most of the murderers who aren't actually Affably Evil (or the occasional Sympathetic Murderer) are this. These ones tend to start off quite smarmy and condescendingly pleasant to Columbo, only to gradually get more frazzled as he keeps poking holes in their perfect crimes until, by the end, their true and rather nasty colors are exposed.
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Columbo / int_54ee15f9	type	Always Gets His Man
Columbo / int_54ee15f9	comment	Always Gets His Man: In the final Patrick McGoohan episode, Columbo tells him that yes, he does always get his man. Well, almost always. In "Forgotten Lady", he let Grace Wheeler go (she was dying of a brain disease and had actually forgotten she had committed the murder), and in "It's All in the Game", he accepted Lauren Staton's confession on the condition that her accomplice (her daughter) would not be arrested. Rudy Strasse in "No Time to Die" wasn't technically caught either, as he was shot dead by police officers. (Making this a case of Death by Adaptation, since in the novel it's based on, Klausnote his name in the novel is shot, but survives.) In "A Deadly State of Mind", Dr. Mark Collier (George Hamilton in his first Columbo appearance) actually gets away with Nadia Donner's murder, having used hypnosis to trick her into diving off a balcony to her death, and in the denouement Columbo, for the only time, admits defeat. Sort of... The episode "A Bird in the Hand" technically has two murders go unpunished. The first murder he had strong evidence for but nothing clinching, while the culprit in the second murder note even though it killed an unintended target, it still counts as murder was the victim of the third murder. In "It's All in the Game", Columbo lets Lauren Staton confess to the murder in return for letting Lauren's daughter, Lisa, go free, despite the fact that she was involved in the plot to kill him. It's largely due to the fact that the man they killed was sleeping with Lauren AND Lisa, made threats of violence and caused Lisa physical harm to prevent her from speaking to anyone about his abuse.
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Columbo / int_562abd51	type	Let's Get Dangerous!
Columbo / int_562abd51	comment	Let's Get Dangerous!: A minor example, since the Lieutenant rarely gets physical. However, watch most of Columbo's interactions with the murderer throughout the episode carefully. In the early scenes, he's his usual amiable, bumbling, harmless-seeming self. In the last scene however, where he confronts the murderer with how they committed the crime, while he's usually still polite there's often an edge of determination, confidence and steel that wasn't there previously. Played straight in "Undercover" when he's forced to kick open a door and pull a gun on Mo Weinberg.
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Columbo / int_56352cc6	type	Animal Assassin
Columbo / int_56352cc6	comment	Animal Assassin: In "How to Dial a Murder", the killer uses a pair of Right Hand Attack Dogs (and a Trigger Phrase) to kill the Victim of the Week while being on the other side of the city.
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Columbo / int_57e4d517	type	Pillow Silencer
Columbo / int_57e4d517	comment	Pillow Silencer: The villain of "Troubled Waters" was being blackmailed by an old flame while on a sea cruise with his heiress wife. When the chanteuse declared that she was going to be a Shipping Torpedo during her performance, the villain shot her using a pistol and one of her dressing room's throw pillows. Of course, nobody heard this gunshot; only the bullethole and some stray feathers made any indication that the pillow served this purpose.
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Columbo / int_586949a8	type	Genius Slob
Columbo / int_586949a8	comment	Genius Slob: Columbo has had his appearance likened to an "unmade bed" and has been confused for being homeless at least once, carries among other things hard boiled eggs in his pocket, smokes cheap green cigars, happily munches his way through any free food and wears the same raincoat everyday (despite working in L.A.) but still solves crimes committed by certified geniuses.
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Columbo / int_596f675a	type	Smoking Is Cool
Columbo / int_596f675a	comment	Smoking Is Cool: Averted, for the most part. Columbo might smoke cheap cigars like crazy, but he's not an action hero and more often than not the smoke irritates those around him. Played straight on any occasion where a more well-off character offers him a Cuban cigar.
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Columbo / int_5a40d6a	type	Adaptation Distillation
Columbo / int_5a40d6a	comment	Adaptation Distillation: Both "87th Precinct" adaptations suffer from this — both feature the same basic plot as the books but that's more or less it. Aside from the normal time compression of adapting a book to screen, practically all of the social and racial commentary is stripped out. Many detectives are dropped with Columbo filling their roles. Arthur Brown is an "in name only" version of the original detective, as all the 70s era racial content concerning the character was done away with, in part because of the decade difference (the novels being set in the 70s, the Columbo episodes in the 90s) and because Columbo wasn't a series that focused on such things. Rudy Strasse is more or less the same, although a good chunk of his dialogue and personality had to be cut for time.
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Columbo / int_5a963d1c	type	False Reassurance
Columbo / int_5a963d1c	comment	False Reassurance: Done in a non-fatal manner in "Murder, Smoke and Shadows" when genius director Alex Bradey is called into the limo of his boss. The boss had earlier asked Alex, as a personal favour, to get his masterpiece ready for a summer release only for Alex to decline and humiliatingly drape a paper clip chain over his shoulders. Alex, perhaps sensing he went too far, tries to tell his boss the movie can be ready, but the boss assures him not to worry, as he already made other arrangements. And that's when he informs Alex that as a reward for being such an Ungrateful Bastard his budget is being cut to the bone, meaning he'll never be able to finish his masterpiece.
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Columbo / int_5aa8d3d8	type	Friendly Enemy
Columbo / int_5aa8d3d8	comment	Friendly Enemy: Unless the murderer is particularly obnoxious or callous to human life, Columbo will always treat them with the utmost respect, and if they have a hobby or occupation which interests him he may even try to strike up some at least partially genuine camaraderie despite acting against them. Depending on the personality of the culprit, that respect might be returned — or even that camaraderie. As noted in Go-Karting with Bowser, for example, Columbo and Joe Devlin from "The Conspirators" legitimately seem to enjoy each other's company despite Columbo trying to nail him and Joe knowing Columbo is trying to nail him the whole time. When Joe's number finally comes up, despite being on duty at the time Columbo even decides to share one final drink with him before the arrest. Many other killers also surrender without issue when caught out.
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Columbo / int_5bdf025f	type	Instant Sedation
Columbo / int_5bdf025f	comment	Instant Sedation: Played Straight in "A Stitch in Crime" on a minor character. Dr. Barry Mayfield wants to frame him for murder. Dr. Mayfield forces the man to breathe in a knock-out drug with a rag, before drugging him with his hospital supply of morphine, causing him to wake up under the morphine and die falling down stairs. Also Played Straight in "Murder, a Self Portrait". Max Barsini murders his ex-wife at a beach, using paint-cleaner on a rag. He forces her to breath it in. She is later found on the beach, appearing to have drowned after Mr. Barsini threw her unconscious body into the water. Subverted in "A Matter of Honor"; Luis Montoya shoots his victim with a Tranquillizer Dart but only uses a small dosage of the drug to make his victim woozy enough to keep him awake, because a sleeping victim wouldn't anger a vicious bull.
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Columbo / int_5c9737b5	type	Public Exposure
Columbo / int_5c9737b5	comment	Public Exposure: The episode "Suitable for Framing" has the lieutenant visiting a painter working with a nude model (despite painting a different subject), to Columbo's embarrassment. (Of course we don't see anything, she's hidden by the painting's frame.)
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Columbo / int_5ce2c9c6	type	Suddenly Shouting
Columbo / int_5ce2c9c6	comment	Suddenly Shouting: Paul Hanlon is prone to this in "The Most Crucial Game". "It TOOK me a minute... to PLACE the word CHICK!"
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Columbo / int_5f8e4390	type	Belly Dancer
Columbo / int_5f8e4390	comment	Belly Dancer: In "Try and Catch Me", Columbo ends up having to walk into the middle of a belly-dancing class to question the niece of a famous writer for a murder case. In "Identity Crisis" he can't seem to look away from a sexy belly dancer in a nightclub, barely listening to what the witness has to say.
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Columbo / int_5fdf73bc	type	Photographic Memory
Columbo / int_5fdf73bc	comment	Photographic Memory: Emmett Clayton has one in "The Most Dangerous Match".
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Columbo / int_60194b82	type	Spanner in the Works
Columbo / int_60194b82	comment	Spanner in the Works: In a number of cases, Columbo's put on the right trail by picking up on a minor detail in the crime that the killer didn't (and often couldn't) have predicted or accounted for.
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Columbo / int_60665480	type	Clock King
Columbo / int_60665480	comment	Clock King: The murderer in "Try and Catch Me" plans the murder down to the last second, even carrying a stopwatch while they commit the crime.
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Columbo / int_60a66fb1	type	Head-Tiltingly Kinky
Columbo / int_60a66fb1	comment	Head-Tiltingly Kinky: In "The Conspirators", Columbo is in a bookstore waiting for one of the sales clerks to get back to him. He picks up a book titled ''A New History of Erotic Art" and starts leafing through it. After a few seconds, he stops and peers intently at a page, then turns the book round. Getting a disapproving look from a customer, he puts the book back, but then returns to it a few moments later.
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Columbo / int_60fb097	type	Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat
Columbo / int_60fb097	comment	Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: In many cases the murderers would have gotten away with their crimes because there was not enough evidence against them, but they just must go out of their way to create a fake alibi or frame the murder on someone else, making enough mistakes in the process to be caught.
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Columbo / int_61b8f9e2	type	Bunny-Ears Lawyer
Columbo / int_61b8f9e2	comment	Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Columbo applies his quirkiness, politeness, absentmindedness, humility and curiosity to off-balance the suspect. This seems at first glance to be an act but if you observe how he interacts with people he knows well, it turns out he's actually like that all the time. Columbo's abilities as a detective are never questioned by his superiors, only by the suspects, and that's usually because he's getting too close to catching them. This was lampshaded in Prescription: Murder, when Columbo says that his superiors are well aware that a suspect is sweating when they call to complain about him. Any attempt to get him off the case, even by calling in favors, never seems to work well. The biggest example was "Columbo Cries Wolf". The case had already drawn massive media attention, and Columbo wants to dig up a significant portion of a large estate to look for a body that may or may not have been buried there, and likely is not as Sean Brantley has dared him to dig up the land. Columbo's reasonings for this are also rather thin (sound, maybe, but thin). Plus the massive expense of digging up that much land (which he apparently forgot about from such an endeavor in the first season's "Blueprint for Murder"). The mayor of Los Angeles decides to approve of this anyway, even based on thin evidence, just because it's Columbo who wants it done.
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Columbo / int_63499260	type	VillainOfTheWeek
Columbo / int_63499260	comment	In "The Most Dangerous Match", Columbo, during a talk with the Villain of the Week, gets a pager that he says is from the hospital, which upon answering via phone, he replies with relief that someone will make a full recovery, with the scene set up like it's talking about the would-be murder victim, leading to a horrified response from the killer. Columbo not long after clarifies it was from the animal hospital where his dog's being held, and he has to leave. The killer is still noticeably frazzled afterwards.
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Columbo / int_63b02752	type	Hair-Trigger Temper
Columbo / int_63b02752	comment	Hair-Trigger Temper: Robert Culp had two characters that suffered from this. For Brimmer in "Death Lends a Hand", that temper resulted in him striking a woman, leading to her accidental death and him trying to avoid being arrested. Paul Hanlon also got angry at the drop of a hat frequently during the episode, but was level-headed for the actual murder. Another shining example is Donald Pleasence who gets several moments in "Any Old Port in a Storm". His "LIQUID FILTH!" tirade at the restaurant has made the episode, and his killer, a fan favorite of the single appearance killers in the series.
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Columbo / int_63d3ce1a	type	Dismantled MacGuffin
Columbo / int_63d3ce1a	comment	Dismantled MacGuffin: "Undercover" has Columbo on the trail of somebody seeking pieces of a photograph that, when pieced together, shows where the proceeds from a bank robbery is stashed. The story is a reworking of the 87th Precinct novel Jigsaw.
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Columbo / int_63d861f8	type	Even Evil Has Loved Ones
Columbo / int_63d861f8	comment	Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For as manipulative, deceitful and plain evil as Fielding Chase in "Butterfly With Shades of Gray" was, especially to anyone who didn't share his political views, he did genuinely love his adoptive daughter and he did seem to genuinely believe that all of his political and business rivals would make life for her miserable should she try to go off on her own.
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Columbo / int_664bc28f	type	British Brevity
Columbo / int_664bc28f	comment	British Brevity: There were never more than eight episodes in a season, due to Columbo actually being part of a Wheel Program. The fact that there were so few episodes allowed the episodes to be longer; Columbo episodes were 75-90 minutes long as opposed to about 45 minutes for a regular drama program.
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Columbo / int_67792344	type	Grievous Bottley Harm
Columbo / int_67792344	comment	Grievous Bottley Harm: In "Murder by the Book", the murderer uses a champagne bottle to bludgeon the second Victim of the Week unconscious before dumping her in a lake to drown.
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Columbo / int_68068108	type	Evil Laugh
Columbo / int_68068108	comment	Evil Laugh: Dr. Barry Mayfield in "A Stitch in Crime" does one of these to Columbo to dismiss the theories that someone intentionally rigged Dr. Hidemann for heart failure, much to the Lieutenant's disgust. Columbo then slams a beverage pitcher, and tells Mayfield that he believes that he murdered Nurse Sharon, and makes a promise of police intervention to Mayfield that wipes the smile off his face.
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Columbo / int_69d46274	type	Justice by Other Legal Means
Columbo / int_69d46274	comment	Justice by Other Legal Means: In "A Deadly State of Mind", Dr. Mark Collier uses hypnosis to program Nadia Donner into jumping off of the balcony of her secondary home-apartment, and it appears (in Mark's mind) this will eliminate any leads to his accidental homicide of Mr. Carl Donner. However, Columbo brings a witness that places him at the Donner household at the time of the first accidental homicide, ending the episode. Columbo strongly suspects than the perp in "A Bird in the Hand" killed her husband, but never proves it. He does, however, prove that she committed a second murder, which is good enough for him.
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Columbo / int_6ad19559	type	Wine Is Classy
Columbo / int_6ad19559	comment	Wine Is Classy: Adrian Carsini has a zeal for producing and buying expensive wines in "Any Old Port in a Storm". He murders his half-brother who wants to sell off the Carsini Vinyard.
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Columbo / int_6af8ebb5	type	Death by Falling Over
Columbo / int_6af8ebb5	comment	Death by Falling Over: Some deaths happen by the victim accidentally falling over, or the killer wants the police to believe this. Lenore Kennicut in "Death Lends a Hand" dies from head trauma at the beginning, after being punched in a rage by Brimmer and hitting a table on her way down. Brimmer panics because he doesn't want to be a killer; he dumps her lifeless body at an industrial lot to disguise the death as a robbery. Alex Benedict in "Ã‰tude in Black" hopes that it appears his victim fell out of a bar stool and hit her head on a kitchen range, but the real murder happened from blunt-force trauma to her head from behind. Vanessa in "Columbo Likes the Nightlife" pushes Tony Galper away in self-defense when he becomes jealous of her relationship with Justin Prince, only for him to fall onto a glass coffee table, shattering it into broken glass shards, hitting the floor dead. Justin Prince comes over to hide the body remotely, because Tony is the son of a Mafia don who is providing essential funding for Justin's new nightclub.
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Columbo / int_6b92d74d	type	Correction Bait
Columbo / int_6b92d74d	comment	Correction Bait: In-Universe example: in "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case", this is how Columbo tricks the killer into revealing themselves.
