Mind Over Mayhem

Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Colombo podcast. I'm your host. Mike White joined me, of course, is mister Chris Tashu murders within murders within murders? Is that plans within plans? Would there be dune references?

Probably? Is that because Jose Ferrera is in this episode, Your goddamn right, it is the Padishah Emperor himself exact fourth, Yes, Praise be, Praise be. We are talking about the sixth episode of the third season of Colombo, Mind Over Mayhem, directed by Alf Jellen. I guess that's how you would say this gentleman's name from a story by Robert spect teleplay by Stephen Botchko, Dean Hargrove and Roland Kibbi. This episode aired originally February tenth, nineteen seventy four.

It is the story of a I guess he's leader of a think tank here, Marshall Cahill, which is hilarious for me to say because of the John Wayne film which has almost the exact same name, And I guess that's where they got the name of Marshall Cahill. One such man was J. D. K. Hill, United States Marshall John Wayne K Hill, United States, Marshall Jose Ferrer.

He's a big brain working at big old brain Trust. And yeah he his kid not as motivated scholastically as maybe he should be. And he stole some stuff. Stole the formula for m molecular matter. Don't drink that beer, tad, that's molecular acid.

Yeah it's it sounds so phony and made up almost as phony as MM seven. Robbie the Robot, who takes his place in the Annals of robot history. Of course we've seen Robbie the Robot many times, but yeah, he's almost an accomplice to this murder of lou Ayers, as Howard Nicholson, who was going to expose the whole plagiarism thing. And boy, let me tell you if people do not like to have their plagiarism exposed, I will tell you that from personal experience. Chris, what did you think of mind over Mayhem?

I think I alluded to it the last time we did an episode that I've seen this episode a lot. I don't know why. It's just I had been just watching ahead and this is the one that I feel like I was awake for most of the time. So I've seen this episode like five or six times at least awake, and then probably two or three more times, is like in and out of it. There's some weird anachronisms in this episode that would not be there otherwise, namely Robbie the robot in a way that it's so obvious that they're not even trying to hide it.

Here's the thing. Obviously, we're watching this in twenty twenty four, and this episode came out in seventy four, so fifty years ago. Lost in Space is where Robbie the robot comes from, right or am I thinking of something else? I believe Forbidden Planet. I don't think that was Robbie in Lost in Space, though there are similarities.

I was expecting the arms to start going around and danger, Danger, This is the robot from Forbidden Planet. That movie came out in fifty six, almost twenty years after this episode comes out. I guess I'm just wondering are people going to recognize it from Forbidden Plan to be like, oh, look at that thing. Are they gonna go that's just a robot. It's such a weird.

It's such a weird thing to have in this episode. Again, now in twenty twenty four, it feels weird in seventy four. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. I think that obviously, the core of this story is Jose Ferrera and his on screen son played by Robert Walker Junior. And I think they're great together.

I think Jose Ferrera is good in this episode. I think his son is great. I think I think the real problem and I think you'll probably echo this as well. And Colombo says as much like, this motherfucker is guilty the moment Colombo, he dude, shit's over before it even starts with you ding dong, and he makes himself the obvious killer the moment Columbo meets him. Because Colombo says as much at the end of the episode, as I wasn't paying attention to anything other than whether or not there was a cigar smoker in the house, and this guy's lighting a cigar two seconds into the moment Columbo meets him, if you use that information as again, Colombo being honest, he knew it was Jose Ferrere two seconds in.

But you know what Jose Ferrere should have known he I knew it was him because the way he treats him in this episode is like he's guilty from the moment he meets him, and jose fer acts guilty from the moment he meets him. It's in a lot of ways this is similar to some of the other episodes we've seen Where's I dare you to figure out how I did this? Is more or less the kind of the proceedings of the bulk of the episode is if I did it, catch me, if I did it, show me how I did it, because it wasn't there someone as a man on the computer. And if it wasn't me, who was it? Because I'm the only one who can do it.

And of course we have a precocious little shit of a child giving away the big twist of the episode. But I like the idea of these kinds of episodes. I feel like maybe your mile edge will vary with the This dickhead is trying to pull over on Columbu, which never goes well for anyone either. There is that fact that has to be internalized as the audience at this point, there is no way this guy's gonna get away with it. No matter how many intricate hoops he make Colombo jump through.

