Columbo 20XX

[spectralan0maly]

columbo is a great example of how you are still greatly enjoy media even when you know exactly what is going to happen. its a show about solving murders that shows you EXACTLY how the murder was done and who did it.

so its not about solving murders, its about catching murderers. this is reinforced by columbo's uncanny ability to figure out who did it within minutes of arriving at the scene. its almost like he can look people in the eyes and find something there at tells him they did it- kinda like will from hanibal i thibk but ive never watched that show.

so he knows who did it. and the enjoyment comes from watching him find out how and why. watching him question the suspect over and over again with the upmost respect in his tone and watching the murderer squirm under his words and fall into traps. how the killer always goes from "how can i help detective?" to "if i see you one more time im filling a restraining order".

the second columbo is on scene, the game is on. you know how its going to go- you see all the pieces laid out, and now the joy is in watching columbo set them up just so, watching the killer walk into trap after trap until they finally trip and fall, and give up the final piece that was needed to prove their guilt.

most killers are fairly respectful, often admiring columbo's skill at the game and a near reverence at how they were caught. columbo in turn is a modest winner, complimenting his opponents skill and informing them of their one fatal flaw.

(although, in my opinion, everyones most fatal flaw is sitting down for a game against columbo.)

i guess the point is, its okay to know the ending. whats important is the 5d chess that happens leading up to it

[skiploom]

would u adopt him y/n

[mortalityplays]

I've been designing covers for fake video games over on my twitter

[columboscreens]

[columbo-20xx]

#her face is SO expressive it's wonderful #too bad she was murdered irl

Hang on what

[aperturerecord]

pspspsps columbo bloggers

[columboscreens]

[simonbitdiddle]

NGL, I'm low-key salivating at that interior design.

It reeks, REEKS, of faint stale cigarette smoke and scotch, hot dust, and has Take Five playing in rich monaural tones in the background.

This is a room to Business™. No specific industry or profession, this is a place you sit down to Stoically Read Papers, maybe Industrially Ponder, pull a Leather Bound Book and Poignantly Review It, and finally Annotate By Hand on Paper before putting them away in your briefcase and finish off the last finger of your drink before driving home to the suburbs in your land boat.

Am I alone in wanting to just for a day, just a SINGLE day, LARP a 70's businessman?

[mistahgrundy]

like everyone I'm watchin columbo now and I just got done watching the one where roddy mcdowall blows up a car. fantastic. love that man. hams it up in just the best way.

I love how there's no such thing as spoilers with this show. shows you what happened right at the beginning and you know columbo's gonna get that moiderer.

it's not a murder mystery at all. I'm watching a peak predator catch prey very slowly

jurassic park raptor all like "One more thing-" at Muldoon

[nathalia-sod]

@modmad​

[modmad]

an extremely good description of Columbo

[tackypies]

noticed something abt detectives

[weirdbees]

[columboscreens]

you seem to know a lot about Columbo, so I'll ask you. why did they think it was a good idea to adapt those two 87th Precinct books into Columbo episodes? were they just out of ideas when they did those?

thank you! neurodivergence is a hell of a drug.

it was really a sad state of affairs. from what i've gathered, the story behind the ed mcbain episodes is that peter falk began to get older, more frustrated, and more desperate. some observe that he began to really lose touch with what made the series good, particularly in the mid-1990s when he started making rather questionable decisions. he was entering his 70s, audiences weren't taking to classic columbo like he'd hoped, and there seemed to be a shortage of writing talent--the bright, young faces who'd helmed columbo in years past had made bigger names for themselves and were less available.

so falk impulse-bought the rights to two 87th precinct novels and tried to chop and screw the plots into columbo episodes in an attempt to revitalize the show. unfortunately, most columbo fans you ask will agree that these attempts didn't really succeed--while there are good scenes and fun moments in each episode, they're ultimately completely unrelated TV movies who merely happen to feature columbo.