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Columbo / int_6d871385	type	Villainous BSoD
Columbo / int_6d871385	comment	Villainous BSoD: Harold Van Wick in "Playback" goes insane when he realizes that his wife just saw the evidence tape showing the art gallery invitation on the desk during the murder. Alex Bradey of "Murder, Smoke & Shadows" briefly sees Columbo dressed as a ringmaster at the end — while potentially staged by the show for comedic effect, it's rather likely that the sudden stress of being arrested caused him to hallucinate.
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Columbo / int_6f33059b	type	Iconic Outfit
Columbo / int_6f33059b	comment	Iconic Outfit: The lieutenant's rumpled beige raincoat, usually worn over a cheap grey suit, has become iconic of mystery fiction.
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Columbo / int_704a3bbb	type	Real Men Cook
Columbo / int_704a3bbb	comment	Real Men Cook: In addition to being a Badass Bookworm, Columbo is a very talented cook who genuinely seems to enjoy making meals. Several episodes hint that he cooks a lot or even most of the meals at home, and when asked about his service in the Korean war he mentions he was mostly kitchen patrol.
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Columbo / int_716c0b1b	type	And the Adventure Continues
Columbo / int_716c0b1b	comment	And the Adventure Continues: Subverted with the final words in the last NBC episode which in universe was a phrase used by the big bad to control his whiskey intake, and out of universe described the series as a whole. (At least as far as anyone knew in 1978.)
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Columbo / int_7286e96d	type	Idiot Ball
Columbo / int_7286e96d	comment	Idiot Ball: The opening sequence of "Make Me a Perfect Murder" has Columbo driving while singing, ignoring his police radio, and remaining completely oblivious to the police sirens around him while he fiddles with his rear view mirror. The mirror piece comes off, and he attempts to reattach it while driving, without once pulling over and swerving all over the road. This entire time, his police radio is reporting the chatter of the car following him. This ends with him slamming on his brakes to avoid hitting one police car, while the one behind his car hits him, giving Columbo whiplash. Even for a character known for Obfuscating Stupidity the scene plays out to the point of making the character look incompetent. He seems to be holding the idiot ball in both "Try and Catch Me" and "Undercover". In both cases, he reaches his finger into a light bulb socket to remove a piece of evidence. This might be fine if he'd either unplugged the lamp (in the latter case) or had the circuit breaker shut off (in the former — it was a ceiling fixture). Instead, he simply reaches in with his finger without so much as making sure their power sources were off. That's ignoring his repeated annoyance of the housekeeper in "Double Shock"... much of which could be written off as Columbo being Columbo, though while he normally annoyed the suspect, he seemed to be more annoying to her with his mannerisms. But that's nothing compared to how he tested his theory of the electrocution — which he does so by dropping an electric device into a bathtub, then running to change the fuse. This not only burns out all the electricity in the house, but also ruins the housekeeper's TV set. Then he does it again! Even someone like Columbo could have thought to test his theory out without blowing out the fuse since all he really needs to verify is how long it would take to run from the upstairs bathroom to the basement fuse box. Columbo holds the ball in "Ã‰tude in Black" where he leaves his new Basset Hound dog in his car (at night) with the windows up. A girl with her own dog chews him out for his ignorance, but Columbo is at least thankful for the advice for his first dog.
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Columbo / int_733e007a	type	Unwitting Pawn
Columbo / int_733e007a	comment	Unwitting Pawn: Murderers on the show usually don't have accomplices, but when they do, the accomplice may be killed as part of a larger plan. For example, in "Old-Fashioned Murder", Ruth Lytton hires a just fired ex-con security guard, Milton Shaeffer, to break in and steal artifacts, claiming it's so she can get the insurance money. Her actual plan is to shoot him when he breaks in as part of a Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit so she can shoot her brother and frame him. In "Negative Reaction", Paul Galesko sets up Alvin Deschler to cover up the shooting of his wife. In "A Case of Immunity", Rachman Habib is Hassan Salah's accomplice in killing the head of security at the Suari Legation headquarters. He goes into hiding, though Hassan kills him after the fact and plants money and papers on him to frame him as the sole culprit.
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Columbo / int_74d10a21	type	Jerkass Has a Point
Columbo / int_74d10a21	comment	Jerk Ass Has A Point: In "Make Me a Perfect Murder", Kay Freestone's boss and lover Mark gets promoted to the east coast offices and flat out tells her he's not promoting her to his former position when he leaves, nor inviting her with him, stating she doesn't make decisions, she guesses. She proves him right by trying to push her newly sober friend into a live performance special, which fails disasterously when the friend can't handle it and takes a bunch of alcohol and pills. Kay instead runs a violent film she's been working on, without fanfare, to take the place of the unaired special. The head of the network tracks her down and chews her out for not only risking the live special with Kay's untested and marginally sober friend, but for costing lots of money in advertising and marketing and wasting the film she was working on without any fanfare, stating it was a good film but is now useless. The network head gives her a month to clear out, and her day only gets worse from there when Columbo shows up.
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Columbo / int_74ee1c2d	type	Out-of-Genre Experience
Columbo / int_74ee1c2d	comment	Out-of-Genre Experience: While the previous example was a minor one, "No Time to Die" completely went against grain of the series. It abandoned the usual murder plot and told a story of a kidnapping that played like a psychological thriller. Columbo's nephew, Andy, is married to a model. Immediately after the ceremony, Andy's new wife is kidnapped. Columbo has to work with much of the LAPD police force to find Andy's wife before an insane medical student can rape and kill her. The story takes place over the course of a single night. "Undercover" plays with this a bit by mixing in the usual Columbo murder mystery with a hunt for pieces of a photograph leading to the location of money stolen from a bank heist years before. Both this and "No Time to Die" were based on 87th Precinct novels. "Mind over Mayhem" takes a brief detour into Science Fiction, with a Teen Genius who has invented a robot (played by Robby the Robot of Forbidden Planet fame) so sophisticated that it seems to have artificial intelligence (not only does it play chess, but it gets angry when it loses).
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Columbo / int_757bbdb8	type	Massive Numbered Siblings
Columbo / int_757bbdb8	comment	Massive Numbered Siblings: In "Make Me a Perfect Murder", he off-handedly mentions to the Big Bad about his many, many siblings. The only one he mentions by name on-screen is his sister, Mary (Andy Parma's mother), who is deceased as of "No Time to Die".
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Columbo / int_75ee1020	type	FakeGunshot
Columbo / int_75ee1020	comment	Fake Gunshot: The murderer in "Candidate for Crime" fires a shot to put a hole in the window and the wall. He later uses a firecracker to fake a gunshot to make it look like someone had just tried to shoot him. Too bad for him Columbo had inspected the room in the interim, found the bullet and removed it from the wall.
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Columbo / int_76c02df6	type	Hero's Classic Car
Columbo / int_76c02df6	comment	Hero's Classic Car: Columbo drove around in a pretty banged-up 1959 Peugeot 403 convertible. In one episode, he claimed that there were only three cars like his in the US.
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Columbo / int_786d6cf6	type	You Wouldn't Shoot Me
Columbo / int_786d6cf6	comment	You Wouldn't Shoot Me: In "Fade into Murder", Claire Daley tries to call Ward Fowler's bluff. It is, of course, not a bluff.
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Columbo / int_7a08e8d1	type	They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!
Columbo / int_7a08e8d1	comment	They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: In "Double Exposure", Columbo keeps referring to Dr. Keppler (the murderer) as 'Mr. Keppler', and being angrily corrected by Keppler. Knowing Columbo, this almost certainly one of his tactics to keep the suspect off-balance.
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Columbo / int_7aa858c1	type	Consummate Liar
Columbo / int_7aa858c1	comment	Consummate Liar: Columbo, big time. He has a myriad of personal anecdotes to tell to the perp of the week, but across the series some turn out to be contradictory, so he may very likely make them up as he goes to help him further the investigation. Could be a case of Depending on the Writer, though.
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Columbo / int_7aeb0635	type	Arms Dealer
Columbo / int_7aeb0635	comment	Arms Dealer: The Victim of the Week in "The Conspirators" is an arms dealer who planned to take his client's money and skip the country; something the client did not take kindly to.
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Columbo / int_7b21ef92	type	Later-Installment Weirdness
Columbo / int_7b21ef92	comment	Later-Installment Weirdness: In "Columbo Cries Wolf", in contradiction with the series' usual modus operandi, the viewer never watches the actual moment of the murder, but the identity of the murderer is still well established. Justified since the murder didn't happen in the beginning of the movie, but at the end. The beginning scene was a set up meant to trick Columbo into believing a murder took place in order for the culprit to use the investigation as publicity for his magazine.
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Columbo / int_7b6e47a5	type	Armor-Piercing Question
Columbo / int_7b6e47a5	comment	Armor-Piercing Question: A variation: Practically every scene Columbo has with the murderer in a given episode involves him patiently and politely nodding along with whatever story the murderer is confidently trying to feed him, only to suddenly stop and ask a very pertinent question about something they hadn't considered and which they don't have a very good answer for, usually leaving them with a very worried expression on their face. Usually prefaced by Columbo making as if to leave, suddenly stopping and turning around, and saying "Oh, just one more thing..."
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Columbo / int_7bd44eb9	type	Smart People Play Chess
Columbo / int_7bd44eb9	comment	Smart People Play Chess: The subject of "The Most Dangerous Match", where Emmitt Clayton murders his rival before a long-awaited match upon realizing he can't possibly win. But subverted by Columbo himself; the Lieutenant prefers checkers.
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Columbo / int_7c1bfcea	type	Scary Surprise Party
Columbo / int_7c1bfcea	comment	Scary Surprise Party: In "Candidate for Crime", having just murdered his campaign manager, Nelson Hayward sneaks into his own home and flicks off several lights, plunging his wife into the dark. He then sneaks up behind her and claps his hand over her mouth. Then the lights turn on and guests yell surprise. The whole thing was a surprise party he organised as part of his alibi.
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Columbo / int_7cc8d769	type	Sore Loser
Columbo / int_7cc8d769	comment	Sore Loser: Some villains are not exactly happy to be caught: In "Lady in Waiting", the killer, Beth Chadwick, attempts to shoot Columbo after being found out... only for him to casually inform her there was a police car waiting outside and such a thing would do her more harm than good. Columbo almost jokingly declares that Beth has more class than that. Fielding Chase (William Shatner) also doesn't lose with much grace. At the end, a device is planted that intentionally disables his Mercedes-Benz in a seemingly empty stretch of road. After Columbo tells him how he committed the murder, Fielding pretends to open his trunk (or boot) and reach for roadside tools, but is hesitantly pulling out a shotgun. Fielding than asks Columbo to consider that he is acting foolishly because Fielding knows he's not armed. Columbo then agrees, but says he didn't come alone and holds down the car horn to summon the cops hiding further ahead.
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Columbo / int_7d53bc0b	type	Hollywood Silencer
Columbo / int_7d53bc0b	comment	Hollywood Silencer: If a gun is the murder weapon, there's about a 50% chance it'll have a silencer attached which will make no noise... and if a silencer is attached, it's probably a revolver. Played with in "The Conspirators": the murder weapon Joe Devlin uses to shoot Vincent Pauley is a special pistol with a built-in silencer.
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Columbo / int_7d791b62	type	Rewind, Replay, Repeat
Columbo / int_7d791b62	comment	Rewind, Replay, Repeat: Done several times in order to prove that the tape being used for an alibi was faked somehow. In "Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health", the inconsistency Columbo points out is the hedges behind the door in the tape Wade Anders has set up for his alibi. In "A Bird in the Hand", Columbo replays the news footage of Harold McCain's gardener blowing up to show Dolores (Tyne Daly) that Harold flinched in anticipation of the pipe bomb exploding. "Playback" features Harold Van Wick using a very expensive, very elaborate in-home security system (which for the 1970s, was NOT all that common) to record him shooting his mother-in-law (from out of frame) and play it back while at a party so that the security guard at the gatehouse will see it. Columbo discovers the ruse when spotting the party invitation on the desk in the footage of the shooting, which vanishes seconds later and was presented at the party itself.
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Columbo / int_7d89315b	type	"The Reason You Suck" Speech
Columbo / int_7d89315b	comment	"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Some particularly smug villains like to give this to Columbo when they've reached their limit.
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Columbo / int_7eb73553	type	Bullying a Dragon
Columbo / int_7eb73553	comment	Bullying a Dragon: Trying to shake down or blackmail someone that you know for a fact is a cold-blooded murderer seems to be one of the leading causes of death in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. This happens in, among other episodes, "Murder by the Book", "Dagger of the Mind", and "Lovely but Lethal". "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star" subverts this with Trish Fairbanks, the associate Hugh Creighton uses to supply his alibi while he's out to murder Marcy Edwards. She's smart enough to form a contingency plan in case of her sudden death, and tells Creighton as much, so that he'll not be able to back out of her blackmailing him. She survives the episode.
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Columbo / int_7ec94d53	type	Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
Columbo / int_7ec94d53	comment	Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: It's hard to feel total hatred for Rudy Strasse, the villain of "No Time to Die". When he was a child his father, a famous surgeon, was an abusive monster at home. One night he took the abuse too far and sliced Rudy's mother's neck open, killing her while Rudy watched. Realizing what he's done, the man kills himself in grief, again while Rudy watches. Yes, Rudy may be insane, yes he may have kidnapped a woman, yes he may even be planning to rape and kill her and himself... but he's got some serious and perfectly valid reasons to be as messed up as he is.
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Columbo / int_7febc23b	type	Establishing Character Moment
Columbo / int_7febc23b	comment	Establishing Character Moment: In the first real episode of the series, after Columbo has put the perp away he's left sitting in an airport diner with a Briefcase Full of Money and a waitress coming to him with his bill. When he finds out he doesn't have enough money to pay for it, instead of taking money from the briefcase he has her put it on his tab, showcasing just how upright and incorruptible he is.note Although he does almost pocket several fine cigars he used to trick Roddy McDowall's character into revealing his guilt at the end of "Short Fuse", before being reminded that they are evidence. He tosses them back with the others.
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Columbo / int_8015df5d	type	Reverse Whodunnit
Columbo / int_8015df5d	comment	Reverse Whodunnit: Trope Codifier and still the most famous example. In every episode (with two exceptions, see Oddball in the Series above), the murder is shown in the beginning and the audience knows who the killer is. The fun is in watching how Lt. Columbo will bring the killer to justice.
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Columbo / int_80251be3	type	How We Got Here
Columbo / int_80251be3	comment	How We Got Here: "Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo" starts with Mrs. Columbo's funeral. Vivian Dmitri's murder of her boss's partner Charlie Chambers, and the investigation scenes leading up to this funeral, are then told as lengthy flashbacks.
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Columbo / int_814356cb	type	White-Dwarf Starlet
Columbo / int_814356cb	comment	White-Dwarf Starlet: The killer of "Forgotten Lady" is an aged Hollywood actress who eventually kills her wealthy husband because he refuses to bankroll a theatrical play that would mean her comeback. It's eventually revealed at the end that the reason he wouldn't bankroll her is because she's terminally ill and suffering from symptoms similar to dementia. By the end of the episode, Columbo points out it's unlikely she even remembers committing the murder.
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Columbo / int_814a49df	type	Subliminal Advertising
Columbo / int_814a49df	comment	Subliminal Advertising: Dr. Bart Keppel is an expert in this technique in "Double Exposure". He uses it to lure Vic Norris to the spot he's picked out for the murder. Later, Columbo uses it against him to push him into revealing the location of the key evidence against him.