Colombo will jump through all those hoops he will do it, And yeah, I don't know. I like this episode, but I can see how this episode would wear thin immediately. For want to know what your thoughts are, because you let it slip last time, and maybe you're not the biggest fan of this episode. I agree with you. Colombo knows immediately who the killer is and the rest of the time he's just fucking with him.

You're batting him around. Yeah. I liked seeing Jose Ferrera humiliated in this episode, at least that's how I feel, because he's talking down to Colombo, who is this weird little guy, And I run this whole think tank and I've got big important business with the Pentagon, running these war games and all this stuff, and he just thinks that he's king shit. And then the rest of the episode is just Colombo just mm hm oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you're super smart, super smart. Oh boy, Oh yes, sir, yes, sir, give him what he That's the thing.

And we've seen that with a lot of other Colombo villains, where Columbo is just placating their fucking fragile egos. And if anything, for me, Columbo in so many ways is about fragile male egos. Who can't deal with things being fucked over by again, someone who theoretically just should have as much of an ego as they do, but doesn't. That's the other thing we never find out is like Colombo seems, and we've talked about it in Barney Miller and I think bear mentioning here, like Colombo feels like such a alien in the show, and it was in a way that like Arthur Dietrich feels like an alien in Barney Miller. And you never get the sense, like you get more of a sense with Arthur Dietrich than you do with Columbo.

Does he enjoy this? Does he enjoy putting people behind bars? And there's fucking entire prisons full of people that Colombo has interred in their like long term holdings, because some of these people are going away for a long time, if not forever, And you never get the sense that Colombo enjoys it. This is something that he enjoys doing. Is just a job for him.

I feel it's interesting to not see him get into these arguments of who's smarter with these people, because it feels like they're constantly trying to bait him into it, and he's just like Oh no, you're right, You're so smart. And it's I feel like that's worse in the long term because Colombo, like again, Columbo knows he's gonna snare him at the end anyways. So give them what they want. Let them hang themselves, right, That's always been Columbo's thing, is they're just most of the time these people are given enough rope to hang themselves with, and he finds them hanging in the wind and he's not the one who tightened the noose. They normally are, So this one is weird to jump right to the end of the episode that he has to use a frame up of the son in order to get the father to confess because the father loves his son so much.

I'm trying to remember if we've seen this yet on the show, and we haven't seen this specifically. I'm trying to remember if we've seen a father and son duo, we've seen the son. What was Rodney McDowell doing something like this? Is that was his uncle James Gregor or was it was it his uncle? I think James Gregory was his uncle.

So we haven't seen this specifically yet, and I liked it. I like the idea of this son who is so unable to please his just high standards dickhead father that it has affected him emotionally to the And again it's not said outright that this is what's going on, And this is just me inferring him going to Jessica Walters, who God, Jessica Walters, right, she's in this episode. I'm assuming because he is going to her because of his father doing what he did to him, trying to break the toxic bonds of that relationship. And again we don't get the sense of that. We just hear that he has been going to therapy.

And if your father was Jose Ferrer, you too might go to therapy, at least the way that he's portrayed this episode. Tough customer, and he's a tough customer to the point where he murders the person who's going to out his son for falsifying or I guess falsely attributing this molecular whatever, fucking red ass mcguffin, the reddest of red herrings, the mcguffinist of mcguffin. Yeah, to the point where it's so fakey in this epod, it's like the fakeiest of faki. He kills someone because he loves his son so much. But the fucked up thing is he could never tell his son he loves him, right, but he murders for him.

And so it's that weird interplay because then he realizes very I feel like he realizes very quickly what Colombo is doing, which is framing his own son, and I guess that's the step that's too far for Jose Ferrer. But I do like that there is a moment of intellectual chicken between these two people, between Colombo and Jose Ferrara, that again we haven't seen. We've seen it if Jose Ferrer was having it done to him and then he would admit it, but we've never seen Colombo doing it to someone else, and then the person who has done it is also in the room watching it happen. He does fake outs, even all the way back to the Gene Barry episode, but yeah, not quite this far where he is willing to arrest someone falsely.

I'm always amazed on Law and Order just how often they do false arrests. I would think that the courts are just completely backed up with the people that they throw in jail at the twenty minute mark, because they never get their person until the forty minute mark and then the trial begins. I feel like it's a little illegal. What he's doing is not great. And frankly, we've literally seen cases where there has been suspected cop framing.