to people who complain about a 2020s columbo reboot making him gritty: they already tried that. and they fucked up

patrick mcgoohan didn't help this time around; he encouraged this manner of formula-breaking, claiming that most of the series' magic laid in the character. i do think that mold-breaking in moderation was wise, as we always like to see the character in different, maybe even grittier situations. to me, successful reboot deviations include columbo cries wolf, it's all in the game, and columbo goes to college. those are episodes that skillfully handled straying from the beaten path in meaningful ways.

but while the character of columbo did provide much of the success of the series, trying to bring a quiet, unarmed lone wolf into the genre of modern police drama, emphasizing Badassery and Cophood, fell flat on its face. and it doesn't help that instead of going toe-to-toe with smug rich bastards, you see columbo going after the poor and severely mentally ill, who are depicted...i mean, "as caricatures" would be charitable. to me, the sets, costumes, and dialogue all reek of creation by those who'd only seen The Poors in cartoons and The Crazies in slasher flicks. go figure.

so are the mcbain columbos unwatchable? no. but both episodes are almost universally panned, both episodes aged terribly, and from someone who has looked at every single frame of this show, i can say that both episodes are sorry attempts at columbos.

but hey...

panmts

[columboscreens]

wait im too dumb to comprehend and new to columbo, doesnt he have a wife? meanwhile im seeing episode in which he kisses and flirts with some woman? would you mind explaining? like, im just a bit confused thats all

lol it's very understandable if you haven't seen the episode!

he kisses and flirts with faye dunaway's character because it's how she chooses to play columbo's cat and mouse game. all the villains play it a little differently, but dunaway is the only one who a) chooses to go the route of full-blown seduction and b) is charming and compatible enough to actually make columbo trip up a bit, so to speak.

as we know, columbo has a soft spot for women and feminine beauty, so when he first stumbles upon her while half-asleep at 3 in the morning at the crime scene, he's naturally attracted to her and is very kind to her. she responds to this better than most, so as a gesture of kindness, he hands her his cup of coffee. this is a columbo where you can kind of watch him put the pieces together in real time--when he notices that she gets cold easily and uses his cup to warm her hands, he remembers that the heat was turned up by someone in the apartment after the victim left: the murderer. if the murderer gets cold easily, perhaps enough to turn up the heat at a crime scene, and they know HOW to turn up the heat, then who could it be but she.

so because she responds so well to him, going forward, columbo dials up his gaga act to make it obvious to her that he likes her. as a woman who knows how to use her feminine wiles, she jumps at the chance to seduce him, and it's revealed that she herself begins to genuinely like him in the process. and so they get a little carried away with the smooching and the flirting, but neither of them loses sight of their true goals at hand.

girl get in line

so really, columbo does nothing unkosher, so to speak. he never lays off on the questions unless he feels it's time to lay on the charm. he never puts her before doing his job. she buys him a new tie, but he only wears it around her--he takes it off when he's alone, is not wearing it when he arrests her, and gives it away at the end of the episode. that's also when he says he's taking his wife out bowling, to remind us that nobody usurps mrs. c!

as long as the case gets solved...

with columbo, it's never personal, it's in the title: it's all in the game.

[skiploom]

helloouu fellow columboheads and everyone else who is more Knowledged than me pspspsps i come with a question regarding columbo and his age. u see im rly bad at math and i feel like the answer is right in front of me but unless it was explicitly said in canon (pressing x for doubt), i wouldn’t be able to figure it out at all. so can u guys help me and tell me what his birth year possibly could be or at least how old would he have been starting at the first ep murder by the book in 1971? i wanna do smth but i need a close estimate to his age thank u sm kisses

[columboscreens]

i’ve thought about this. the series tries not to focus on details like that because the show is ultimately not about columbo the person, as much as we sometimes want it to be.