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Columbo / int_819b6384	type	Sympathetic Murderer
Columbo / int_819b6384	comment	Sympathetic Murderer: Some of the best episodes have the audience actively hoping the Lieutenant won't catch the perp. An interesting case in "Lady in Waiting" that plays with this trope. Beth Chadwick kills her controlling brother because he's trying to end the relationship between her and Peter, who works for him, by threatening to fire him. After his death she starts becoming as controlling and inconsiderate of other viewpoints as her brother — she even almost decides to shoot Columbo when he catches her! She only stops because he says she's "too classy" to do such a thing. There were also several officers with him just outside the room... although she was already being arrested for murder so it probably wouldn't have made much difference. In "Try and Catch Me", he gives a tale to an audience of crime-writing fans and says that his favorite part of his job is meeting nice people, even killers, because although what they have done is horrible, that doesn't mean they aren't genuinely nice people and he often understands their motives and sympathizes with them. This was a bit manipulative since the killer of that story is Abigail Mitchell, who was in said audience and it was doubtless for her ears too (she was more or less sympathetic, for the record), but based on the evidence, there is little reason to believe that he wasn't being truthful. Also, her motivation for murdering her nephew-in-law in the first place was that he had murdered her beloved niece a few months earlier. In "Swan Song", the episode featuring Johnny Cash, we know that we are supposed to be sympathetic to Tommy Brown (Cash) once we realize that he is tired of being controlled by his religiously fanatic, blackmailing wife. Tommy even expresses relief that he's been caught, and admits that he would eventually have given himself up. In a rather touching moment, Columbo reassures Tommy that there is still some good in him. The widow of a Columbo killer (never given an episode) who tries to hurt Columbo's wife due to her desire for Revenge. Adrian Carsini in "Any Old Port in a Storm": despite being rather arrogant, he has a genuine passion for fine wines and in an offhand comment it is mentioned that he pays the highest wages of any vineyard in that part of California. He also enjoys helping Columbo cultivate a taste for fine wine in the same episode. Columbo likes him so much that, after arresting him, he pulls over to the side of the road so they can share one last bottle of wine before he hauls him off to be booked.
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Columbo / int_8391b1c7	type	Artistic License â€“ Law
Columbo / int_8391b1c7	comment	Artistic License â€“ Law: Considering Columbo's methods and the fact that many of his cases lack much in the way of physical evidence, several of those Columbo has arrested would likely have been found not guilty if they had a good lawyer. One suspect that comes to mind is Paul Hanlon in "The Most Crucial Game", who clams up after being caught out and has several reasonable defenses against the "Gotcha." A fan joke states that this is the precise reason why Columbo hasn't received a promotion in decades. That said, many suspects have a habit of confessing when they are arrested and several others would have their reputations ruined even if they are, in the legal sense of the term, innocent. There's also the fact he is the rank of Lieutenant yet is out doing the same grunt work that a basic detective might be doing, without even a partner for backup. One has to wonder why he isn't commanding the Homicide squad instead? Perhaps he is successfully avoiding The Peter Principle, because he actually likes working cases better than administration. (Seriously, could you imagine a guy like Columbo trying to command a squad of detectives?) On the other hand, he must be doing something right if he hasn't been given a desk job as punishment for blowing so many investigations. Works well as Fridge Logic as to why Columbo often tries to bring the murderer to admit to his or her own guilt. Several times, it appears that the murderer will be convicted only because he or she has given up on trying to deny it after the final confrontation with Columbo. On many occasions throughout the series, Columbo is called in to investigate a missing person case, before it's even been established that a murder has occurred. The ending setup of "Strange Bedfellows" would likely cause all sorts of issues if what happened ever got out — between the courts, Internal Affairs & the news media, Columbo would not only be ruined but likely charged with entrapment. The setup involved threatening the killer's life to get him to confess. Sean Brantley and Diane Hunter would likely have faced multiple charges of fraud for their public relations setup in "Columbo Cries Wolf", as they deliberately manipulated the police department for extra magazine publicity. This is partially subverted in that the pair was counting on the stink raised over the whole scheme to make the city too worried about the bad press and just wanting to let the subject die. The writers, when confronted with these kinds of points, often freely admitted that they tended to approach Columbo more as an old-school "drawing room mystery"-style detective rather than as the star of a police procedural.
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Columbo / int_85537320	type	Police Procedural
Columbo / int_85537320	comment	Police Procedural
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Columbo / int_863fa679	type	What Happened to the Mouse?
Columbo / int_863fa679	comment	What Happened to the Mouse?: Early in "Publish or Perish", Riley Greenleaf has an attorney that not only bails him out on the drunk charge, but aids him on the sudden murder investigation. Once the insurance company provides Riley with an alibi for the time of the murder, the attorney has a brief discussion with Columbo, and is never seen again despite the ongoing investigation.
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Columbo / int_875615dd	type	Truth in Television
Columbo / int_875615dd	comment	Truth in Television: A lot of people would usually argue that Columbo often ends up using trickery or even outright coercion to get his final piece of evidence, like intentionally using falsified evidence or arresting the culprit on false pretenses, on the gamble that in reacting to the shoddy arrest they will do something that allows him to make a real one. Thus, because these tactics seem blatantly legal-adjacent, it would make the evidence fall apart fairly quickly in court. However, terrifyingly enough, while somewhat controversial, all of that is totally legal during interrogations, which any good DA would spun into the argument that's all Columbo is doing: an interrogation. Studies have shown as well that, in real life, the sort of Type A "amateur murderer" pursued by Columbo willingly confesses and surrenders once he or she feels genuinely outwitted, enabling Columbo to bring them in on a confession even when he lacks the evidence to otherwise arrest them. (This sort of murderer is fairly rare in real life, but they seem to be Columbo's specialty.)
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Columbo / int_8797239c	type	Bait-and-Switch
Columbo / int_8797239c	comment	Bait-and-Switch: The start of Columbo's perspective in "Mind over Mayhem" has him talking with a dean over having to withdraw a potential student due to "this thing never happening before", immediately after the murder of the episode previously, making it seem related to the mystery and like the detective was perhaps in a personal situation. Turns out the pair are talking about his pet dog for an obedience school, though he does immediately get a phone call that sets him onto the case from there. In "The Most Dangerous Match", Columbo, during a talk with the Villain of the Week, gets a pager that he says is from the hospital, which upon answering via phone, he replies with relief that someone will make a full recovery, with the scene set up like it's talking about the would-be murder victim, leading to a horrified response from the killer. Columbo not long after clarifies it was from the animal hospital where his dog's being held, and he has to leave. The killer is still noticeably frazzled afterwards.
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Columbo / int_8947140b	type	Significant Reference Date
Columbo / int_8947140b	comment	Significant Reference Date: In 1990's "Uneasy Lies the Crown", Columbo says he's been on the police force for 22 years. And indeed it was 22 years since the first Columbo TV movie, 1968's Prescription: Murder.
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Columbo / int_8a07e085	type	Denser and Wackier
Columbo / int_8a07e085	comment	Denser and Wackier: Columbo slowly went from a rather serious detective to an iconically unkempt eccentric as seasons passed. In this case however, the trope seldom came at the cost of his actual competence, and was merely to compliment his ability to take his Chessmaster suspects by surpise.
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Columbo / int_8cb66c2f	type	Who Murdered the Asshole
Columbo / int_8cb66c2f	comment	Who Murdered the Asshole: A trademark. Subverted with a notable few, though.
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Columbo / int_8d6d9535	type	Artistic License â€“ Medicine
Columbo / int_8d6d9535	comment	Artistic License â€“ Medicine: "Murder Under Glass" features blowfish poison used as the murder weapon, which kills the victim in about a minute. In reality, it'd have taken the man hours, possibly even a full day to die, and that's IF he died considering that proper medical treatment would probably have saved his life. He wouldn't have collapsed and died that fast. Subverted in "Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health". The fatal dose of nicotine sulfate, administered by Wade Anders to Budd Clarke by inserting a few drops into one of his Victory King cigarettes, probably would kill a man as fast as was shown in the episode. Obviously, Wade may have added a little more poison than necessary in order to guarantee that it would work.
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Columbo / int_8d83bed9	type	The Vietnam Vet
Columbo / int_8d83bed9	comment	The Vietnam Vet: In "Publish or Perish", Riley Greenleaf hires a Mad Bomber Vietnam vet to commit murder for by promising to publish his book How To Blow Up Anything in Ten Easy Lessons.
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Columbo / int_8e00db94	type	Mystery of the Week
Columbo / int_8e00db94	comment	Mystery of the Week: How is Columbo going to catch the special guest star for committing their unnecessarily complex murder this time?
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Columbo / int_8ed5c6e4	type	Asshole Victim
Columbo / int_8ed5c6e4	comment	Asshole Victim: About half the time or so, the episode'll feature one. Funnily, the show didn't always have it used to establish a sympathetic killer; plenty of times the murderer is just as bad (if not worse) than their victim.
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Columbo / int_8fe962f3	type	Battle Discretion Shot
Columbo / int_8fe962f3	comment	Battle Discretion Shot: "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star": Hugh Creighton is implied to use strangulation by hand, but as he prepares to attack, the film cuts to Hugh washing the evidence of drugs out of a champagne bottle and the glasses, minutes after the murder.
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Columbo / int_901bb4c3	type	Suspiciously Prescient Planning
Columbo / int_901bb4c3	comment	Suspiciously Prescient Planning: In "Candidate for a Crime", senatorial candidate Nelson Hayward murders his campaign manager Harry Stone. His plan involved contriving a scenario where Harry would disguise himself as Hayward using his clothes, all so he could make it look like a case of mistaken identity. One of the many things that tips off Columbo throughout the episode is that Hayward receives a new jacket shortly after the murder, identical to the one that is now riddled with bullet holes and soaked in blood, seemingly intended as a replacement. Except it's a designer jacket, made to order, and it takes weeks to make. So how did Hayward know to order a new one ahead of time?
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Columbo / int_90631787	type	Vehicle-Based Characterization
Columbo / int_90631787	comment	Vehicle-Based Characterization: Columbo's ancient silver Peugeot is perfectly fit to his Obfuscating Stupidity persona. His car also highlights his position as an ordinary man investigating the crimes of very rich scoundrels.
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Columbo / int_9099c21c	type	GPS Evidence
Columbo / int_9099c21c	comment	GPS Evidence: There are quite a number of cases of this. The earliest is "Lovely but Lethal" — both the killer and Columbo contracted poison ivy from the crime scene. That strain of poison ivy didn't grow in Los Angeles, but was present at the crime scene because the victim was doing scientific research on plants. A sample had been on the microscope slide when it was shattered. This, coupled with the eyebrow pencil scribbles was enough solid proof that the killer had been at the scene at the time of the murder. In "Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health", Columbo's car is scratched by Budd Clarke's dog when he arrives at the scene for the first time. He proves Wade Anders is lying when he says he has never been to the house upon discovering identical claw marks on Anders' car. In "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star", the clue comes in the form of berries from a tree that only grows in a certain area.
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Columbo / int_90e31482	type	Laser-Guided Karma
Columbo / int_90e31482	comment	Laser-Guided Karma: Generally, the killers will suffer at the end of the episode during the denouement. However, a few suffer blows before Columbo comes in with the rope to hang them, generally thanks to things dug up during the course of the investigation. Alex Bradey in "Murder, Smoke and Shadows" is a brilliant but arrogant Manchild who at one point is approached by the studio head (who'd discovered him and indulged in his eccentricities) and asked to speed up the creation of his movie for a summer release. Even as his boss is talking, Alex is clearly only half-listening while fashioning a chain of paper clips, and after his boss makes his appeal Alex declines and tells him to just tell the executives that he's being difficult before draping the paper clip chain over the studio head's shoulders. Later on the studio head calls upon Alex to ride in his limo for a quick chat, where he informs Alex that he's essentially crippling Alex's production for being such an Ungrateful Bastard. Note that this happens independently of Columbo. In fact, Alex barely has time to process the ruin of his life's work when Columbo brings him down.
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Columbo / int_92f674e5	type	Revenge
Columbo / int_92f674e5	comment	The widow of a Columbo killer (never given an episode) who tries to hurt Columbo's wife due to her desire for Revenge.
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Columbo / int_94332264	type	Busman's Holiday
Columbo / int_94332264	comment	Busman's Holiday: In common with many detective series of the period once their creators got bored with the standard milieu. Wherever Columbo goes to relax, somebody else will die. "Troubled Waters" and "A Matter of Honor" are examples.
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Columbo / int_957e5fc2	type	Villainous Breakdown
Columbo / int_957e5fc2	comment	Villainous Breakdown: Some of the killers suffer these when the noose finally tightens: In "Suitable for Framing", Dale Kingston starts shrieking at the top of his lungs that Columbo planted his own fingerprints on the stolen paintings, only to be struck completely dumb when Columbo reveals that he's wearing gloves. In "Short Fuse", Roger Stanford goes Laughing Mad when he realizes that there is no bomb and he's just exposed his M.O. in front of witnesses. In "Dagger of the Mind", Nicholas Frame starts giggling to himself and babbling a monologue from Macbeth when he realizes (or, to be perfectly accurate, is tricked into believing) that Columbo has found a key piece of evidence against him.
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Columbo / int_95b7c400	type	Faux Affably Evil
Columbo / int_95b7c400	comment	Faux Affably Evil: Most of the murderers who aren't actually Affably Evil (or the occasional Sympathetic Murderer) are this. These ones tend to start off quite smarmy and condescendingly pleasant to Columbo, only to gradually get more frazzled as he keeps poking holes in their perfect crimes until, by the end, their true and rather nasty colors are exposed. In "Butterfly in Shades of Gray", Fielding Chase doesn't take Columbo very seriously, and cracks jokes at his expense. He is not above fighting dirty on his radio show either, rigging the calls to defame a senator with a sex scandal. The worst part about him is when his adopted daughter "spreads her wings" and plans to fly to New York with her friend, Gerry Winters, and get her book published; Fielding senselessly murders Gerry out of an obsessive desire to keep possession of his adopted daughter. At the end of the episode, it all backfires miserably; his daughter leaves him, and it is implied that he is going to prison for murder.
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Columbo / int_969c0ac2	type	Fresh Clue
Columbo / int_969c0ac2	comment	Fresh Clue: Invoked in both "Suitable for Framing" and "It's All in the Game", where the culprit puts an electric blanket over the body in an alibi trick, so that the body would still be warm when the police arrived.
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Columbo / int_974d246c	type	Be as Unhelpful as Possible
Columbo / int_974d246c	comment	Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Often, the killers try to act like they're helping Columbo when he inquires to them about details, but try to misdirect him with phony clues to throw Columbo off their trail. However, the killers are usually clever enough to add some truth in with the fiction which can end up backfiring when they accidentally divulge a detail that places them at the scene of the crime.
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Columbo / int_9ae8eea9	type	Character Tics
Columbo / int_9ae8eea9	comment	Character Tics: Columbo's habit of squinting his left eye, which was actually because Peter Falk's right eye was in fact a Glass Eye.
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Columbo / int_9b5516f0	type	Showy Invincible Hero
Columbo / int_9b5516f0	comment	Showy Invincible Hero: Does the bad guy have a chance? No way. The fun is seeing Columbo make them squirm.
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Columbo / int_9d39440e	type	Right-Hand Attack Dog
Columbo / int_9d39440e	comment	Right-Hand Attack Dog: Dr. Mason, the murderer in "How to Dial a Murder", travels with a pair of dobermans named Laurel and Hardy. He uses them as Animal Assassins to murder the Victim of the Week.