I don't want to mention to Make a murder, You making a murderer that fucking show that everyone couldn't shut the fuck up about for six months, But that was one where there was allegedly cops framing people. So it's weird because again then we have to struggle through this, you and I. These shows are very cop friendly, cop positive, and sometimes it's police officers behaving badly. And I'm not saying Colombo's behaving badly, but I think Colombo is flexing the law about as far as it can go. And again he gets his man in the end.

But imagine, if you will, someone less ego free than our dear friend Colombo and someone more egotistical looking to just frame people because of the color of their skin. It's all I'm saying. It's just as it's positive here, only because we understand that it's fictional and the ends justify the means. But like, it doesn't feel great, just like watching naked gun and all of a sudden they have a tank and they're just rolling through houses. That's ah man, it's funny, but at the same time it's not funny.

Yeah, I'm glad that Colombo is doing it for good as opposed to evil, because he does have to be very careful with those powers that he has. Oh yeah, we've seen him do this before where he's Entrapment is what it's called. It has a fucking name in the law. It's a thing all those people on to catch a predator. So many of them did not go to jail because it was fucking entrapment, and Colombo does similar things in this show.

Again you get a confession out of the person, but again to what end, my friend, and also how much of that if they hired a lawyer, is just not coercion. Coercion again, that's all I'm saying. We joke about all these people in prison because of Colombo, but I do think so many of these people that Colombo gets probably would not sit in jail for more than they'd never go to prison. They'd probably just be in jail for a week or two. You mentioned the precocious child, and we would be remiss not to talk about signor spelbergo the Mexican equivalent of Steven Spielberg, Steve Spelberg, Steve Spelberg, and they definitely make sure you know his name is Steve Spelberg throughout this whole episode.

The same should have been Steve Fabelman. Again, if we're going to just mythologize someone, it's supposed to be Steve. I don't understand why. I know he directed an episode of the show, but almost two. Yeah, that's true, But isn't that weird.

There's no way that was unintentional. Oh no, no, that had to be intentional. And then I don't know if it's supposed to be a loving tribute or look at how obnoxious this kid is and he's just as obnoxious as Steven Spielberg is. I think it's supposed to be a tribute, but it doesn't fly for me because this kid is just a little shit heel for me so much of this episode, no fault of the actor or anything, and where I think we're supposed to like him, but you throw a little kid into anything, especially a precocious child who is so much smarter than everybody else. Oh yeah, I wanted to become a policeman, but I was too smart.

Okay, way to put your foot in it there, junior. I don't know in what universe this kind of character is ever one that anybody is sighted to see it. I understand on the page that this makes sense. But every time I see a child in a show like this where he's meant it is from this time, mind you, seventies and eighties, when they're supposed to be like a smart child, it's like they overdo it to the point of this child is a child genius, and he is twelve years old, and he's a the equivalent like fucking Harvard, and it's like, what what this is? I get that this was the time where, oh, we're really beginning to understand the children aren't just fucking morons that just sit in a corner and drool on themselves.

Isn't that great? Again, if that was your assumption all along, okay, sure, But as an adult who does not feel that way about children anymore than I know you do, this is the kind of thing that you get when you get people who think that way is just this precocious, fucking child is so dialed in that he feels like more of an adult than the adults do in the episode. That's why it's a precocious fucking kid, because, like you said, not the actor's fault. The writing is just the writing was bad and is bad. And to be honest, I think writing for kids in TV has come a long way, especially writing for kids in a show that isn't about kids.

And I know, to your point, maybe just don't have them, and I would agree, because there's there's nothing about this role that needed to be played by a child. It could have been played by like a young adult, like a teenager even, and I think if it was played by a teenager it would have been a little bit more believable. I don't I'm glad that we're seemingly past the days of this is a child genius, But yet Young Sheldon is still a TV show that's immensely fucking popular. So maybe I'm wrong with Middle America, but I feel like, again, there's no way you watched this episode you walk away from it going, oh, that kid's not fucking annoying, because he is. And again, he, like you mentioned, he holds everything over everybody else's head like Columboi's well I'm so smart and this is this is no way he's talking down to Columbo constant Chill dude, chill out, chill out, and you're old or however old you're supposed to be.

