Swan Song

Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Colombo podcast, As if the world needed another Columbo podcast. Regardless, I'm your host, Mike White. Joining me, of course, is mister Christashue. I prefer to be introduced as chili aficionado Christashue and then subsequently squirrel chili Officionado Christashue, because that explains it, as Colombo so aptly puts it. I don't think I would have a problem with squirreled chili.

In a different time and place, Columbo was sitting on his backboard shooting at squirrels with a twenty two. Okay, that's all I'm saying. Colombo is not above eating wrote it. We are talking about the seventh episode of the third season of Colombo. We're talking about Swan Song.

This is another one that was directed by Nicholas Cola Santo aka Coach from Cheers aka a whole bunch of other things from a story by Stanley Ralph Ross, who gave us the incredible any Old Port in a Storm, and we'll definitely be talking about some similarities with those. Teleplay by David Rafael or Ray Feel. It stars the one and only Johnny Cash as Tommy Brown. This came out on March third, nineteen seventy four. It is ninety four minutes long, and boy, oh boy, there are a lot of parts in here where I just go, this is ninety four minutes long.

I love this episode, but man oh man, there are a couple things that could really have fallen on the cutting room floor without any problem. And I say that as a huge fan of John Randolph, a huge fan of SCO. But man oh man, those scenes did not necessarily need to be here. So, Chris, what did you think of swan Song? So I will say that as the penultimate episode of season three, they're definitely trying to close the season out, at least with this episode on a high note.

I haven't seen Johnny Cash in a lot of things. I've seen Johnny Cash performing a lot of music, but I haven't seen Johnny Cash doing a lot of non musical things as in acting. I know Johnny Cash from his music, and so for me that was the entry point for Johnny Cash. And when I saw, oh my god, this is a Johnny Cash episode of this show, I was very excited because as similar toly to yourself, probably you've already mentioned you like Johnny Cash affair amount. I am someone who a certain time and place in my life, I was really into Johnny Cash's music and I still like his music.

I think Johnny Cash is a fantastic musician and an interesting human being. And also thanks to a movie like Walk the Line, we get something like Walk Hard, which is pretty much just sending up Johnny Cash's life in a lot of ways. That being said, he makes wearing black look fucking cool in a way that like all the people of Hot Topic, all the goths, all the emo kids, all the anybody is looks at Johnny Cash and goes, this guy makes wearing black look flawless and easy in a way that like it never made sense for him to wear anything else. It always made sense that he was the man in black, and that was his thing. Well you know why you weren't right for the trodden and the beaten down?

Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was all about the prisoners and stuff, which, right, such a great cause to have, especially at that time before Nellie Blind. Great, she's doing a lot of good things and stuff, but prisons, man, if you don't watch those things, if they're not reformed and kept on the street and narrow, they just become fucking shawshank before you know it. Yeah, it's true. In the state of Nebraska, I want to say, a couple years ago, we had to vote as to whether or not we would I believe it was pay the inmates that are working for their work as opposed to them essentially just being slaves.

And it was like, yeah, I think we're good with no longer supporting slavery, state run slavery. Yes, good, no more of that. So all of that to say, Johnny Cash is someone that I really think highly of as a musician. Like you mentioned, I also think very highly of him as a human being. His character in this episode is really hard to hate.

They almost have to go out of their way to make you hate him, going as far as making him like essentially like a pedi aste and not essentially he is a pediast. I Lupino hints at it multiple times and then you more or less see him doing it. His naughty ways are no longer reformed now they're out in the open because he doesn't have a wife anymore, which is fine. Like again, like they have to make us hate someone who is just so goddamn cares. I think that's the problem here.

I really liked this episode, but he's too charismatic to be in this episode is the problem. Like he's too good. Imagine if they got Jerry Lee Lewis to be that role, it would just fit in with his persona so well, that's the thing, like Johnny Cash. Never was there ever a word uttered negatively about Johnny Cash around young people. Johnny Cash was one of those few artists that didn't have an Elvis style I'm gonna marry you when you're sixteen, okay, and then they didn't have sex until they were eighteen.