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Columbo / int_9dab0a6e	type	Continuity Nod
Columbo / int_9dab0a6e	comment	Continuity Nod: A few: In "Publish or Perish", Columbo tells Riley Greenleaf about one his cases involving a candidate for senate as a possible subject for a book, clearly based on the events of "Candidate for Crime" from just two episodes earlier. Season 2's "The Greenhouse Jungle" introduces us to Sergeant Wilson, who returns just once in Season 5's "Now You See Him". Detective Chief Superintendent Durk of Scotland Yard, who works with Columbo in "Dagger of the Mind", gets a mention in the much later episode "Columbo Cries Wolf".
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Columbo / int_9dfd7154	type	Fridge Logic
Columbo / int_9dfd7154	comment	Works well as Fridge Logic as to why Columbo often tries to bring the murderer to admit to his or her own guilt. Several times, it appears that the murderer will be convicted only because he or she has given up on trying to deny it after the final confrontation with Columbo.
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Columbo / int_9e10b88d	type	Defeating the Undefeatable
Columbo / int_9e10b88d	comment	Defeating the Undefeatable: Luis Montoya (Ricardo MontalbÃ¡n) from "A Matter of Honor" most certainly counts. He was one of the top celebrities and most influential people in Mexico, so the local police were practically afraid to investigate the crime once it became suspected, and Columbo was in a foreign country. While Columbo has challenged a few big time people over his career, his job could have ended and he'd have been in severe trouble if not for showing everyone that Montoya was not a great man, was in fact a coward and had killed Hector Rangel to try and hide that fact, causing Montoya to surrender. This came very close in "A Case of Immunity" where Hassan Salah was a foreign national with diplomatic immunity, and could have had Columbo fired. Columbo didn't have to take any big risks to catch the guy... after all, Columbo was on good terms with the king of that particular foreign nation and merely got the guy to spill a confession while the king listened. In this case, the suspect wasn't undefeatable, just hard to touch. Borders between this and Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? in "A Friend in Deed" when Columbo busts Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Halperin for murdering his wife and assisted Hugh Caldwell in helping cover up the murder of Caldwell's wife. He took down his own corrupt boss, of all people!
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Columbo / int_9f80e1da	type	Sarcasm Mode
Columbo / int_9f80e1da	comment	Roger White in "Double Exposure" stands out in this regard. Instead of doing the sane thing and informing Columbo about his tip on Bart Keppel, Roger gets greedy and tells Bart straight up that he'll be quiet about the murder if he gets $50,000. Shockingly, Bart shows up at Roger's secondary job and greases him.
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Columbo / int_a195379b	type	Murder by Cremation
Columbo / int_a195379b	comment	Murder by Cremation: In "Ashes to Ashes", mortician Eric Prince gets rid of gossip reporter Verity Chandler in this way. He bludgeons her, then puts her corpse in a coffin, switching it with a different man's body scheduled for cremation, then Chandler is cremated and her ashes are scattered by helicopter over the hills.
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Columbo / int_a1b0c1c2	type	Revealing Cover-Up
Columbo / int_a1b0c1c2	comment	Revealing Cover-Up: On more than one occasion, Columbo is tipped off to the crime or murderer when the crime scene is too clean, such as when there are no fingerprints on something the victim would have been reasonably expected to have touched.
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Columbo / int_a1b141f4	type	My God, What Have I Done?
Columbo / int_a1b141f4	comment	My God, What Have I Done?: Some of the antagonists feel bad about their murder. Brimmer in "Death Lends a Hand". He is shown to be unethical in how he uses third parties to spy on people, and he has bad temper that is a liability, but he never intended to be a killer. Brimmer becomes enraged and punches Lenore Kennicutt in the face when she confronts Brimmer to rebuff the blackmail scheme he had in mind for her. Lenore falls over and dies of head trauma, and Mr. Brimmer has a look of fright on his face after he finds no vital signs on her body. Brimmer seems relieved when Columbo catches him trying to dispose of evidence, and he proceeds to confess and apologize to Mr. Kennicutt. Tommy Brown in "Swan Song" initially feels a sense of relief, after murdering his blackmailing passengers by crashing his personal-aircraft. He tricks them into drinking coffee and barbiturates then parachutes off the plane. Tommy eventually feels that he took things too far, and gains a sense of relief when caught by Columbo. Columbo correctly speculates that Tommy would have eventually turned himself in to confess. Lydia Corman says this almost verbatim in "Uneasy Lies the Crown" when she thinks she's accidentally killed her lover with her heart medicine. Thankfully, it wasn't her. It was her sleazy ex-husband who tried to frame her for the murder.
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Columbo / int_a1c5e0cc	type	Trigger Phrase
Columbo / int_a1c5e0cc	comment	Trigger Phrase: In "How to Dial a Murder", the murderer phones the Victim of the Week and tricks him into saying "Rosebud" loudly, which is the trigger phrase to cause the Right Hand Attack Dogs to maul him to death.
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Columbo / int_a32334b4	type	Canon Discontinuity
Columbo / int_a32334b4	comment	Canon Discontinuity: Let us all just be very clear on this: Mrs. Columbo was not the Mrs. Columbo that Lt. Columbo talks about all the time.
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Columbo / int_a3597c29	type	Magic Countdown
Columbo / int_a3597c29	comment	Magic Countdown: Pops up in "Make Me a Perfect Murder", as Kay's recorded time warnings she listens to over her cassette player seem to go much slower than actual time. Her supposed two-minute window to commit the murder and get back takes a fair bit longer than that as a result. Let alone the fact she supposedly needed a player and earpiece to give herself time warnings, rather than simply wearing a watch.
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Columbo / int_a39d6056	type	Nice to the Waiter
Columbo / int_a39d6056	comment	Nice to the Waiter: Many killers and Asshole Victims establish themselves as such by being cruel to people below them. Columbo uses this to often troll people; since he usually doesn't immediately introduce himself as a police officer (or in any way look like one), he'll allow people to assume he's much less important than he really is... Then flash his badge after they've made idiots of themselves.
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Columbo / int_a3a4a800	type	Too Clever by Half
Columbo / int_a3a4a800	comment	Too Clever by Half: This is actually pretty common. A lot of these killers would have gotten away free if they'd just kept things simple, but many had to take it an extra step further by trying to set up a scene or frame someone, which caused them to make mistakes. Played with in "Murder by the Book". Ken Franklin's main murder of his writing partner Jim Ferris is intricate, well-thought out and almost flawless, but his second (to eliminate Lilly La Sanka as a witness) is sloppy and rushed. This gives Columbo the idea that the murderer, the less-talented half of a murder-mystery writing team, actually stole the idea for the first murder from one of the ideas that Ferris came up for their books, but the second was all his own. Ironically, the first murder was Franklin's idea, the only one that he ever came up with for them, but it was never used. If Alex Benedict in "Ã‰tude in Black" didn't come back for his flower pin, or just not wear it at all after retrieving it from the crime scene, he probably would never have been caught. "A Stitch in Crime" is a perfect example: if Dr. Mayfield had simply killed Sharon Martin in the parking lot, no doubt he'd have been free. However, he raises minor suspicion from Columbo by casually adjusting his deck clock while feigning surprise on the phone over Sharon's death. Also, the plot to make it look like a killing over drugs complicated the situation, caused far too many problems and led to his capture. "A Deadly State of Mind" has a great example: Dr. Collier knows Columbo's game at the end is a ruse and that the man couldn't have seen him for an identification because he's blind. However, aside from the glasses, there was no indication at all the man Columbo had in the room was blind. Dr. Collier practically gave away too much information for his own good. In "An Exercise in Fatality", Milo Janus successfully makes the murder look like an accident without leaving any evidence conclusively proving that it wasn't. But then he goes and tries to construct a perfect alibi (which he didn't really need, since the murder looked like an accident), which leads to Conviction by Contradiction when Columbo finishes ripping it apart. If he'd just not bothered with an alibi at all, he might have looked suspicious, but there would have been no evidence of any sort against him. Lampshaded by Columbo in "How to Dial a Murder". Eric Mason makes so many mistakes, that Columbo expresses disappointment in how simple the case was. For one, Dr. Mason was having his heart-rate recorded when he tricked Dr. Hunter to saying "Rosebud" twice, and the heart-rate increased when Dr. Mason heard his trained Dobermans killing Dr. Hunter. Second, Columbo noted that a 911 call was not placed by the person who heard Dr. Hunter dying. Third, Dr. Mason unplugged another phone to force Dr. Hunter to use the "murder phone" and failed to plug it back in. There was also an obvious motive due to the fact that Dr. Hunter was having an affair with Mrs. Mason and Mrs. Mason died under suspicious circumstances. In a final act of desperation, Dr. Mason attempts to command his dogs to attack Columbo, but this fails miserably because Columbo had the training disarmed. This helps prove that he trained the dogs to attack with a secret word. Justin Price downplays this and may have even gotten away with the fake suicide due to Linwood's history of debt & drinking. However, Columbo notices that the computer where the suicide note was typed has missing fingerprints on the keyboard, which helps him consider someone wants him to believe that this was a "suicide". Hayden Danziger in "Troubled Waters" really goes the distance in this trope. He not only decides to frame Lloyd Harrington for the murder of Rosanna Wells, but sets up a "perfect alibi" for himself as well by staging a fake heart attack and getting sent to the ship's infirmary. But Columbo realizes that the frame is on as soon as he sees the murder scene, and on the way to the infirmary with the corpse, he spots a lucky clue that focuses his attention on Danziger like a laser beam. Columbo just dismantles the case against Lloyd, breaks Danziger's alibi, and tricks Danziger into manufacturing even more evidence against Lloyd, a set of gloves with Danziger's complete handprints on the inside! If Danziger had not tried to set up an alibi he would just have been one of hundreds of random cruise ship passengers, and would have been almost impossible to identify as even a real suspect. Even worse, his alibi left behind physical evidence that the heart attack was staged, and his medical chart showed an elevated pulse rate around the time of the murder. Finally, his frame up of Lloyd was completely unnecessary in the first place, as Lloyd was known to have had a bad relationship with Rosanna and would have been the prime suspect anyway. The false evidence against Lloyd just makes Lloyd look innocent to Columbo, and Danziger's continued efforts to keep the frame going dooms him.
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Columbo / int_a63f45d5	type	Cool Uncle
Columbo / int_a63f45d5	comment	Cool Uncle: Columbo is this to Andy, his nephew from "No Time to Die".
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Columbo / int_a655d21c	type	Calling the Cops on the FBI
Columbo / int_a655d21c	comment	Calling the Cops on the FBI: In "Murder, Smoke and Shadows", when eating in movie shooting area cafeteria, Columbo witnesses a pair of actresses discussing what seems to be vital evidence to push forward his investigation of murder. The discussion is later revealed to have been staged by the murderer in order to actually derail the investigation. Later, because a security guard stops Columbo on accusation of stalking actresses, effectively preventing him from following the pair and verifying things immediately.
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Columbo / int_a6e8221e	type	Status Quo Is God
Columbo / int_a6e8221e	comment	Status Quo Is God: During an interview with WABC's Mark Simone, Falk was asked after all those years of solving all those high profile cases, why was Columbo still a Lieutenant? Falk chuckled and said "I guess he probably turned down a promotion here and there so he could keep on doing the work he loved."
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Columbo / int_a70223	type	Karma Houdini
Columbo / int_a70223	comment	Karma Houdini: The unnamed weapons dealer (played by L.Q. Jones) from "The Conspirators". He seems like a normal man who runs an RV dealership but runs guns. He sells the guns to Joe Devlin, takes the cash... and while Joe and his IRA cell are caught, the gun dealer is never busted. It is never mentioned if Devlin ratted him out after the fact hoping for some leniency.
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Columbo / int_a7aef9ff	type	Obfuscating Stupidity
Columbo / int_a7aef9ff	comment	Happens in "Murder with Too Many Notes", as Columbo asks one of the musicians to teach him how to play "This Old Man" on the piano at the end of the episode. Except he played the song perfectly on piano in "Try and Catch Me". Both examples could be hand-waved as Columbo lying as part of his Obfuscating Stupidity act.
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Columbo / int_a8a4b41e	type	Not So Stoic
Columbo / int_a8a4b41e	comment	Not So Stoic: Every suspect that meets Columbo at first keeps their calm, but whenever he hints the slightest that he is on to him/her, they freak out as soon as he leaves. One example, in "Lady in Waiting", Beth Chadwick tosses a light bulb (the same one she uses when she shoots and kills her brother) across the board room when she realizes that Columbo is getting closer to finding out. Columbo himself rarely lost his cool, but five times he had an O.O.C. Is Serious Business moment.
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Columbo / int_a9f392fd	type	Pilot Movie
Columbo / int_a9f392fd	comment	Pilot Movie: Prescription: Murder (1968) and Ransom for a Dead Man (1971) both preceded the series proper.
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Columbo / int_aaf19fae	type	Doesn't Like Guns
Columbo / int_aaf19fae	comment	Doesn't Like Guns: And is (and possibly due to being) a notoriously bad shot. Columbo appears to get other cops to take his shooting qualifications ("Forgotten Lady"). He'll carry a gun when the situation absolutely calls for it, but even then... he probably doesn't have great depth-perception anyway.note Of course, someone with only one eye would never be allowed to serve in the LAPD... He seems to have no problem brandishing one on Mo Weinberg in "Undercover" though, but Weinberg does try to shoot him. In "Butterfly in Shades of Grey", the killer sees Columbo without his famous trench coat and notes that he doesn't carry a gun, so tries to shoot him after being exposed. Columbo calmly points out that he might not be armed, but he's not alone. He honks the horn on his car and two police officers turn up to arrest the killer.
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Columbo / int_ab8e26e2	type	Slipping a Mickey
Columbo / int_ab8e26e2	comment	Slipping a Mickey: In "Swan Song", Tommy Brown (Johnny Cash) hands his two victims a thermos of drugged coffee while they are flying. This puts them to sleep, and he bails out, leaving the plane to crash.
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Columbo / int_aba8065b	type	Fatal Flaw
Columbo / int_aba8065b	comment	Fatal Flaw: For Leslie Williams in "Ransom for a Dead Man", it's her amorality. Brilliantly summed up by Columbo in a "Reason You Suck" Speech at the episode's climax:
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Columbo / int_ac308495	type	Personal Arcade
Columbo / int_ac308495	comment	Personal Arcade: The episode "The Conspirators" has Columbo and a suspect talking over games of pinball in the suspect's home.
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Columbo / int_ad1db87c	type	Oh, Crap!
Columbo / int_ad1db87c	comment	Oh, Crap!: Happens roughly Once per Episode either during The Reveal, or earlier in the episode, the first time Columbo produces a fact or an Armor-Piercing Question that requires the suspect to alter their story. In the later case this coincides often with a realization from the suspect that they've severely misjudged Columbo, and that he is not as big a buffoon as he seems. Depending on the actor, these reactions can range from sheer rage to looking as if they've hang-glided over the walls of Hell. A good example occurs in "Any Old Port in a Storm" when Columbo makes Adrian Carsini realize that his chosen method of murder made him inadvertently irreparably spoil his collection of extremely expensive vintage wines. Best example would be Hassan Salah in the ending of "A Case of Immunity" when, after spilling the entire story to Columbo — whom he believed couldn't do a damn thing because of diplomatic immunity anyway —, the king of Suari walks out from behind the curtains. His plane trip home had been staged, the king having returned to the legation immediately after merely to fool Salah. Salah realizes that he's just confessed to the king of his country and will be executed if he's returned home, and promptly waives his immunity and signs a confession so that Columbo may arrest him.