but it’s interesting to note that originally, columbo was envisioned as a much older man than the fresh-faced falk who ambled through their door in 1967. the first iteration of columbo, played by bert freed on a brief live tv special, was 41 at the time, but the better-known stage columbo was played by thomas mitchell at age 70. the two frontrunners for the tv pilot, lee cobb and bing crosby, were 56 and 64 respectively. these men were also all anglo-faced, so peter falk coming in young, hot, and jewish probably shook things up for how link and levinson envisioned their character. indeed, it was because of falk’s more mediterranean look that they could more convincingly play up columbo’s italian heritage.

so how old IS columbo? he never tells us outright. he does drop hints about how long he’s been married and such, but these are inconsistent, unreliable, and not a terribly useful metric for age. i do think the easiest thing is to tie his age to falk’s, but i say personally that he’s somewhat younger than his actor due to a couple of context clues: the fact that they dye his hair so aggressively and the fact that he works well into the 21st century.

now obviously i know that these are just ways to extend the life of the show so that more of it could be made, but i think one could take it to mean something about the character. though columbo isn’t allowed to fully gray til the mid-90s (curse those dye jobs and hairstyles), peter falk was already more salt than pepper about a decade prior. it’s not unusual for men to dye their hair in old age, particularly when they have jobs where they need to thwart ageism–columbo’s eccentricity and doddering act is all well and good when he’s 45, but his superiors thinking he’s actually becoming senile 20 years later would not bode well for him. but their insistence on keeping his mane brown could also just mean he’s meant to be seen as younger!

the more convincing point for me is that columbo’s final outing was aired in 2003 at age 76, and falk was ready to go with one more had he been mentally fit enough. so if we figure columbo’s real final case and subsequent retirement is in 2005 or 2007, which is when that episode likely would’ve aired, there is no damn way this man is working that hard that late in his life. everyone is different of course, but there is a objectively big difference in fitness level between 70 and 80.

i can definitely buy a, say, 65 or 70 year old columbo in full force, anxiously kicking the can down the road on retirement–hell, my own father is 69 and only semi-retired–but at 80 i really doubt he would have the stamina to be a full time detective lieutenant. just part time would be tasking. even if his body remains relatively healthy and his mind tack sharp, his energy levels would be greatly reduced. so for that reason my personal headcanon is that columbo is probably a few years younger than falk–i have him pegged in the early-mid 1930s.

[skiploom]

when mistah columboscreens comes into the room with every single tidbit and info piece ever said everyone silence they are SPEAKING,………… we love to see it…… /very positive and genuine

 this is incredibly informative and educational thank you literally so much from the bottom of my heart i sincerely appreciate it this is exactly the info that i needed

[columboscreens]

lol thank you, i’m happy to hear that!! that’s why i’m here 🥰

[dreamyren]

Columbo but make him a little animal crossing villager (inspired by a tweet by Ismael Bergara)

[squibo]

[columboscreens]

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Wait what does he mean recently O.O

[emma-d-klutz]

Oh I know this one. He’s an ex-con who the real murderers, a pair of college students who killed their professor so he couldn’t reveal their academic disintegrity and get them expelled (the sort of escalation you’d expect, yaknow), tried to conveniently pin it on. This guy has committed homicides for hire, just not recently. 

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

O.O

I was genuinely not expecting this line of dialogue to actually make sense in context but here we are

I have learned a thing! <3

[between-stars-and-waves]

It’s not everyday that Columbo meets an honest murderer

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

All I can now think is a Columbo AU where the show showing us who the murderer was extends to the episodes narrative and the killer keeps telling Columbo that they did it but Columbo still wants to prove they did it just because he likes putting together the clues

It’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle, he knows what it looks like from the box but he is enjoying piecing it all together and he’s not going to take shortcuts

[heroofthreefaces]

(The figure for the suspect I cribbed from one of my The Prisoner cartoons cuz Patrick McGoohan was in Columbo like five times)

[columboscreens]

Oh for sure it'd be really difficult to find somebody who could play the role even half as well as Peter Falk, but I don't like to roll over and say it's impossible to recast the role. One big story problem would be his being a cop. Which uhhhh I don't think that'd fly. As bad as police were then, they are so much worse. A man like Columbo just wouldn't last long. He's too good. One cop murders someone, Columbo'd expose him as is his moral obligation, and he'd lose his job.