Sure, sure, And like you said, Jerry Lee Lewis or fucking Chuck Berry or so many even the Beatles had a song about like how the girl's too young and that's something to go after it. None of that ever with Johnny Cash, and so it's funny that they have to make him as they have to take it as far as they can to make him unlikable, and I don't think it succeeds. I think Johnny Cash is imminently likable, and that's a problem that this episode can never get around. As much as I love Peter falk Is Colombo, which he's great here, Johnny Cash is so good. It's just give me a show of just him doing the thing.

Just don't make him a pedirass, please, please, just not that one thing. What about you? What about you? You spent way more time at this episode than I have as we're recording it. It is just having its fiftieth anniversary.

When I would talk about Colombo with my one of my best friends, cheft On Lap, we very much bond over the show and we would always talk about this episode, and a lot of it is just because Johnny Cash is so freaking cool, and yet it's very tough to hate him, even after he murders his wife and woman who he was also fooling around with, who was like sixteen at the time. Yeah, after he murders them, and after he's just I guess I shouldn't have this groupie who's hair at my dressing room door. Okay, yeah, I guess I'll do That'll stay on the straight and narrow because I had a Lupino wants me to. Even after all that, it is clear and obvious that Johnny Cash's talents as the character of Tommy Brown are being wasted on this gospel bullshit.

The women are throwing themselves at him in a way that these kinds of people could only dream of. And these kinds of people I'm talking about you, Joel Ostein motherfuckers out there like you guys, don't the kind of people that throw themselves at you are the kind of people that wouldn't be doing it out in public. No, the only way we can make this make sense is let's not make him a musician. Let's make him a gospel musician who is bristling at the fact that he has to be a gospel musician. And I absolutely love that about this episodes.

The funniest aspect of this episode is like, yeah, no, shit, there's women throwing themselves at him. If you were this guy, you too would be like, hell no, I don't want to keep doing gospel music. I was so surprised. So this song to me was from this episode the whole I saw the Light and I love that at one point Columbus talking with him and he's, oh, you start and end all your shows with this song. And it's cool that the movie starts, this episode starts and ends with this song, and I think you get it at least once in the middle, I was like, Oh, that's a nice thing.

Color me shocked when I finally bought a cassette tape because that's how old I am. Cassette tape of Hank william senior songs and I saw the light was on there and I was like, that wasn't an original song for Colmbroe and it wasn't a Johnny Cash song. I was like, what somebody else did this song? And then I was like, oh my god, this song existed before the episode did. That's amazing.

It's a very gospel It's a very gospely tune, isn't it. Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah. And I know because again doing research and having listened to Johnny Cash back in the I know that Johnny Cash and Elvis and a lot of these artists were doing gospel music because that's just an easy way to make money. But yeah, again, can you imagine a universe where Johnny Cash is a gospel singer?

Come on, that guy walks out on stage. Nobody's believing that this guy's singing gospel, Like, not one iota of belief. That's yeah, it's a gospel singer. Like it's wasted. He's always wasted.

If that's the expectation. Yeah, I saw the light as like a pretty pretty fit. Isn't that the name of that Hank Williams biopic with a Loki playing? Yeah? Yeah, oh boy.

Paul Schreeder worked for years to get a documentary, or not a documentary, a narrative film about Hank Williams Senior out there, and he never did. I wonder if he bristles now when he thinks about the Tom Eddleston one, which I never saw. I don't know. It could be a great movie, but I just had no interest in seeing yet. I haven't heard anything about it since it came out, and it's been out for almost a decade now.

Yeah, I'm a fan of country music and country musicians. Johnny Cash is such it's his own. I know he's country, but it's outlaw country. It's very different. It's a very different kind of country.