And I guess there's even a remake of Doogie Howser that's going on right now, or maybe it got canceled, but there was a remake of Doogie Howser where it was a young female doctor who was so super smart that she became a regular doctor. And there was that one with Freddy Hymore too. I think that's still going on, the Good Good Doctor, yes, as opposed to the Bad Dog. Yeah. That Doogie Howser sequel was Doogie kumeal lo At MD, and it ran for two years on Disney and it is no longer running, So there you go.

Now, I was never into those kinds of shows, like I never that was never something that moved the needle for me, and I don't under I guess I don't understand why it would for anybody else, But I know that the show is immensely popular and Neil Patrick Harris has been haunting us since. Thank God for that. I love Neil Patrick Harris. Now I don't know about during the Doogie days, I was. I didn't watch that show.

I didn't watch the Younger or sorry, the one years, but I definitely loved some Malcolm in the Middle. Yeah, I was one of those people that liked Neil Patrick Harris for a while. But he's not my cup of tea anymore. He's just, I don't know, he's He's always himself, which is perfectly fine. I just don't don't necessarily resonate with it anymore.

But I understand why that kind of role does. And that's why we get something like this, which is again a very early predecessor to an entire show based on this kind of character, right, because Doogie Howser is a teenage doctor who's super smart. Right, So this kid's on that track already. I don't don't think we needed that character in this episode. I think we could have done without.

I think we could have done like we had in those other episodes, like the one with the Projectionist, where we just had another character in a scene with Colombo, because wasn't oh God, the guy from Fletch, the guy from Spaceballs, remember when he's like showing Colombo the imagery and he's oh, this is how it works. But he didn't have five scenes with him, had one and that was more than enough. And he didn't overstay as welcome. And that's how you do it with this show unless they're one of the main characters. Because that's the other thing.

The kid, I mean, he gives away what the twist is. Oh, the robot is able to do it. But other than that, he doesn't do anything. He doesn't add anything to the episode other than taking away time from Again, I think some pretty good back and forth with Jessica Walter and the actor who plays Jose Ferre's son. I like their scenes together too.

Again, it's a little overwritten, but I still think those parts of the episode are fine. I guess we need the kid to be taken out by the motor pool guy so that then Jose Ferrera can steal the car and claim that he and then like back into the car with his own car and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, that could have been taken care of by just office hours and that this all takes place at night, so that guy shouldn't be working anyway. And second episode in a row now where we've had people claiming fake car crashes to validate their alibis, because wasn't that Jack Cassidy's thing as well? Well of those people.

Oh so you started remembering all of a sudden, Oh, my memory is a little less foggy. I was expecting Jose Ferrer to do that in this episode, like they got right to that moment again. He's like, oh, wasn't me. Yeah, it's weird. It's one again, Like all of this seems to suit nothing, because Colombo knows it's Jose Ferre just from the cigar.

Nothing else, nothing else proves that it was Jose Ferrer. To Columbo, he even goes, I knew from the first ten minutes I was in there, then why not just catch him right there? But instead Columbo gets off on it. I think, I guess he must if he truly knew from the moment he walks in there because of the cigar and match, which, like again feels like such a fucking oversight for Jose Ferrer, who's again like he's not that he is well thought out, but at the same time he's like carrying a dead body and smudging the wall. I don't know, Like, for as smart as you are, you're not very good at keeping a clean crime scene, but that ends up like none of it matters, which really bugs me with Colombo when nothing else matters and it was just this one small detail.

But the fact that Colombo says it in this episode just just irks me a little bit because he's never said ten minutes in, I knew it was you. He's never said that before. They could have said that at any point in this show already. They had give multiple chances for Columba to be like I've known since the first two seconds, and they haven't. How do you feel about that?

He has almost said that when he talks about the letters, like why did you open your mail when you were when your brother had died and all these things with that Susan Clark episode, or there's another one too where he just walked in and pretty much knew right away what was going on. That happens so often. But yeah, he's never really thrown that in somebody's face, and I like that he's throwing it in Jose's prayers face just because he is such a smarty pants. He's not rich. We've talked about the rich getting there just desserts.

He's not overly rich, but he just is so full of himself that I really kind of like the Lumbo rubbing his face in it. Yeah, I think it works here only because of that, because again, Jose Ferrer is just so content with I got him, and there's no way you can prove it. There have been few villains in this show who have everybody deserves it, but they rarely waggle it as hard as this guy is. Again, like Columbo knew in the first ten minutes, not just because of the cigar, but also because this guy just like such a dickhead. And that's the thing.