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Columbo / int_ad641426	type	Trademark Favorite Food
Columbo / int_ad641426	comment	Trademark Favorite Food: A bowl of chili with crushed saltines on top, especially if it's from Barney's Beanery.
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Columbo / int_ad6593eb	type	Cut-and-Paste Note
Columbo / int_ad6593eb	comment	Cut-and-Paste Note: In "Candidate for Crime", the murderer sends a death threat to himself made up of words cut from the newspaper as part of his plan to convince the police that his life is under threat and that the murder he committed was actually a case of Murder by Mistake aimed at him.
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Columbo / int_ae3d6438	type	Deadpan Snarker
Columbo / int_ae3d6438	comment	Deadpan Snarker: Columbo could be one from time to time. For example, in "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case", when asking witnesses about the killer's build, one said he was heavy, another claimed he seemed average, and a third claimed he was light and possibly even a woman. Columbo's reaction to this was a deadpan, "Well that clears that up." Another example, from "Old Fashioned Murder": As for the killers, repeat offenders Robert Culp and Jack Cassidy are arguably the snarkiest of the snarky killers.
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Columbo / int_aed65980	type	All for Nothing
Columbo / int_aed65980	comment	All for Nothing: In "Mind over Mayhem", Dr. Marshall Cahill murders his associate Dr. Harold Nicholson to prevent the leaked knowledge that Cahill's son Neil had plagiarized his theorem that made the Cahills a huge amount of reputation and profit. Neil ends up giving into the guilt of the plagiarism at Columbo's machinations and admits it to the public, ruining Marshall's plans, followed by a fake arrest of his son that baits Marshall into confession and Columbo's hands.
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Columbo / int_b01abe4f	type	Catchphrase
Columbo / int_b01abe4f	comment	Catchphrase: "Just one more thing..." before he asks the question that gives the offender away. "That would explain it..." usually to humor obviously fake stories or explanations the suspect gives to cover an inconsistency. Also: "You know, my wife says..." "There's something that bothers me..."
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Columbo / int_b063ec7d	type	Skeleton Key Card
Columbo / int_b063ec7d	comment	Skeleton Key Card: In "Double Exposure", the murderer (played by Robert Culp) uses a credit card to jimmy the lock when he breaks into the home of his first victim to steal a weapon to murder his second (It Makes Sense in Context).
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Columbo / int_b0852187	type	No Warrant? No Problem!
Columbo / int_b0852187	comment	No Warrant? No Problem!: Columbo is a perfect example of this: He continuously pesters the suspects by appearing anywhere they are (work, home, middle of the street, wherever) and claiming he is just going to "ask some questions" — that start as random nit-picking and become Perp Sweating by annoyance as the episode continues. He has also grabbed evidence and kept it to himself (disregarding chain of custody procedure completely) to confront a suspect with it later on. At least in one episode he explicitly said that the suspect's hostile response to this modus operandi was leading him on the right path, because he "struck a nerve".
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Columbo / int_b2e7f372	type	The Anticipator
Columbo / int_b2e7f372	comment	The Anticipator: This is practically the M.O. of Columbo. Frequently he will depend on a crook returning to where they hid a key piece of evidence, wait for them, and then arrest them there. He catches Elliot Markham in "Blueprint For Murder" with a slight variation of this trope.
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Columbo / int_b486877f	type	Squick
Columbo / int_b486877f	comment	Squick: In-universe, Columbo finds the sight of an operation and most autopsies to be unbearable to watch... though his mood will fluctuate on this depending on the situation. Most attempts to show him such things freak him out quite bad at even the suggestion he witness, though at the end of "A Stitch in Crime", his nerves harden up and he watches the surgery intensely.
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Columbo / int_b53077b3	type	Take That!
Columbo / int_b53077b3	comment	Take That!: Alex Bradey, the film director from "Murder, Smoke and Shadows" is a rather less-than-kind expy of Steven Spielberg. Bradey is an up-and-coming film director with a lot of ideas, but by the end of the episode he's shown to be little more than a Manchild who thinks he's above everything else. In fact, just before Columbo confronts him at the climax, the studio head, annoyed at Alex's disrespectful and ungrateful attitude towards him, informs Alex his funding is going to be practically crippled, making it all but impossible for Alex to finish his grand movie before his contract runs out. Perhaps even harsher considering that Spielberg directed one of the first-season Columbo films.
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Columbo / int_b58b4e3c	type	Too Dumb to Live
Columbo / int_b58b4e3c	comment	Too Dumb to Live: Whenever the victim isn't an Asshole Victim, they're usually this. Though occasionally the two are combined. Blackmailing without some sort of "if-I-die-the-truth-will-come-out" mechanism is common in the stories — even when the blackmailer knows the blackmailee has murdered before. Roger White in "Double Exposure" stands out in this regard. Instead of doing the sane thing and informing Columbo about his tip on Bart Keppel, Roger gets greedy and tells Bart straight up that he'll be quiet about the murder if he gets $50,000. Shockingly, Bart shows up at Roger's secondary job and greases him. Jesse Jerome in "Now You See Him" deserves a special mention for trying to blackmail a former SS officer of all things. That he knows Santini is also a talented lockpicker and illusionist just adds another layer to his idiocy. In fairness, Santini had been paying him for years without incident. The biggest mistake Jerome made was telling Santini flat out that he was going to reveal Santini's true identity, giving the magician ample time to carry out his plan. Mark McAndrews combines this with seriously Tempting Fate in "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Upon announcing his upcoming move and dumping Kay (and denying her the promotion she sorely sought), he takes out a gun from his chest of drawers and jokingly dares her to shoot him. She doesn't kill him right then and there, though. Trisha Fairbanks, secretary of killer Hugh Creighton from "Murder of a Rock Star" is the only subversion, as she actually set up the "if-I-die-the-truth-will-come-out" fail-safe to blackmail Hugh into giving her what she wanted.
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Columbo / int_b6de94d1	type	Executive Meddling
Columbo / int_b6de94d1	comment	Executive Meddling: Done In-Universe in "Make Me a Perfect Murder". Kay Freestone, a network assistant executive with high goals, dictates and practically directs a film that the network wants and guarantees it will be a success. When she is told she can't have her boyfriend Mark McAndrews's job after his promotion to New York (as he doesn't feel she's qualified), she shoots and kills McAndrews in his office to get the job. Afterwards, her plans to bring Valerie Kirk, an old friend and former star who also happens to be a pill junkie, out of retirement for a TV special falls apart, and the film the network ordered is a massive bomb when it finally airs (both because she desperately put the film up to replace the cancelled special, thus running it suddenly with no advertising beforehand and because not only was it implied to be controversial in content because of a suicide scene, but replacing a cheerful musical performance with a gritty violent drama with no prior warning is a huge Mood Whiplash to say at very least). As Mark McAndrews told her, she "doesn't make decisions", she "makes guesses". Getting arrested by Columbo for murder doesn't really help either, but her career is really over well before that. The executives wanted Columbo to have a partner, a point that Levinson & Link fought against. The first attempt was Det. Wilson, a character that returned only one episode after the initial appearance many years later. They finally settled on Dog as the closest thing the character would have to a recurring partner. This is believed to be the reason "Murder with Too Many Notes" had such a rushed, nonsensical ending — production was running too long as was the episode's length, causing certain key plot elements to be cut out for time. A key piece of evidence was that Gabe's "love notes" were also part of one of the movie scores that Crawford had claimed credit for, hence their importance in the ending scene that was never explained in the finished episode.
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Columbo / int_b6f6226	type	Snobby Hobbies
Columbo / int_b6f6226	comment	Snobby Hobbies: The episode "Any Old Port in a Storm" has the detective investigate the death of the partner of a wine connoisseur. The victim owed a large sum to bookies, and he was poised to sell his stake in the winery to cover his debts. The wine connoisseur slew his partner to preclude the sale. During the investigation, Columbo discovers the suspect owns many bottles of rare, vintage wines worth thousands per bottle. In "Ransom for a Dead Man", the murderer flies a private plane as a hobby. Columbo convinces her to let him ride along on a flight to interview her and she takes great delight in making him airsick.
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Columbo / int_bbdc57bf	type	Fish Eyes
Columbo / int_bbdc57bf	comment	Fish Eyes: The magnificent stare of Columbo, where one of his eyes constantly looks into the opposite direction, has yet to be forgotten. (Due, of course, to Peter Falk having a glass eye.)
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Columbo / int_bc103f8b	type	Subverted
Columbo / int_bc103f8b	comment	Subverted in "Troubled Waters". Despite the censors at the time the episode was aired, it was one of those moments where blood had to be shown, as the murder Victim of the Week was shot in the back while she was wearing a backless dress. All that was done here was downplay the amount of blood that would normally pour out.
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Columbo / int_bc74ef27	type	Berserk Button
Columbo / int_bc74ef27	comment	Berserk Button: Showing any callous disregard for human life — especially if it was the murderer acting pompous and indifferent — would set off the usually friendly Columbo into a rage that often led to him telling off the suspect (such as in "A Stitch in Crime" and to a lesser extent in "An Exercise in Fatality" when the victim's wife tries to kill herself). Messing with Columbo's family is also a terrible idea, as "Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo" and "No Time to Die" showed us. On the flip side, Columbo had a habit of pressing the berserk button of others around him. Sometimes, he'd do this on purpose to the suspect, other times, his mere, persistent presence would do this to innocent people. He also had a habit of doing this to his superiors.
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Columbo / int_bd29e069	type	PreciousPuppies
Columbo / int_bd29e069	comment	Precious Puppies: Dog is a sly subversion, being an old, listless Basset Hound who rarely does anything but lie on the ground and who's stated to be unwelcome to stay in an obedience school any longer than strictly necessary since "he demoralizes other students". He was originally added to the show because the network wanted Columbo to have some kind of a sidekick.
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Columbo / int_bda72a5e	type	Clueless Detective
Columbo / int_bda72a5e	comment	Clueless Detective: Averted. By his own admission, Columbo can sometimes be wrong and make mistakes. However, these usually concern the details regarding how the murder was committed: once he sniffs out who the killer is, he's always right, and it's just a matter of putting the full picture together. Of course, his use of Obfuscating Stupidity often leads others to think he is a legitimate example of this trope. In "Columbo Cries Wolf," Columbo poses an elaborate theory of how missing magazine publisher Dian Hunter was actually murdered by her business partner/lover Sean Brantley, seemingly supported by evidence... only for Dian to show up alive and well, turning Columbo and the LAPD into laughingstocks. However, Brantley really does kill Dian after this fiasco hits the press, assuming that the police won't allow Columbo to search if she goes missing again due to all the bad publicity. Of course, the lieutenant realizes what's happened and nabs Brantley for the actual murder. Though Columbo only catches him because, while Sean's plan was brilliant, he forgot about Dian's pager, which give his hiding place away.
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Columbo / int_be186078	type	Exasperated Perp
Columbo / int_be186078	comment	Exasperated Perp: One of the great pleasures of the format is watching a smug perp kindly encouraging Columbo.
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Columbo / int_c0974135	type	Science Fiction
Columbo / int_c0974135	comment	"Mind over Mayhem" takes a brief detour into Science Fiction, with a Teen Genius who has invented a robot (played by Robby the Robot of Forbidden Planet fame) so sophisticated that it seems to have artificial intelligence (not only does it play chess, but it gets angry when it loses).
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Columbo / int_c335b9ec	type	Irony
Columbo / int_c335b9ec	comment	Irony: In "Murder by the Book", Columbo catches out Ken Franklin because his writing partner was the creative talent behind their partnership and had written down the plot idea that Franklin based his plan from. Except, as Franklin ruefully notes, the idea that Franklin used actually was his own idea ("The only good idea I ever had..."); he just hadn't realized that his partner had written it down.
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Columbo / int_c3585f4a	type	Boom, Headshot!
Columbo / int_c3585f4a	comment	Professor Rusk dies from a bullet in the head in "Columbo Goes to College". Kensington Gore is shown hitting the side of the Professor's car. Some broadcasters (Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, for one) skip the gore and simply show Rusk falling over with Bloodless Carnage.
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Columbo / int_c3a7dcab	type	Qurac
Columbo / int_c3a7dcab	comment	Qurac: Semi-zigzagged with Suari, from "A Case of Immunity". The United States is trying to improve relations with the country, which complicates the case. The new king of the nation is considered progressive and more liberal than his father. The Suarian legation guards do carry rifles but are treated as basic security guards and nothing more. However, the protesters seem to imply that things are not all that great back home, and the ending does suggest that execution is a common criminal punishment for murder and/or treason. They were a straight example but are moving a bit away from that, it seems.
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Columbo / int_c40c8b74	type	And Starring
Columbo / int_c40c8b74	comment	And Starring: Many guest starts received special billing. One standout is three time killer Robert Culp, credited as And Robert Culp as Jordan Rowe in "Columbo Goes to College".
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Columbo / int_c439078a	type	Life's Work Ruined
Columbo / int_c439078a	comment	Life's Work Ruined: In "Any Old Port in a Storm", the murderer does this to himself. He murders his half-brother by leaving him bound in his wine vault and turning off the air conditioner so he suffocates. However, while he is away, there is an unexpectedly hot day that raises the temperature in the uncooled vault to the point where the wine oxidizes; destroying his priceless collection. While still young, Alex Bradey, the murderer in "Murder, Smoke and Shadows" is hit with this when his boss, annoyed when Alex flippantly declined his request to speed up creation of his magnum opus for a summer release, informs him that his funding will be crippled. The boss even promises to make sure the movie Alex has been working on for years will never be finished and never see the light of day. And then when Alex arrives at his studio still reeling from this blow, Columbo is waiting for him...
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Columbo / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
Columbo / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: More than one fan of Patrick McGoohan's '60s spy show chuckled when McGoohan slipped a "Be seeing you." into his "Identity Crisis" appearance. And right after he says "Be seeing you" to his assistant, we cut to him walking in an amusement park while wearing a dark colored light jacket with white piping which seems to echo Number 6's Village "uniform". A brief clip of Johnny Carson giving a monologue (and interviewing Pearl Bailey) can be seen in "Forgotten Lady" as well as references to the show being 90 minutes long, as it was at the time. "Forgotten Lady" also features Janet Leigh's character, Grace Wheeler, watching the old film Walking My Baby Back Home, in which Leigh starred. For the episode, Leigh's character in the film undergoes a name change from Chris Hall to Rosie. Prior to Janet Leigh's appearance, Vera Miles, who played Lila Crane alongside her in Psycho, played the killer in "Lovely but Lethal". At one point she indicates she couldn't be the killer because she "wouldn't hurt a fly" — which was the same thing that Norman's "mother" said about herself at the end of Psycho. Psycho again gets a mention in "Murder with Too Many Notes" along with Jaws when samples of their scores are played by Findlay Crawford's orchestra. Jaws was also mentioned in "Fade in to Murder" when Columbo sees a prop shark at the TV studio lot and asks if it was the shark from the film. The news reel that Luis Montoya is watching in "A Matter of Honor" is an older film that Ricardo MontalbÃ¡n starred in, playing a bullfighter. "How to Dial a Murder" is built on this as the murderer is a film buff collector. He owns both the large gate and the sled from Citizen Kane (even making "Rosebud" be the attack command for his dogs) as well as the famous pool table and curved pool cue once used by by W. C. Fields. A child genius in "Mind over Mayhem" is called "Stevie Spelberg". Interestingly, while Steven Spielberg would have been familiar to the writers due to having directed a first-season episode, he was at the time quite unknown to the world at large.