I just do love that. Like, the way to get us to this point with this episode is he's a gospel singer, because it allows him to interact with Ida Lupino, who is just h just the worst of all the people we've seen in this show. She might be the one who deserves to get it the most out of anybody we've seen up until this point, Like, straight up, she understood the brief. She knows exactly what she's doing. And yeah, Ida Lupino, she's so great.

I don't know if you're familiar with a lot of her work, but I just saw her in Roadhouse recently, not the Patrick Swayze or Jake Gillon Hall film, but the other one. She is so good in that. And she was one of the few female directors for a long time, and especially made it through the entire film noir era directings as well as starring in them. Hats off the Idledupino and yeah, she just oh, you just want to smack her. She's awful.

Speaking of things that we talk about frequently, she was the only woman to direct an original episode of the original Twilight Zone. That's right, holy shit, Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Right, Yeah, she no, And you're right, we say that often. She understood the assignment. She really did, because she is I don't want to say this any other way, and I'm using this term because I've heard this term before, but she is the epitome of a castrating bitch in this episode in just the way that like that scene where she's talking with Johnny Cash and Nanny Cash as what like six three six, where he is a big guy, right she is five t four or five five.

Maybe she tears his ass down. First off, unbelievable that they're together. The only reason they're together is because she sees the value of him. It's clear that as a completely loveless affair. But the amount of malice that she had towards him as that scene builds, the scene where you kind of get an idea of what is going on is hilarious because she is such a bitch, like just and what about all those women?

What about when you were walking around with them with the glasses and the fake names. It's like, holy shit, how many times have they gone around the Bend with this conversation? Like not just once or twice is what it feels like. What is interesting too that Johnny Cash, even though he's not Johnny Cash, he's Tommy, he still chose or they outfitted him. And I think it was probably his choice to wear all black because he could have gotten away from Johnny Cash and gone more into this Tommy Yut persona, but he just by him being clad and black, he stays Johnny Cash, which is amazing that an outfit can change a person that much.

You're probably right, I would assume Johnny Cash is I'm wearing black Okay, mister Cash, you're just gonna come to the set every day dressed and ready to go. Then yep, pretty much. I believe that. I will say, to talk about the episode more specifically, I love how little the people who work on the show understand about how airplanes work. You cannot, in any universe, just gonna mention this, you cannot jump out of a fucking airplane that's crashing into the ground and survive it.

That's not how motion works, it's not how energy works. Don't you know that if you're in an elevator and somebody cuts the cable and it's falling totally that at the last minute you can just jump up and you'll avoid being hurt. On this episode of MythBuster, that's what it feels like. It's that same fucking hokey ass physics question where it's theoretically you're right, but the idea that someone could time it that perfectly because the idea that Johnny Cash, Okay, so he gets in this airplane shades of Big Bopper, shades of John Denver goes in the airplace to fly over the mountains to get to la airplane crashes intentionally and he parachutes out ahead of time, but has to make it seem like he didn't have a parachute, which is the literal only logical con like, that's the problem with this episode.

The literal logical conclusion is you had to have gotten out of the plane before it crashed. Nobody, not the t not the NTSB who ends up being in this episode for a while. There's no way that they would look at you and believe you. They'd be like, you had to have gotten out of the plane ahead of time. You could not have jumped out as it careened into the ground.

It's having a real hard time getting a bead on this. John Danner as Roland Payingborn, the NTSB guy, the investigator. Is he smart? Is he not smart? Is he just too fish?

And what's the story with this guy? Because he doesn't catch everything that Columbo catches. Obviously Columbus fricking genius, But I guess he seems to be doing a pretty good job, just not as good of a job as Colombo does. I would say that he's terrible at his job, because anybody who would be convinced that this guy survived that. I really liked this episode, but I have a hard time with the way he kills his wife and that woman because it's just so fucking hokey.