Jose Ferrer is a perfect dickhead in this episode, but not not I don't know, not abrasive. He's just one of those people, like we've all met someone like this who everything they say is he just proves that he's a dickhead. It's not like it's not like he goes out of his way to be a dickhead. He's just a dickhead, I think, through and through, from the fact that his son can never please him to the fact that he like literally talks down to everyone all the time. I don't think that he's different with anybody the way he is with the people that we see.

I think he's just a dick to everybody, which to your point, Yeah, if anyone deserves to have their face rubbed in it, it's this guy. And again, like the amount of theatrics that Colombo goes through at the end of the episode, I think again that in and of itself is a pretty big indicator of what Colombo thinks of this guy. But to be fair, they share a cigar at the end of the episode, so Colombo also gives him kind of a weird moment together, and that's the thing. I ultimately feel like Jose Ferre's character is maybe the most sympathetic villain we've seen in the show so far. That scene at the end sharing the cigar is I think rather well done.

But as much of a dickhead as he is, I do think he comes off as sympathetic because at the end of the day, you understand why he's doing what he's doing, even if again it's some level of cognitive dissonance because his son did what his son did because of who his dad is, because he's such a tough customer. Well, I'm glad that his son finally stands up to him and that his son outs himself, which is great, and when he goes to Jessica Walter is just what should I do and she's can't tell you, can't tell you what to do, but this is what I would do. He finally does the right thing, which is what you gotta do. I was very appreciative of that. Like the whole relationship of Jessica Walter being both the guy who is the wife to the guy who gets murdered who is going to out the son, as well as the son's therapist.

That felt a little weird to me that she was in that role between those two men. Conflict of interest. Does she feel about her husband trying to out her own patient? That just seems so bizarre, that's not really mine the whole lot. Similarly to the Kid, it feels like an intricacy of this episode that's unneeded because it doesn't go anywhere.

That's the thing, Like it's so much Colombo and Jose Ferrer back and forth that like everything else feels unimportant, and everything else feels like just again, if you say I knew in the first ten minutes, you really make everything else seem unimportant. There's there's a really weird speaking of just like weird interactions. There's a weird scene where Colombo is talking to Jose Ferrer in the lab and then he calls Jose Ferrer's son, and then Jose Ferrer is just in that scene too, and it's like, where the fucking guy just left this scene and now he's in this scene. He's a Colombo. I thought I told you to leave, And it's is this what it?

It's so it feels like there's stuff missing in this episode, is what I'm is what I'm saying. It feels like they they misedited something at some point, or they cut a scene out. But do you know what I'm talking about? This like weird he like Jose Ferrer is there in the scene, he leaves, and then Bumbo calls his son and then he's just in that room too. Did he teleport?

There? Is what is going on? Because again, Jose Forer is ever present in this episode for the most part, unless it's Colombo and the kid or Colombo and Jessica Walter's one scene, it's pretty much Jose Forre and Columbo for the most part. Apparently they did know that the story was weak. According to I believe it was the David Kohenick book.

He was talking about how the producers were afraid, probably Dean Hargrove was afraid that people wouldn't be interested in this one because it was such an easy, open and shutcase with that damn match, And so then it became Botchko and the other writers their job to obfuscate things and to make this more of a mystery. But I don't know if they did it justice. I don't know if they took it far enough. The thing is, though, like you were asking at the beginning, what do I think of this episode, It's a fun ride, even if it doesn't hold together all the way. I feel like it's one of those rides where you go on it once and you're like, oh, that was fun, and then the second and third or fourth time you go on it's it's fine.

It's not as fun as it was the first time. I think again, having seen this episode so many times, I I don't I still enjoy it. Every time I've seen it. I still find something to enjoy, and the things that I want to enjoy there still aren't enough of because there are other things that have gotten in the way of it. Jose Ferrer and his son are great.

Jose Ferr and Colombo are great, but Jose Ferrer and that kid not great. Actually, Jose Ferrer and the person he kills, the other scientist, he's not great either. They're they're not. They don't really have a lot of chemistry together, and and I guess they don't have to, given what one character is telling the other, I'm gonna out your son, so fucking deal with it, asshole. I don't get the sense of a pre existing relationship.