The mental image of basically the Martin Landau episode but it's Peter Falk hunting down Peter Falk is such a gonzo idea I'm sure Falk would love it. It wouldn't make a lick of sense but DAMN IT it'd be fun!

two peter falks a la landau in double shock is exactly what i had in mind! itd be so campy that i think it would wrap back around and be good. i could probably talk him into it. now i just need a ouija board...

regarding cophood, i've had that talk on twitter a few times. i wrote a little thread on it here.

i imagine a current-day columbo as likely a licensed private investigator, someone who works in tandem with the law but not as part of the police. that way, he'd retain the legal authority and access to resources that he uses to obtain and interpret information, but without being part of the problematic entity that is the modern institution of american policing.

really, they're incompatible. there's no way in hell a police department in the 2020s would let columbo exist, and i don't think a columbo in the 2020s would want to remain a police officer. i mention in that twitter thread that cops were always bastards, but at least back then a cop was just some asshole with a shirt and a revolver, maybe a semiauto pistol or vest if they wanted to really beef it up. nowadays they're armed like combat soldiers with none of the commensurate training.

SWAT gear? carrying an AR? bullying, beating, killing a suspect into compliance? that's not how columbo conducts business.

pictured: sly, unarmed little elf

in terms of a new person inhabiting columbo, as much as i'd like to see it, i am pretty firmly in the camp of it being nearly impossible to do. columbo was as much peter falk as peter falk was columbo. they're two different men obviously, but as i've mentioned before, falk put so much of himself into columbo that it's difficult to divorce the two entities. they're like dr. jeyll and mr. hyde.

i'd be totally down for something else. maybe an animated series, an origin story, a columbo descendent, or even just a series with an inverted mystery and a new character who evokes columbo but isn't by name (last i heard natasha lyonne is working on something like this with rian johnson, the knives out director). we need more new media and less reboot media, anyway.

but my opinion on a modern revival of columbo proper? ech. it really isn't as simple as "mark ruffalo looks like columbo" or "natasha lyonne acts like columbo". i think a project relying on that is doomed to fail.

i cannot overstate how legendary a show 70s columbo is in almost every regard. it's not enough to merely have curly hair or channel peter falk in a performance; that show was such an insanely auspicious coalition of talented moving parts that i think it'd be nearly impossible to recapture that sheer magic. you would have to have a huge budget, a ton of the RIGHT talent, a strong creative vision, and a lot of time to even have a chance of approaching that baseline of quality, which, good luck getting on netflix or amazon prime or whatever.

but even if you managed a big budget, it'd be dicey. hell, the bar was set so high that falk himself mostly failed to clear it when he brought his own series back. that's the real barometer of success potential for me.

that said, if i'm ever proven wrong, and on this i would love to be proven wrong, i'd be extremely impressed with whoever managed it. i'd even have to give them brownie points for merely trying--as long as they don't try any weird CGI necromancy.

[columboscreens]

Not so much an ask, more of a fun fact about RIP Mrs. Columbo. As a fan of cream sodas I went through the effort of finding what brand of soda Columbo has with his chili in RIP Mrs. Columbo and have been successful. It is Vess brand cream soda.

lmao funny you should send this because i actually had a passing curiosity myself about this

i was watching and thinking like...this is such a cute looking can for just cream soda. ive never had vess so i wonder if it's any good!

[columbo-20xx]

Whoa! Vess is the local St. Louis area soda! There’s no reason it would have breached containment outside of the Midwest, but there it is!

They still sell the cream soda, most super markets and convenience stores sell it