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Columbo / int_c868a42a	type	Freudian Excuse
Columbo / int_c868a42a	comment	Freudian Excuse: Rudy Strasse of "No Time to Die" had this in a bad way — noteworthy as he was the only killer of all 69 episodes to have this.
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Columbo / int_c87737d9	type	Vacation Episode
Columbo / int_c87737d9	comment	Vacation Episode: At least twice: "A Matter of Honor" and "Troubled Waters".
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Columbo / int_c9597a03	type	Self-Deprecation
Columbo / int_c9597a03	comment	Self-Deprecation: Columbo loves to tell these kinds of jokes about himself. Whether he's being genuine or if it's just another part of his faÃ§ade is up in the air.
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Columbo / int_ca95473c	type	Series Continuity Error
Columbo / int_ca95473c	comment	Series Continuity Error: Happens in "Murder with Too Many Notes", as Columbo asks one of the musicians to teach him how to play "This Old Man" on the piano at the end of the episode. Except he played the song perfectly on piano in "Try and Catch Me". Both examples could be hand-waved as Columbo lying as part of his Obfuscating Stupidity act. This happens within the episode "Forgotten Lady". Dr. Willis' bedroom was supposed to be on the other end of the house from the film room. However, when Columbo tries climbing down the tree outside the bedroom window, it's suddenly directly above the film room as Grace Wheeler sees him through the film-room window. So what is Sgt. Wilson's first name, anyway? Is it John J. or Fredrick? Both appearances gave him different names. Bruce Kirby played the recurring role of Sergeant George Kramer throughout several of the NBC and ABC episodes... until "Strange Bedfellows" when his character is suddenly named Phil Brindle. Even assuming the character was named prior to casting, it still should've been trivial to change it for shooting to maintain continuity.
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Columbo / int_caa28b82	type	Cloudcuckoolander
Columbo / int_caa28b82	comment	Cloudcuckoolander: Columbo can easily become one of these when he's not around a suspect (and possibly even when he is, since it can be difficult to tell when he is merely Obfuscating Stupidity), especially when he's on his own and offered a chance to play around with some new gadget or look at books.
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Columbo / int_cb9aeb6a	type	Vigilante Man
Columbo / int_cb9aeb6a	comment	Columbo basically disguises his surveillance of a suspect by pretending to simply question the person as a witness â€” nonstop throughout the episode. In this manner he thus badgers, harasses and tricks the suspect into revealing evidence that eventually convicts them. This is also breaching many various civil and ethical protections against police abuse and harassment; however, even when suspects complain about Columbo's nonstop harassment in order to end it, this proves no avail, as Columbo will simply claim that it "proves" that the person is guilty, and that "he's touching a nerve." This makes Columbo into more of a Vigilante Man than an officer of the law, since he is always right, and never incorrectly harasses an innocent person. In reality, the law is not made to presume that the police are always right, but to protect the citizen's presumption of innocence. For evidence of why this is necessary, you need to just look at people wrongly convicted of crimes, often due at least in part to overzealous police and prosecutors who are completely sure of their guilt.
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Columbo / int_cbe687ab	type	Corrupt Corporate Executive
Columbo / int_cbe687ab	comment	Corrupt Corporate Executive: "The Conspirators"... oh, dear... first we have famous poet Joe Devlin, who is working with the heads of O'Connell Industries — the president, her son and a few others. They are all IRA terrorists raising money to buy weapons, under the guise of a peaceful group trying to fight IRA violence in Ireland. For all we know the entire company was in on it — at the very least, the captain of the freight liner and the O'Connell employees on the tug boat were involved. Even Devlin's own son was a willing participant, and all of this is just what was operating in Los Angeles, it's safe to say more members of the company and even Devlin's wife were in on it, too. The top was corrupt and it trickled downward. Milo Janus was willingly overcharging his franchise owners for equipment that cost him nothing to produce so he could filter the money into offshore bank accounts. He commits murder when one owner threatens to expose him to the IRS.
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Columbo / int_cc1bd54d	type	Non-Action Guy
Columbo / int_cc1bd54d	comment	Non-Action Guy: The Lieutenant himself. Columbo does not carry a gun, openly admits to being a terrible shot with one anyway, and never gets into any violent scrapes; it's just understood the guy's not made for fighting. He at times arrives at the climax of the story with back-up, just in case the villain of the weak isn't a Graceful Loser.
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Columbo / int_cc4b45f6	type	Word of God
Columbo / int_cc4b45f6	comment	Columbo himself — when asked directly, he jokingly claims his first name is Lieutenant. An early episode has him showing an ID badge with the name "Frank", a fact only visible with video technology not available when the episode first aired; Word of God confirmed that this was never intended to be the character's canon name.
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Columbo / int_cc4d190a	type	Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
Columbo / int_cc4d190a	comment	Borders between this and Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? in "A Friend in Deed" when Columbo busts Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Halperin for murdering his wife and assisted Hugh Caldwell in helping cover up the murder of Caldwell's wife. He took down his own corrupt boss, of all people!
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Columbo / int_cf0f49f0	type	Kensington Gore
Columbo / int_cf0f49f0	comment	Kensington Gore: Played straight in "Columbo Goes to College" with the massive pool of blood. Subverted in the earlier episodes where blood was usually just bright red paint, if it was shown at all. Subverted in "A Stitch in Crime" where an IV bottle of blood during the surgery is clearly just water with red food coloring.
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Columbo / int_cfbd1467	type	Never Suicide
Columbo / int_cfbd1467	comment	Never Suicide: Justified, since Columbo usually rules suicide out for good psychological reasons. An especially good take on the trope is made in "Ã‰tude in Black", where Columbo is prepared to believe Jennifer Welles did commit suicide (there was evidence of an unhappy love life), until he discovers that her death also killed her beloved pet cockatoo, and that didn't fit in. In "Forgotten Lady", the victim was an old man with health problems — but then it is discovered that not only did he borrow several humorous books from a library, he also carefully marked his place in the one he'd been reading before he died. In "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine", when suggested by a "psychic" that the victim committed suicide, Columbo quickly rules it out due to the massive (comparatively speaking) amounts of food the victim had purchased yet weren't consumed before he died.
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Columbo / int_d0b60f23	type	GoshDangItToHeck
Columbo / int_d0b60f23	comment	Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Throughout the majority of Columbo films, "hell" and "damn" are the extent of the swearing. Later films of the '80s and '90s eventually saw occasional use of the word "bitch" here and there. But the only real subversions are likely "Undercover" and "A Trace of Murder" where characters say the word "bullshit". "Undercover" is uncensored on the DVD release, though "A Trace of Murder" has the censoring in place. Though cleverly, the censorship in "A Trace of Murder" occurs when Clifford Calvert slams shut a cigar box as he says "shit", the clasp of the lid acting as the censor.
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Columbo / int_d129e13e	type	"Eureka!" Moment
Columbo / int_d129e13e	comment	"Eureka!" Moment: Sometimes. Due to the formatting of the show, Columbo's investigations usually aren't shown, thus we're spared seeing exactly where, when, and how he puts the pieces together. Occasionally Columbo will realize things on-camera, but most of his Eureka Moments take place offscreen. Often, even if the audience doesn't see them personally, Columbo will explain how he had his Eureka Moment to the killer though, usually arising from a discussion with his perpetually-offscreen wife. An example of an onscreen Eureka Moment is in "Requiem for a Falling Star"; while watching one of the killer's old movies, Columbo pieces together what actually happened and his eyes widen as he brings his hand to his forehead.
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Columbo / int_d2cf1dce	type	Hyper-Awareness
Columbo / int_d2cf1dce	comment	Hyper-Awareness: Has a knack for noticing small inconsistencies in a case.
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Columbo / int_d397657d	type	Hoist by His Own Petard
Columbo / int_d397657d	comment	Hoist by His Own Petard: Quite a lot of murderers are exposed when they try to outwit Columbo, usually concocting some clever plan to "clinch" the case and exonerate themselves. Most of the time, if they'd sat tight, they would go free. Some murderers are defeated in an especially ironic way, including: Dr. Bart Keppel, expert in the field of Subliminal Advertising, is tricked into revealing the location of the device he used to change the caliber of his gun when Columbo plants subliminal pictures of himself finding it in "Double Exposure". Ken Franklin in "Murder by the Book" stages the murder of his writing partner using the only good idea for a murder he ever had as a mystery novelist, which is not enough to fool Columbo. Stage Magician the "Great Santini" exposes himself when, as a stage trick, he demonstrates his ability to pick complicated locks. His method of making it look like he was interacting with someone else right when the murder was supposed to have taken place via a wireless microphone and speaker was also turned against him by Columbo when they suspected he might try to make a break for it. (Both these characters were played by Jack Cassidy.) "Candidate for Crime": Nelson Hayward stages a fake gunshot as both an attempt to mislead Columbo and to gain sympathy during an Election. Columbo, however, finds the staged gunshot happened three hours before the Senator claims he's been shot. Col. Rumford in "By Dawn's Early Light" gets undone by his own obsession with discipline. His relentless search for the cadets making hard cider ends up destroying his alibi and proving him guilty. Sometimes a murderer ends up being blackmailed by the person who provides him with an alibi, which means he now finds himself in a situation just as bad or even worse (from his point of view) than the one he tried to resolve by committing the murder in the first place. Thus confirmed bachelor Adrian Carsini in "Any Old Port in a Storm" is blackmailed by his secretary, who wants to marry him, and is almost relieved that Columbo arrests him before that can happen. A rather similar thing happens to Hugh Creighton in "Columbo an the Murderer of a Rock Star". In the last scene of "Murder Under Glass", the killer is fully committed to murdering Columbo in the very same way he killed the first victim, even though Columbo didn't gave him the slightest hint of having evidence sufficient to secure his arrest (in fact, Columbo just invited him for lunch). This ends up being what Columbo is expecting, and by the time he tells the murderer that he can't prove a case against him, he knows one of the glasses has already been poisoned and all he has to do is recover it as proof. Why exactly the murderer decided that trying to kill the police officer that was investigating him was a smart idea (when doing so would have placed him at the scene of a murder by poison for the second time, no less), and how Columbo was so sure that is what the murderer was going to try, is anyone's guess.
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Columbo / int_d39d4b71	type	The Perfect Crime
Columbo / int_d39d4b71	comment	The Perfect Crime: The murderers believe they've managed this. One of the joys of the series is watching Columbo Pull the Thread and prove them wrong.
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Columbo / int_d39e327f	type	What the Hell, Hero?
Columbo / int_d39e327f	comment	What the Hell, Hero?: Columbo gets one in "Ã‰tude in Black" where he leaves his new Basset Hound dog in his car with the windows up (it's night in this scene). A girl with her own dog chews him out for his ignorance, but Columbo is thankful for the advice on his first dog.
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Columbo / int_d4ba9971	type	Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit
Columbo / int_d4ba9971	comment	Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Dr. Barry Mayfield in "A Stitch in Crime" does a poorly-planned gambit on a recovered drug addict. Mayfield drugs him in a desperate attempt to move suspicion away from Mayfield but this makes Mayfield even more suspect, after the needle mark was noted on the left arm of a left-handed man. This is the trope that Paul Galesko (Dick Van Dyke) pulls this off brilliantly in "Negative Reaction" to murder his dominating wife Frances. First, he takes Frances out to a country ranch house rented by Alvin Deschler, an ex-con and former extortionist whom Galesko has roped into helping him. Once in the house, Galesko ties his wife to a chair, then he puts a clock up on the fireplace mantle, sets the time to 2:00 PM so that he will have an alibi for himself. He then takes photos of her with the clock in the picture, then he shoots her with a P38 pistol. The next day, Galesko breaks into Deschler's motel room to plant evidence that frames him for the murder/kidnapping, then meets with Deschler at a junkyard. There, Galesko shoots and kills the unwitting Deschler with a revolver, places the pistol he used to shoot Frances in Deschler's hand, then shoots himself in the leg with that gun to make it look like self-defense. In "Strange Bedfellows": Graham McVeigh, a thoroughbred horse raiser, is tired of the fact that his brother Teddy is a gambler who is in serious debt with local bookie Bruno Romano, who owns a local restaurant. First, Graham makes Teddy lose a lot of money at the race track by drugging his own horse so that it loses. Then, disguised, Graham goes to Romano's restaurant, where he sets mice in the bathroom. While Romano is distracted getting rid of the mice, Graham calls Teddy from his back office phone so that it will look like Teddy was setting up a meeting with Romano. Graham and Teddy then drive out to a spot on a secluded back road, with Teddy driving. Under the pretense of getting fresh air, Graham gets out, walks around the car, steps up to Teddy's window and shoots him at point-blank range, then rides away on a folding bike stashed in the trunk. The next day, he calls Romano to come out to the ranch, ostensibly to pay Teddy's debt. When Romano looks at the briefcase containing the money, Graham shoots him, switches Romano's pistol for the identical murder weapon, and makes it look like self-defense.
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Columbo / int_d4f5426	type	Absence of Evidence
Columbo / int_d4f5426	comment	Absence of Evidence: In "The Most Crucial Game", Paul Hanlon gets caught when Columbo found that the phone call the killer claimed to have made at 2:29 pm in his stadium box (and recorded by a bug on the line) lacked the sound of the half-hour chime of the anniversary clock in the box.
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Columbo / int_d52d28b6	type	Hypocrite
Columbo / int_d52d28b6	comment	Hypocrite: "Any Old Port in a Storm" has Adrian Carsini, a wine connoisseur, murdering his younger brother Rick (a millionaire playboy) over their shared inheritance. In the argument leading up to it Adrian accuses Rick of wasting their money on fast cars and foolish women, but Rick points out that Adrian spends large sums of money on bottles of wine so old and expensive he'd rather have them sit in a cellar instead of drinking them ("At least I know how to have fun with our money!"). Proving Rick right, after committing the deed, Adrian flies to New York City to set up his alibi, and buys a high-priced bottle at auction in spite of his secretary advising him against it and he himself stating he couldn't bring himself to drink it. Hassan Salah, the killer from "A Case of Immunity", has bashed a man's skull in, clubbed another and ran his car off the road, stolen $600,000, tried to frame protesters for a terrorist attack and may have been involved in a plot to overthrow his king. His response when realizing he's about to be extradited to his home country for execution?
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Columbo / int_d5929047	type	Revealing Injury
Columbo / int_d5929047	comment	Revealing Injury: In "Lovely, but Lethal", the murderer kills the Victim of the Week by hitting him over the head with a microscope. Unknown to her, the microscope slide had poison ivy on it, which she gets on her hand during the attack. Columbo also gets poison ivy on his hand when he touches broken glass at the crime scene, and develops a rash. He then notices the same rash on one of the suspects. And poison ivy isn't found in Southern California.
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Columbo / int_d6e495b2	type	Undisclosed Funds
Columbo / int_d6e495b2	comment	Undisclosed Funds: In "Lovely, but Lethal", a cosmetics executive writes an offer to industrial spy on the back of a magazine and hands it to him. He laughs at it, so she writes a second offer on the magazine. The magazine later becomes an important clue (it arrived that day, so the figures must have been written not long before he died).
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Columbo / int_d7b34c31	type	Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"
Columbo / int_d7b34c31	comment	Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone calls him Lieutenant. He once joked in "Undercover" to Geraldine Ferguson that his first name was "Lieutenant".