I don't get the sense that this is either one of them at the end of their rope. I understand why Jose Ferrer is going to kill him, but again, I feel like everybody at the institute just gives the way Jose Ferrer talks about him, given the way Jose Ferr treats him when he walks into his office. If there's someone who killed him, it's this guy. End of story. It's just it's like you said, it's hard to find this episode as anything other than uh, it's fun, but don't think too hard otherwise it starts to fall apart.

And yeah, it's a fun ride, but I think I don't know that can get you somewhere with an hour and thirteen minutes. There have been worse episodes of Colombo that we've seen, for sure. The amount of obfuscation they do isn't even enough. Even though they spend like an hour doing it, It's still not enough because again you have Colombo going, I know it was you ten minutes and it's guys, just take that line out, Just take the line out. Really, ultimately is the cigar and the match that catches him.

We've seen that with Colombo before. Where it is and we've talked about this before. The thing with was like a contact in the back of the car, like all these things, all these places you could have gone, and you went there perfectly fun It's maybe the one thing we weren't next to be the thing that catches him, but you did it. Anyways, in this it's not only is it the first thing that Colombo says, this is the thing that catches him. So everything else becomes just Colombo taking this guy and doing what he wants with him.

So again, like if you were cool with that upfront, you're gonna enjoy this episode. But yeah, to your point, like there's a there's so much obfuscation that it's it doesn't even succeed no matter how much they do, no matter how like, they have a false ending essentially where they walk off with his son and he's wait, wait a second. It's like he's just waiting outside the door for you. There's no way this was going anywhere for real. There are some things about this one I like a lot.

Which is one of them is the introduction of Colombo in this episode, where it's the guy from the obedience school basically telling him that his son, quote unquote, is such a bad performer. And this is the first episode as far as I remember that Colombo mentions having kids because he says that he's got two kids or multiple kids because it's plural, so at least two, if not more. But yeah, you think that one of his children is in trouble. But it's dog. Dog is back, and actually this is a different dog.

The original dog died and so this is a new dog. And tell he's not nearly as big as the old dog. And apparently they had to add gray makeup to his muzzle to make him look older heat the screen accuracy of this old dog. I like that the dog is here throughout the episode because you can see him trailing behind Colombo in a lot of the scenes. It's I found that to be amusing.

They don't do anything with it really other than that opening joke, which I mean is funny that that is a good little kind of misdirect with the dog, because we know Columbus a big dog lover. The John Cassavetti's episode off opened with him at the vet with his dog, and there are no weird extraneous scenes in this In this episode, I was waiting for one of those scenes that we've been talking about where there's this weird interactions between Colombo and like an outside character. There's not really any of that. Everything serves the narrative. There's no Columbo meeting with two cops in the middle of the street where they spend ten minutes wasting everyone's time, is what it feels like.

There's none of that. This is a pretty zippy episode. I feel like for the most part, it's so amazing to me how far policing has come over the last fifty years, where it's you look at an episode like this and the guy who's dusting for Prince doesn't even notice the smudge on the wall, and Columbus, oh what is this? And I swear he fucking tastes it. If he doesn't taste it, he takes a big old whiff of this shoe polish and it's just, oh, shoe polish.

And then the other guy's what huh. It turns around, does the same thing, takes a big old wipe of it. This guy definitely sniffs it. And I'm just like, no, no, you got to take the little samples, take a photograph and label it. And even when it comes to the match stick, like Colombo has the match stick, he's carrying it around, I'm like, and and even the pipe, I'm like, where's the chain of evidence with this stuff?

Man? You can't just like be carried around this pipe. That makes any sense. It does if you're a dirty fucking cop like Columbo. That's the show that I would write where it's just the antithesis of Columbo.

Just a bad cop planting evidence on innocent people. That's the That's that's the shield, right, isn't that the fucking shit orson Wells from Touch of Evil? Yeah, Colombo is right there, He's three quarters of the way there. He's just not using his powers for evil, He's using them for good. Here, I've got this, I've got this hit of this guy.

I'm gonna plant this evidence on it. What the fuck? Yeah, that's again, like that's Columbo. Could have gotten this guy's son to go to jail for a very long time, and there's only one person standing in the way, and that's Columbo. Even if the guy admits to it, Columbo could be like, eh, I don't believe you.