It's shockingly the hokiest the show has ever gotten with how people are murdered because it almost and not almost, it defies the laws of physics. And again I'm not saying like what happens defies the laws of physics, but his explanation would defy the laws of believable physics and reality because there's no way they wouldn't believe he got out ahead of time. Realistically, what would happen here is he would probably get away with it because they couldn't prove it. As terrible as that sounds, this would be one that I find a hard time with Colombo solving. The only way he's able to solve it is because this guy had to kill them the way that he did so that Columbo can solve it, right, That's what this feels like.

It feels intentionally contrived because that's the only way to bring Colombo into this airplane crash. My point being they could have done literally anything else, literally, anything else, and it wouldn't feel so insanely contrived. I'm okay with the contrivances. I'm okay with breaking the laws of physics. I'm really okay with that.

It's a lot of bullshit to just get to these two people being murdered, and like you mentioned, it's a lot of time spent getting there. And you mentioned as well, like this episode is an hour and thirty eight minutes. It doesn't need to be Like it is a fun and interesting episode that doesn't need to be twenty minutes longer than everything else we've watched almost this season. So after Columbo's on the scene, and yeah, you're right, it does take a while for the murder to have it no more than others. I suppose about twenty twenty five minutes.

Yeah, I guess some of them take place within fifteen minutes. Just well that's when they don't have the additional fifteen minutes, you know. Right, But that scene with Victor Scotti, that that whole thing where he's trying to sell him a plot in a graveyard that just goes on forever, and it contradicts I think some people are like Colombo says that he doesn't do the shopping. That is, his wife does the shopping. But yet we've already seen an episode where he talks about how he does all the shopping.

It was the Robert Culpe one. Yeah what is you look like? You know what you're doing in a store, my friend. But I suppose he's just lying to Scuti saying, Hey, my wife makes all the decisions, because that's what I would do if I was in the same boat, if my wife wasn't around, and I'm being approached by somebody who's trying to do the hard cell and be like, oh, yeah, no, I gotta check with the wife. She does all the big shopping decisions.

Yeah, he's just trying to get out of it. But it's a good scene in unto itself, but it just doesn't belong in this episode. We've talked about like Columbo noss of the show or the Peter Falkness of the show. I don't know. Would you consider that to be one of those scenes where it's just like Peter Falk and his pals?

Oh yeah, I mean because yeah, because we've seen him on these episodes. Now, like what this is like his third or fourth appearance. Your assumption and my assumption are the same man, which is this is that thing that we've talked about before where it's like Columbo with his fucking small check. Again, I don't have any issue with it, but again we are sitting and talking of I don't have any issue with more Columbo. Let me get this straight.

Just like my love of The X Files, I love some of the worst episodes of The X Files because it's just more Moulder and Scully and Colombo is the same thing. It's just more Columbo. What's not the love? How sitting and doing what we're doing here, we have to be a little bit more subjective than we would be otherwise. And I think to your point and to the point that we've been making through while watching this show, there are some things in the show that just exists to Playkate peter fulk seemingly, and nothing wrong with that, but it does slow the episodes down to a fucking crawl, like a like stand all the momentum that the episode has slams into a brick wall, and they've done it a couple times now and again, not that it's bad, it's just I wouldn't be doing that solely just because in the scene with John Randolph at the Army base or sorry, air force base.

It's to me. I love the scene. I love that Randolph is just kind of unhinged. He just seems a little crazy at times. You get a little bit of information in that scene as far as oh yeah, yeah, I remember that guy, and then he starts to talk about him and Columbos again, No, that's not the same guy.

Oh oh he turned into a gospel singer. Oh jeez. And you get a little bit of the parachute stuff introduced there. But really, just cutting to the guy folding the parachute is way more. That's totally it.

It could just be one line of dialogue. Oh yeah, he he flunked out of so and so, but he was a great He ended up packing parachutes for people for six months or something at whatever air Force base. Just one line. That's all you need, exactly. But now let's have a fifteen minute diversion into it instead.