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Columbo / int_d7ee7a25	type	Painted-On Pants
Columbo / int_d7ee7a25	comment	Painted-On Pants: Roger Stanford in "Short Fuse". No wonder he went mad.
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Columbo / int_dae5c997	type	Action Girl
Columbo / int_dae5c997	comment	Action Girl: A few of the murderers qualify. Leslie Williams in "Ransom for a Dead Man", in addition to shooting her husband in cold blood, is shown to be a skilled pilot. Downplayed with Grace Wheeler, who is quite athletic despite her old age and shown to be in terrific physical shape as a dancer. Her mental health, however, is another story...
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Columbo / int_dc3d9a68	type	Orgy of Evidence
Columbo / int_dc3d9a68	comment	Orgy of Evidence: This is a common bit for various killers as they go too far planting evidence and Columbo finds it odd that a killer could be so careless. In "Publish or Perish", Riley Greenleaf arranges for his hitman to plant an orgy of evidence against himself while he carefully stages an alibi, to try to convince the police that someone is trying to frame him. Unfortunately, he plants too much evidence and some of it doesn't fit (literally).
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Columbo / int_de5e9f69	type	Bluffing the Murderer
Columbo / int_de5e9f69	comment	In "A Deadly State of Mind", Columbo finds a witness to a crime — a blind man. So they bring in their suspect, Dr. Collier, and have a guy in shades walk in, sit down, and identify Dr. Collier as the man who nearly ran into him while driving away from the Donner house on the day of the murder. Dr. Collier says his medical training tells him the man is blind, and hands him a newspaper... which he reads perfectly. Columbo reveals it's actually the blind man's similar-looking brother, and there was no way Dr. Collier should've thought he was blind. Unless, of course, he saw the real blind man while fleeing the scene of the crime.
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Columbo / int_df4b69d6	type	Uncomfortable Elevator Moment
Columbo / int_df4b69d6	comment	Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: One happens in "Sex and the Married Detective", when Dr. Joan Allenby arrives at her clinic the morning after she kills David Kincaid there. She gets in the elevator to go up, and then Columbo jumps on. The entire scene is done in awkward silence, with Columbo looking down and noticing the tag on Joan's new coat and him then noticing the no-smoking sign when he is reaching for his cigar.
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Columbo / int_df968cf	type	Insurance Fraud
Columbo / int_df968cf	comment	For example, in "Old-Fashioned Murder", Ruth Lytton hires a just fired ex-con security guard, Milton Shaeffer, to break in and steal artifacts, claiming it's so she can get the insurance money. Her actual plan is to shoot him when he breaks in as part of a Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit so she can shoot her brother and frame him.
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Columbo / int_e150c4c7	type	Manchild
Columbo / int_e150c4c7	comment	Alex Bradey in "Murder, Smoke and Shadows" is a brilliant but arrogant Manchild who at one point is approached by the studio head (who'd discovered him and indulged in his eccentricities) and asked to speed up the creation of his movie for a summer release. Even as his boss is talking, Alex is clearly only half-listening while fashioning a chain of paper clips, and after his boss makes his appeal Alex declines and tells him to just tell the executives that he's being difficult before draping the paper clip chain over the studio head's shoulders. Later on the studio head calls upon Alex to ride in his limo for a quick chat, where he informs Alex that he's essentially crippling Alex's production for being such an Ungrateful Bastard. Note that this happens independently of Columbo. In fact, Alex barely has time to process the ruin of his life's work when Columbo brings him down.
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Columbo / int_e236af66	type	Who Would Want to Watch Us?
Columbo / int_e236af66	comment	Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In "Murder, Smoke and Shadows", Columbo brings up multiple times how "real" detective work isn't as entertaining as detective movies.
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Columbo / int_e36e7ec5	type	Mistaken For Destitute
Columbo / int_e36e7ec5	comment	Mistaken for Destitute: One episode sees the titular character visit a soup kitchen in order to talk to someone. One of the nuns running the soup kitchen sees his shabby coat, assumes that he's a homeless man, and has him sit down for a bowl of soup.
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Columbo / int_e52a0cac	type	He Who Must Not Be Seen
Columbo / int_e52a0cac	comment	He Who Must Not Be Seen: Columbo's wife. (Remember, Mrs. Columbo is not, repeat not, canonical.) Just like Jessica with Frank, Columbo talks on and on about his wife. He even gives a physical description about her, but not once does she show up on camera. They don't even give her a name since she's an off-camera character. This probably is most prominent in "Troubled Waters" where Mrs. Columbo is on the cruise ship with her husband, and in one scene he calls to her from across a lobby, and we still don't see her. Aside from his wife, Columbo also has several siblings and cousins who are often mentioned (he has at least one sister named Mary who is deceased as of "No Time to Die"). His wife also has several brothers and sisters, and he has a few children — the exact number of each are never specified. In fact, despite many clues that he has a large family on both sides, the only relatives we ever see are his nephew, Det. Andrew Parma from "No Time to Die", as well as a photo of a sister-in-law from "Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo". Of course, it's not given that Columbo is always telling the truth about his family — in fact, one episode has Columbo all but admit that at least some of his homey anecdotes and stories of relatives are exaggerated or even made up, and delivered only in order to get a suspect to talk about a particular subject. And it's implied that even some of the relatives themselves may be fictional creations of Columbo....
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Columbo / int_e5421161	type	Expy
Columbo / int_e5421161	comment	Expy: Abigail Mitchell, the murder mystery writer, to Agatha Christie — who was mentioned by name in the episode in question. From "Columbo Cries Wolf", Sir Harry Matthews, the wealthy British businessman, to real-life British media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Sean Brantley, the owner of an adult magazine publication, seems to mix a younger Hugh Hefner with some of Larry Flynt's scummier qualities. Alex Bradey is heavily based on Steven Spielberg. He even looks like a young Spielberg. Max Dyson, psychic debunker is based heavily on The Amazing Randi. Both Gen. Hollister("Dead Weight") and Gen. Paget("Grand Deceptions") seem at least somewhat inspired by Gen. George S. Patton. Gen. Hollister is even compared to Patton directly in dialog. Dr. Joan Allenby from "Sex and the Married Detective" may be inspired by Ruth Westheimer. Both are similar in that they are more or less sex therapists, media personalities, authors, and encourage open discussion about sex lives.
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Columbo / int_e5e6640b	type	Flanderization
Columbo / int_e5e6640b	comment	Flanderization: Pretty much happened to Lieutenant Columbo gradually as the series progressed. In the first few seasons, Columbo is portrayed as a bumbly detective with some strange habits, however, he is still mostly taken seriously by Peter Falk, the writers and the other characters alike. However, Falk and the writers gradually started to rely more and more on the character's "quirks" and trade-mark antics, which eventually engulfed Columbo. The situation especially got worse in the renewed series from the late-1980s onwards. In those latter episodes, the Lieutenant is often portrayed as a walking caricature of himself, and his "quirks" are heavily over-exaggerated.
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Columbo / int_e7ae07f5	type	Briefcase Full of Money
Columbo / int_e7ae07f5	comment	Briefcase Full of Money: In "Murder by the Book", the murderer brings the woman who is blackmailing him $15,000 in a briefcase and she comments that it is more cash than she has ever seen in her life. After he murders her, he pays the money back into his account. Columbo later remarks that withdrawing $15,000 one day and returning it the day after was one of the strange activities that aroused his suspicion.
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Columbo / int_e83f211c	type	O.O.C. Is Serious Business
Columbo / int_e83f211c	comment	O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Columbo is typically very quiet and modest even when arresting criminals, and doesn't indulge in loud showy arrests. In "Mind Over Mayhem" he finally makes a very angry, accusatory arrest of the prime suspect, shouting at him and harshly ordering officers to arrest and book him. It's an act. The man being arrested is innocent; Columbo's theatrics are being performed to bait the man's father, the actual killer, into a confession. When the father breaks down and cops to everything, Columbo snaps back to normal and gently reassures him his son will be released within the hour.
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Columbo / int_e90b789a	type	Lovely Assistant
Columbo / int_e90b789a	comment	Della Santini spends most of "Now You See Him" in the Lovely Assistant costume she wears for her father's magic act, an outfit emphasizes her figure quite well.
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Columbo / int_e9f517e1	type	Artistic License â€“ Geography
Columbo / int_e9f517e1	comment	Artistic License â€“ Geography: Barely averted in "Dagger of the Mind" thanks to the Madame Tussaud's stand-in being called The London Wax Museum. Which is situated just across the road from the Royal Albert Hall, as seen in the finale. The real Madame Tussaud's is 4 miles/6.43km from the Royal Albert Hall.
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Columbo / int_ea0d06f0	type	Bookcase Passage
Columbo / int_ea0d06f0	comment	Bookcase Passage: In "Dead Weight", the killer has a revolving bookcase in his house that he uses to conceal the Body of the Week until he has a chance to dispose of it.
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Columbo / int_ea8ba51d	type	No Full Name Given
Columbo / int_ea8ba51d	comment	No Full Name Given: Columbo himself — when asked directly, he jokingly claims his first name is Lieutenant. An early episode has him showing an ID badge with the name "Frank", a fact only visible with video technology not available when the episode first aired; Word of God confirmed that this was never intended to be the character's canon name. Chief Superintendent Durk of New Scotland Yard is never given a first name, either.
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Columbo / int_eb251937	type	Dirty Cop
Columbo / int_eb251937	comment	Dirty Cop: Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Halperin in "A Friend in Deed". He first helps cover up the murder of his neighbor Hugh Caldwell's wife, then personally murders his own wife to access her money and uses Caldwell to set up an alibi for himself.
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Columbo / int_ebf8fc6	type	Not a Morning Person
Columbo / int_ebf8fc6	comment	Not a Morning Person: Columbo becomes, ah, even more so before he's had his coffee.
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Columbo / int_ec0ce986	type	Spotting the Thread
Columbo / int_ec0ce986	comment	Spotting the Thread: The key to the entire show is Columbo seeing those little tiny errors the killer accidentally left behind. So often, it looks like Columbo has missed something but in his summation, he reveals he saw it right off and was the first clue to figuring things out.
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Columbo / int_ede841fd	type	No Seat Belts
Columbo / int_ede841fd	comment	No Seat Belts: Columbo's '53 Peugeot doesn't have them, being made before they were a standard addition to cars. He gets chewed out by a very jittery driving instructor for this in "Negative Reaction". By the time of "Undercover" he's apparently had them installed as one can be seen caught in the door in the ending scene.
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Columbo / int_ee0c2c3c	type	Fictional Country
Columbo / int_ee0c2c3c	comment	Fictional Country: Suari, the Middle Eastern nation from "A Case of Immunity".
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Columbo / int_efd11fe3	type	A Dog Named "Dog"
Columbo / int_efd11fe3	comment	A Dog Named "Dog": Columbo's Dog.
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Columbo / int_f068cba	type	Oddball in the Series
Columbo / int_f068cba	comment	Oddball in the Series: Two episodes — "Last Salute to the Commodore" during the original 1970s run, and "A Bird in the Hand" during the 1990s revival — were not Reverse Whodunnits but were structured as more classic mystery stories in which the viewer doesn't find out who the killer is until the end. Season Two's "Double Shock" tweaks this by showing the murder in typical Columbo style, but then later revealing that the murderer is one of a pair of identical twins. So while we know one of them did it, we don't know which. "Rest In Peace, Mrs. Columbo", is the only episode to feature voice-over narrated flashbacks, from multiple characters, no less. "No Time to Die", one of the ABC episodes, doesn't have a murder. It's a kidnapping story. (It's one of the two episodes based on "87th Precinct" novels.)
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Columbo / int_f0e48274	type	Taken Off the Case
Columbo / int_f0e48274	comment	Taken Off the Case: Invoked on several occasions when a suspect with political connections tries to have Columbo removed from a case. In the very first movie "Prescription: Murder", Columbo bluntly informs the murderer's accomplice (who believed Columbo had been taken off the case) that the fact that someone tried to apply pressure to take him off the case convinced Columbo's superior that he was on the right track.
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Columbo / int_f10d3363	type	Distracted by the Sexy
Columbo / int_f10d3363	comment	Distracted by the Sexy: He may be faithfully devoted to Mrs. Columbo, but the Lieutenant is hardly above this kind of behavior. The most notable examples are being greeted by a bikini-clad woman in "An Exercise in Fatality", the belly dancing class in "Try and Catch Me", and his awkward encounters with several models in "Columbo Cries Wolf".
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Columbo / int_f168fc9d	type	Pet's Homage Name
Columbo / int_f168fc9d	comment	Pet's Homage Name: The victim in "Etude in Black" was a talented musician who had named her bird Chopin.
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Columbo / int_f237981e	type	The Alleged Car
Columbo / int_f237981e	comment	The Alleged Car: An ancient silver Peugeot. Asked about it, Columbo affects great pride in owning "a classic car. Yeah, my car's a French car." His wife's car finally makes an appearance in "Columbo Goes to College", when he sets it up for bait for the killers to plant evidence. In "Negative Reaction", Columbo arrives at the crime scene, a local scrapyard. The man at the gate believes he's a civilian taking the car in for scrapping. In the same episode, he gives a ride to a driving instructor who is horrified to learn the car has no seatbelts and a regulator several years out of date.
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Columbo / int_f23ad6de	type	Food Porn
Columbo / int_f23ad6de	comment	Food Porn: The awards banquet near the end of "Murder Under Glass" features numerous classy meals, although the entire episode has its moments.
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Columbo / int_f23c26ab	type	Food Slap
Columbo / int_f23c26ab	comment	Food Slap: In "Publish or Perish", Riley Greenleaf throws his drink over a bartender as part of his attention attracting antics as he carefully establishes an alibi.
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Columbo / int_f511ea9b	type	Product Placement
Columbo / int_f511ea9b	comment	Product Placement: A subtle one — Barney's Beanery, seen in the early seasons, is a real restaurant.
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Columbo / int_f6b30338	type	Murder Is the Best Solution
Columbo / int_f6b30338	comment	Murder Is the Best Solution: Apparently many of the upper-class residents in Los Angeles think this way, seeing how their problems could have been solved with a divorce, some talking or coming clean to the police about a lesser crime... But they invariably choose to perform very elaborate murders.
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Columbo / int_f6b698ac	type	Complexity Addiction
Columbo / int_f6b698ac	comment	Complexity Addiction: In "How to Dial a Murder", behavioral psychologist Dr. Mason murders his colleague Charlie for fooling around with his wife (whom he is implied to also have murdered) by training his dogs to come to run to a specific phone in the house and maul to death anyone who says the word "Rosebud", which Mason arranges by inviting Charlie round to his house on the day he is getting a physical with his doctor, unplugging the other phone in the house (so Charlie doesn't accidentally pick that one up) and phoning Charlie from his bed (while hooked up to heart monitors) and tricking him into saying "rosebud". Aside from the fact that he fails to properly cover his tracks after the fact (e.g. he doesn't re-hook the first phone, he leaves evidence in his house and at the studio lot where he trained the dogs, and since his heart rate was being recorded at the time it was noted as shooting up at the exact time the murders took place), and that he is caught out lying to Colombo, the fact that the dogs were otherwise friendly and that Charlie left the phone dangling after being attacked (meaning whoever he was talking to must have heard what was happening and never reported it) makes it highly likely that the dogs were trained to kill — and if that was true, then Mason was the obvious and only suspect, because only he had the means, knowledge and opportunity to pull it off, and a simpler scheme would have been much more successful. Columbo even gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech for making so many stupid mistakes and says he was disappointed that he made it so easy.