Sorry again, Like that's to your point. Colombo works for good, and we're all thankful that he's on the side of good because otherwise he said he'd be plant what he's planned evidence on a bunch of rich people. Maybe is not the end of the world. Flicking that pearl into the umbrella and everything really good at Marbles. Okay, good old Colombo.

Hey, you know what, as long as we get the moment of him sharing a cigar with his old pal Jose Ferrer at the end, I'm okay with it. That maybe is the moment of this episode where I was like, oh, okay, this is like you and your buddies type thing, which I mean, I'm glad they give him that moment. It's weird because we haven't really seen that with any other killer where Colombo like is commiserating with them. Oh yeah, we have. Don't forget any old port in the Storm that drink with Carsini at the end yet.

Okay, yeah, okay, if it's trying to emulate that, I don't know. Carcidi is, he's pretty sympathetic, but he I don't know. The way Carcini kills his brother is pretty fucked up. I'm not saying that killing people's off fucked up, period, but the way this guy kills him is he runs him over with carl Okay, he's not putting him in a vault and letting him die slowly over the week, which is still beyond fucked up. Way more fucked up than they make it seem in the episode, that's for sure.

Yeah. I love that this episode has a couple of Star Trek people in here. You've got the guy from the Motor Pool. He was in at least one episode of Star Trek, and then Robert Evans Junior, right is I think he played Did he play Charlie X or just Charlie Evans Star Trek? But that's mostly where I know him from, and I kept getting him mixed up with the guy who played Spider Man in the Old TV movies, a Spider Man or TV show, I should say, but he just has those same kind of striking eyes, but he's definitely has different bone structure, so it's not the same guy.

You say, it's Star Trek, but also Arthur ben Anitas was also in a lot of the Police Academy movies. Yeah, he's got a great look. And I really liked that scene with fucking dog going crazy, and just I'm like, did they had those barks in post or did they actually try to record this scene with the dog barking like crazy? It feels like it must have been done in posts because the dog isn't even visible most of the time. Every time they cut to him barking, it's like a medium shot of him.

Apparently, they're very stubborn dogs, so being the way it is at the boarding school is rather believable. That's at least that's what my wife said. She's like, that's the way these dogs are. Like, I didn't know that basket bloodhound bassit hown. I guess, so makes sense why Colombo has one.

He's pretty stubborn. Well, it's that whole thing of how they're supposed to be able to smell really well, and it's the really appropriate dog for Colombo. I think it's funny that this episode opens with him at the boarding school again. Will the dog show up like this more in the show? I'm assuming so.

I think this might be the first dog of season three. Nice to have him back, and I like that we don't have him in so many episodes. He's just more of a Colombo got stuck taking him to school or something other than oh yeah, I take this dog with me everywhere I go. What about colombo murder at the dog school? Not a thing?

It should be. It should be, there should be a whole thing. There are some trained dogs in a later season that we'll see. But and that's that's one of my favorite episodes. But yeah, what not.

I don't think the dog himself makes an appearance in that episode. But yeah, Colombo the animal lover knows how to deprogram those dogs, but he doesn't know how to program his own dog. He doesn't know how to program a robot. But it does give us a does give us a great line. I think something just computed.

Oh god, I love those on Peacock. Those like three episode teasers are fun me because they more or less give away the goddamn episode at all, all at once. It's just like I know where this fucking episode's going already. But yeah, that something just computed is a great That's a great Columbo one liner for sure. I love this whole thing of him now using the tape recorder because he's I could never find my pencil sometimes I couldn't even find my path, and now he's going through all the pockets and stuff.

And I love how he just keeps playing the recorder and he'll just repeat what he said on the recorder. It's like, why did the father protect the son? You know? Well. I love how he also uses it to like needle Jose Ferrara, which is also great, like just playing it just to be like just so you know, motherfucker, I'm onto you, just just so you know.

Oh, Colombo is in rare form in this episode. Just all the little ticks and all these things, the looking down, he's got the finger waggling and then it just does the thing over his mouth, will hold his hand over his mouth. He's so filled with ticks in this episode, and I love it. Yeah, he's peak Colombo, I like I said, as much as I maybe don't like the trappings of the narrative. I do like him in this episode quite a bit.

I do love when Jose Ferrere calls in his little assistant guy and the guy comes in and he's just so nervous and he's just like, oh, you're not accusing me of crimes. No, no, you're all set. Because he does that like twice in this episode. Not only does he do it to the little assistant guy, but then he also does it to Jessica Walter as well. He's just no, no, you're not a suspect.