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Columbo / int_f70710ae	type	Blackmail Backfire
Columbo / int_f70710ae	comment	Blackmail Backfire: It is very common (as in, once or twice a season) for the murderer to leave a clue or be noticed not by Columbo, but by somebody who tries to profit by extorting the killer(s) either for money or, occasionally, because they are in love with the murderer; it is just as common for this to go horribly wrong for the blackmailer themselves, and more than once the blackmailer is either the murderer or the initial victim. About the only time the killer agrees to the terms is in the second pilot, and that was a trap where the "blackmailer" was actually working with Columbo the whole time. In almost every other case, the blackmailer is simply murdered themselves, and in "Any Old Port in a Storm", the killer is actually relieved to be caught because they are being blackmailed.
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Columbo / int_f70f6175	type	Just for the Heli of It
Columbo / int_f70f6175	comment	Just for the Heli of It: In "A Friend in Deed", deputy police commissioner Mark Halperin covers for his friend Hugh Caldwell's accidental killing of his wife and then demands Caldwell's help to cover up his own wife's murder. Halperin then tries to make it seem as if an unknown burglar-cum-killer is besetting his posh neighborhood. So at one point, he rides along in a helicopter in hopes of catching this person. This helicopter ride is part of the construction of his alibi so that Caldwell can be "seen" disposing of Halperin's wife in their swimming pool, plus it made it seem like the police are putting a high priority on catching this non-existent crook, and Halperin used it in part because he had the power to do so. Before the flight, Columbo actually asks him if the helicopter was really necessary.
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Columbo / int_f7a458c3	type	Dartboard of Hate
Columbo / int_f7a458c3	comment	Dartboard of Hate: In "Lovely, but Lethal", the Victim of the Week has a dartboard with a photo of his boss (and eventual murderer) stuck on it hanging in his kitchen.
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Columbo / int_f8730dfc	type	Clock Tampering
Columbo / int_f8730dfc	comment	Clock Tampering: In "Fade in to Murder", the murderer uses this (combined with a video recorder) to establish an alibi. He slips up when he resets the watch of the friend he is using as an alibi: he sets it to right time, not realizing his friend kept his watch five minutes fast.
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Columbo / int_f8e010ce	type	Evil Cannot Comprehend Good
Columbo / int_f8e010ce	comment	Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: This is what brings down Leslie Williams in "Ransom for a Dead Man". Being The Sociopath herself, it doesn't occur to her to question whether a man's daughter would actually be willing to forget about his murder in exchange for a payoff.
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Columbo / int_f9f2c33	type	Running Gag
Columbo / int_f9f2c33	comment	Running Gag: When Columbo enters the crime scene or meets someone for the first time, he is mistaken as a sightseer or a hobo. A nun in "Negative Reaction" first thinks he's a hobo and then when he says he's a cop, she's convinced that he is an undercover cop in disguise.
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Columbo / int_fb1327b2	type	Tranquillizer Dart
Columbo / int_fb1327b2	comment	Subverted in "A Matter of Honor"; Luis Montoya shoots his victim with a Tranquillizer Dart but only uses a small dosage of the drug to make his victim woozy enough to keep him awake, because a sleeping victim wouldn't anger a vicious bull.
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Columbo / int_fc225bec	type	Artistic License – Physics
Columbo / int_fc225bec	comment	Artistic License â€“ Physics: Beth Chadwick's murder of Bryce Chadwick in "Lady in Waiting" is actually very flawed if Bloodless Carnage is removed. When Bryce surprises Beth by entering by the front door to her bedroom, Beth shoots him and moves the body to the window-door, which would leave an obvious mess of blood on the floor. This would very quickly cause Beth's "burglar" story to fall apart.
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Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_fc225bec
Columbo / int_fc4f5f19	type	Go-Karting with Bowser
Columbo / int_fc4f5f19	comment	Go-Karting with Bowser: Even when Columbo knows who committed the murder, or at least is highly suspicious of them, he still makes small talk with them about things like their job and interests. Often this is to pay attention to subtle things they say or noticeable tells that can unintentionally incriminate them. In some episodes, however, Columbo seems to genuinely like some of his suspects, and regrets having some of them arrested before he reminds himself that it was the right thing to do. The best example? Perhaps in "The Conspirators", where he goes drinking, not once, but twice, with Joe Devlin, a secret IRA terrorist. He only stumbled on key evidence by pure accident when he noted that Devlin's favorite whiskey was the same brand as seen at the crime scene, and that Devlin also notched the bottles the same as the one found at the scene.
Columbo / int_fc4f5f19	featureApplicability	1.0
Columbo / int_fc4f5f19	featureConfidence	1.0
Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_fc4f5f19
Columbo / int_fc75f1cb	type	Detective Mole
Columbo / int_fc75f1cb	comment	Detective Mole: Columbo will often set this up, in order to ensnare the murderer. Typically, he will pretend to come into the culprit's confidence, inviting them to consult, give input and play "Watson", making them believe that he is incapable of solving the case without their "help" — and putting them into a false sense of security as they make faulty attempts to mislead him, which he will then mine for clues. Some murderers catch on before he closes in, but occasionally a culprit will go the whole episode without realizing they don't actually have Columbo's trust.
Columbo / int_fc75f1cb	featureApplicability	1.0
Columbo / int_fc75f1cb	featureConfidence	1.0
Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_fc75f1cb
Columbo / int_fd497706	type	Accidental Murder
Columbo / int_fd497706	comment	Accidental Murder: Brimmer in "Death Lends a Hand" punched his victim in the face in a rage, not intending to kill her, but the punch caused her to fall over and hit her head on a table, dying from head trauma. Vanessa Farrow is physically accosted by ex-husband Tony Galper when he finds out that she's having a relationship with his loanee Justin Prince. Vanessa pushes him away in defense, but he falls onto a glass coffee table hard and dies from the broken glass. In "Dagger of the Mind", Lillian Stanhope accidentally kills Sir Roger Haversham when she throws a cold cream jar too strongly at his noggin. In "A Friend in Deed", Hugh Caldwell accidentally strangles his wife in a fit of rage. In "A Deadly State of Mind", Dr. Mark Collier accidentally kills Nadia Donner's husband Carl while he's trying to stop Carl from attacking Nadia. Gardener Fernando in "A Bird in the Hand" is accidentally killed by a car bomb meant for Big Fred.
Columbo / int_fd497706	featureApplicability	1.0
Columbo / int_fd497706	featureConfidence	1.0
Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_fd497706
Columbo / int_ff7f34c5	type	Pet the Dog
Columbo / int_ff7f34c5	comment	Pet the Dog: Columbo does this a few times, usually when he has some sympathy for the murderer (Asshole Victim comes into play). He once let an aging starlet go because she was descending into dementia and didn't even remember killing the victim (who nobody missed). In another case, a woman who committed murder was very calm and accepting when Columbo confronted her with her guilt. She acknowledged what she did and complimented Columbo on figuring it out. When the uniformed police moved in to arrest her, Columbo told them not to bother handcuffing her as she would go quietly. She thanked him for that courtesy as well.
Columbo / int_ff7f34c5	featureApplicability	1.0
Columbo / int_ff7f34c5	featureConfidence	1.0
Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_ff7f34c5
Columbo / int_ffaa675b	type	Asian Speekee Engrish
Columbo / int_ffaa675b	comment	Asian Speekee Engrish: The series as a whole generally avoided negative racial stereotypes, but this one did happen with Pat Morita's brief appearance as a butler in "Ã‰tude in Black". He seems to almost ham up the idea of being poor at English in a span of about a minute.
Columbo / int_ffaa675b	featureApplicability	1.0
Columbo / int_ffaa675b	featureConfidence	1.0
Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_ffaa675b
Columbo / int_ffb975c7	type	Third Act Stupidity
Columbo / int_ffb975c7	comment	Third Act Stupidity: Plays around with it.
Columbo / int_ffb975c7	featureApplicability	1.0
Columbo / int_ffb975c7	featureConfidence	1.0
Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_ffb975c7
Columbo / int_name	type	ItemName
Columbo / int_name	comment
Columbo / int_name	featureApplicability	1.0
Columbo / int_name	featureConfidence	1.0
Columbo	hasFeature	Columbo / int_name
Columbo / int_name	itemName	Columbo

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Columbo	hasFeature	Absence of Evidence / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Accent Slip-Up / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Accidental Pervert / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Adam Westing / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Always Gets His Man / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Always Murder / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Amoral Attorney / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	And Another Thing... / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Angry Collar Grab / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Animal Assassin / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Anthology Series / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Arms Dealer / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Artistic License â€“ Medicine / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Attack Animal / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Bad People Abuse Animals / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Bad Review Threat / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Bait-and-Switch Comment / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Banana in the Tailpipe / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Barbell Beating / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Beat Them at Their Own Game / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Better Export for You / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Bluffing the Murderer / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Bookcase Passage / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Briefcase Full of Money / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Bury Your Gays / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Busman's Holiday / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Cacophony Cover-Up / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	California Doubling / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Calling the Cops on the FBI / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Camera Spoofing / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Can Always Spot a Cop / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Candids for Sale / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Cathartic Chores / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Caught by Arrogance / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Caught on Tape / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Character Title / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Cigar Chomper / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Clock King / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Clock Tampering / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Colliding Criminal Conspiracies / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Complexity Addiction / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Confess to a Lesser Crime / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Constructive Body Disposal / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Conviction by Counterfactual Clue / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Corpse Temperature Tampering / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Correction Bait / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Cramming the Coffin / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Cruise Episode / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Crying Wolf / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Cut-and-Paste Note / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Cutlery Escape Aid / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Dartboard of Hate / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Dead Person Impersonation / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Death by Falling Over / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Decoy Trial / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Defective Detective / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Detective Mole / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Detective Patsy / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Diplomatic Impunity / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Directed by Cast Member / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Disappearing Box / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Discontinuity Nod / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Dismantled MacGuffin / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Doesn't Like Guns / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Dolled-Up Installment / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Doom Doors / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Driving a Desk / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Eagle-Eye Detection / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Egopolis / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Election Day Episode / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Electrified Bathtub / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Enhance Button / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Exact Eavesdropping / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Facepalm / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Fake Charity / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Fake Faint / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Fake Russian / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Faking and Entering / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	False Confession / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	False Friend / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Finding the Bug / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Food Slap / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Foreign Queasine / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Four Eyes, Zero Soul / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Framing the Guilty Party / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Fresh Clue / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Freudian Couch / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Furnace Body Disposal / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	GPS Evidence / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Geek Reference Pool / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Glass Eye / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Good Is Old-Fashioned / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Graceful Loser / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Great Detective / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Greedy Televangelist / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Grievous Bottley Harm / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	He Who Must Not Be Seen / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Head-Tiltingly Kinky / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Hero's Classic Car / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Hired to Hunt Yourself / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Hollywood Acid / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Hollywood Silencer / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Honest Corporate Executive / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Horrible Hollywood / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Identical Twin Mistake / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Inconsistent Episode Lengths / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Incriminating Indifference / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Inside a Wall / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Inspector Lestrade / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Instantly Proven Wrong / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Ironic Nursery Tune / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Irregular Series / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	It Seemed Trivial / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Just for the Heli of It / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Just One Little Mistake / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Killer Cop / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Laughing Mad / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Lesser Star / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Let Off by the Detective / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Life's Work Ruined / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Limerick / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Little Old Lady Investigates / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Lying to the Perp / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Make It Look Like an Accident / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Make the Dog Testify / int_5320ab5e
MeTV	seeAlso	Columbo
Columbo	hasFeature	Medication Tampering / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Membership Token / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Military Moonshiner / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Military School / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Miranda Rights / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Mistaken For Destitute / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Mistaken for Exhibit / int_5320ab5e
MrsColumbo	seeAlso	Columbo
Columbo	hasFeature	Ms. Red Ink / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Murder by Cremation / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Murder by Mistake / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Murderer P.O.V. / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Mystery of the Week / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Nephewism / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Never One Murder / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Never Suicide / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	No Dead Body Poops / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	No "Police" Option / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	No Theme Tune / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	No Warrant? No Problem! / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Nominal Coauthor / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Non-Action Guy / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Not a Morning Person / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Not My Lucky Day / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Not with Them for the Money / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Oddball in the Series / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Oop North / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Orgy of Evidence / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Outranking Your Job / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Passed-Over Inheritance / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Passed-Over Promotion / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Persona Non Grata / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Personal Arcade / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Pet's Homage Name / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Phoney Call / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Pillow Silencer / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Playboy Parody / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Plot Armor / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Polyamory / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Pool Scene / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Precap / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Propping Up Their Patsy / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Proscenium Reveal / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Psycho Psychologist / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Public Exposure / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Pull the Thread / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Quote Mine / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Reclining Venus / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Recorded Audio Alibi / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Repulsive Ringmaster / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Returning to the Scene / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Revealing Injury / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Reverse Whodunnit / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Rewind, Replay, Repeat / int_5320ab5e
RichardEpcar	seeAlso	Columbo
Columbo	hasFeature	Right-Hand Attack Dog / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Ripping Off the String of Pearls / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Roommate Com / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Rube Goldberg Device / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Rummage Fail / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Scary Shiny Glasses / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Scary Surprise Party / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Screw the Money, I Have Rules! / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Scully Box / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Self-Defense Ruse / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Separated by a Common Language / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Series of the 1970s / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Seriously Scruffy / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Shoddy Knockoff Product / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Showy Invincible Hero / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Significant Reference Date / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Sinister Suffocation / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Skeleton Key Card / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Skinny Dipping / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Sleight of Handiness / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Slipping a Mickey / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Slobs Versus Snobs / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Smart People Play Chess / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Smithical Marriage / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Snobby Hobbies / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Stage Magician / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Staged Shooting / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Start to Corpse / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Stopped Clock / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	"Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Subliminal Advertising / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Subliminal Seduction / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Sudden Name Change / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Surprise Checkmate / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Suspect Existence Failure / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Suspiciously Prescient Planning / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Sympathetic Murderer / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Tactical Reminiscence / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Tainted Tobacco / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Taken Off the Case / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Taking the Heat / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Talent vs. Training / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Tap on the Head / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Technician/Performer Team-Up / int_5320ab5e
TheABCMysteryMovie	seeAlso	Columbo
Columbo	hasFeature	The Alibi / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Anticipator / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Cassandra / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Exotic Detective / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Help Helping Themselves / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Joy of X / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Killer Becomes the Killed / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Killer Was Left-Handed / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Perfect Crime / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Perry Mason Method / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Spook / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Summation / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Vietnam Vet / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	The Watson / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Third Act Stupidity / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	This Bear Was Framed / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	This Is Not a Floor / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Tie-In Novel / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Time-Delayed Death / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Too Clever by Half / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Trigger Phrase / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Two Dun It / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Two Scenes, One Dialogue / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Undisclosed Funds / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Vacation, Dear Boy / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Vehicle-Based Characterization / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Victim of the Week / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Villain Raises a Toast / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Visual Title Drop / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Wacky Fratboy Hijinx / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Western Terrorists / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	What Is Evil? / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Wheel Program / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Who Shot JFK? / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Who Would Want to Watch Us? / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Wine Is Classy / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	Writing Indentation Clue / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	You Just Ruined the Shot / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	You Just Told Me / int_5320ab5e
Columbo	hasFeature	You Wouldn't Shoot Me / int_5320ab5e
MonkTropesA-E	seeAlso	Columbo
MonkTropesK-R	seeAlso	Columbo
MonkTropesS-Z	seeAlso	Columbo
Switch!	seeAlso	Columbo

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