He just totally tries to allay their fears because he knows who it is. And I love how he even like looks at Jose Ferrer as he's lighting a fucking cigar, when he's just like, no, no, you're okay, you're all right. No. I love that because again, like it's just more of the needling. Oh yeah, that guy's way too short.

Not only is Falk talking about how short this guy is, but he's bent over as he's talking to for Rare to make him look even taller than he is. He's going for it in this episode big time. Despite all of the grousing and stuff, there are some incredible moments to this and just some wonderful Peter Falk. Obviously, this show can be as great or as not great as it wants to be. But when Falk is on, I'll take whatever adventure he's in.

I agree with you one hundred percent of that. I think that speaks volumes to this show. And again, like this episode. This episode, in a lot of ways should not have worked, but it worked for me more than it should have been. Clearly, I'm glad to hear it wasn't the dud you were expecting it to be, at least not in traditional terms.

Now. It's just not one I go back to all the time. It's not one where I'm just like, oh, great this one. Oh, I can't wait to see it. If I just remind myself how great Folk is in this, then I'll be more excited.

But yeah, just the story itself and some of the things like, eh, okay, it's really funny. I was reading, So I read through all my Columbo volumes while I was doing this, and there's one book that was just like, there's an actor in here called William Christopher and that is not the William Christopher from mash And they were just like super adamant about that. And then I go to another one of the Columbo books and it's look for a Guest Appearance by William Christopher of Mash Fame, and I'm like, Okay, which is it? So I think it's the guy who said that it's not William Christopher of Mash because I've gone through this episode several times and I'm not seeing him at all, and I think it's just another dude with the same name.

I don't think it's a Grigory Sierra moment here. If I could deal with another one of those, don't claim he's in this and then not give us to him. I am so disappointed. But the William Christopher thing that's building correctly on IMDb, then geez, that's just shocking that IMDb could be wrong. Who would have ever thought, not I someone who uses it every day for things other than just randomly looking bullshit up.

If you go in you try to correct it, it'll just be Nope, we won't admit that we're wrong. You don't know how many times I have tried to correct certain things on here. No human being would make an error like this. What do you mean there's a William Christopher one or two. It's only William Christopher.

Nobody else could have that name. It's not like his name is Johnny Cash or anything. At least we get to talk about some Johnny Cash in the next episode with Swan song that. Even though I don't think that episode is the greatest in the world, I really liked that one when I was growing up, so I on doing some some real soul singing during that episode, Chris, I am excited. So as excited as I was to talk about this episode, I think I'm more excited to talk about the next episode because there's a lot of weird things and that things that happen like I have not seen yet in Colombo that I am so excited to talk about, including but not limited to Johnny Cash doing weird hand gestures when he sings that I did not notice him doing any other It's it's just a lot of weird shit going on.

But Johnny Cash in an episode of Columbo can't be bad. Let's come back for that and another one directed by Coach from Cheers, not directed by Gordon Shumway, of the Planet Melmack and Alf Cagellan. Okay, until we come back with that, Chris, what are you working on? So a lot of audio nonsense over at to Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where you can check out the Culture Cast where I talk about movies once a week, but more importantly over on Patreon, you and I and Richard had him. The Internet's famous Richard had him, Internet's famous crazy uncle Richard had him.

The three of us are talking about Bond movies once a month over on both your Patreon and my Patreon respectively, Patreon dot com slash culturecast or patreon dot com slash Yep. What about you, Mike, what's keeping you busy? Yeah, that's definitely keeping me busy. I'm super excited to record our next episode of that. Hope to start listening to the book tomorrow, which hoping that the book is better than the movie.

Let's just say that we do yeah, doing that, doing the weekly Projection Booth podcast, and then we're talking with Father Malone. Oh gosh, I'm we're doing this once every two weeks, talking about Tales from the Dark Side now over on midnight Viewing. So that is very exciting. Just wrapping up our night Gallery discussion and now talking about Tales from the Dark Side We're always busy. We are always doing something.

If people wonder what we're doing all the time, worry not. We're busy every night of the week. So bringing content to you via Weirdingwaymedia dot Com until we talk again next month. Chris, I want to thank John Walker for our opening theme and Colin Gallagher for our closing theme. And I want to thank everybody for listening to the podcast.

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