This is me admitting how stupid I am. I didn't realize so Lucille Meredith is in here as Gene the seamstress, the woman who makes all the robe for the singers. I didn't realize ever, And I've been watching this episode for honestly, probably forty five years, maybe a little bit less than that, because I wasn't that aware when I was like five years old watching this, but this has been around. I never connected that she sews the robes for the chorus for the choir, and that it's though that material for the robes is what they made the parachute out of. I never, never until yesterday, two days ago when I rewatches, didn't make that connection.

So when she opens up and that's a weird shot too, When she opens up the cupboard, it seems like it's almost like slow motion or something. I'm like, whoa, what just happened here? But she opens up the cupboard and there's no bolts of fabric in there, and like, oh, that's really strange. Oh no, I didn't order enough. And I'm like finally clicked, Oh okay, now I get it.

So stupid I felt so Dumbochris, I wouldn't. I don't think this episode does a very good job of explaining some of the stuff. Again, I think it gets bogged down in some unnecessary We've talked about this before. The show sometimes just goes a bunch of different directions as red herrings to lead us astray, so that again we're not just given the one thing, and it's the one thing, and Columbo follows the one thing, and that's what it is. The show has got to give us some false leads to go down, but this one doesn't really have any It really is just and Columbo finds out that he was in the military, and then Columbo finds out he knows how to do the parachute.

And then Columbo goes and talks to the seamstress and that's it. And here's the other thing. Johnny Cash, who's had plenty of time to cover this up, didn't go and retrieve the parachute. It's like, how hard are you trying to not be caught? My friend is your concause?

And that's at the end. They kind of lead on this idea that, oh, hey, maybe I'm not all bad. And that's the thing. I don't think he is all bad. He's almost I mean, I think we said it recently with Donald Pleasant's being one of the more sympathetic antagonists on the show, this might be the most sympathetic antagonist.

Again, you gotta remove the pedi asty, but you can't. But outside of that, he is the most sympathetic character on the show. But again, Donald Pleasant's character murders his brother by cooking him to death. You tell me these are not I'm not saying that there's any parody between their crimes, but again that we're talking murder anyway you cut it. With this show, it's just how bad are they before they murder someone is really or how bad do they conduct themselves after the fact.

And Johnny Cash seems once we get to the moment where he realizes what's going on and Columbo's got his number, he seems somewhat Yeah, he seems relieved, and it doesn't seem like he was trying to get away that hard. No, And I think he even says, I'm almost glad you caught me, because I would have confessed at some point. Yeah, the end of the episode is really where I feel the writer coming back into this, because this episode, to your point, ends almost exactly the same as any old port in the storm, to the point of them both being in a car and both like enjoying a moment together. Columbos, I'll drive you down, and he's got the radio going, and Tommy's Jo the same shit like here, let me have kid gloves with you, Like it's weird because he doesn't have kid gloves with Jack Cassidy, and he doesn't really have kid gloves with Robert Kolp, but he really does with Donald Pleasance big time.

I wonder how much of that is fall how much of it is the writers? What is it? So? I feels like it's the writer's choice when it comes to that. On Stanley, Ralph Ross worked on like you said, any Old Port, So and you know what, I think that this is.

I think that in a lot of ways, this is as I think it's as good of an episode, similarly to any Port gets bogged down in the way that the killer kills people overtaking, it becomes its own thing in the story. There's the moment that I really like in this episode. So Colombo goes to Johnny Cash's kind of a state and this is the scene with the oh what's in this chili? Oh squirrel, which is a great scene. They go inside of his house and it's the first time Columbo gets him, and I really for sure thought it was going to be the thing that caught him.

It's the your guitar wasn't with you, and Johnny Cash has the funniest fake it's gotta be fake, but the the way Cash plays it when when Colombo is like, oh, it's really lucky then that it wasn't there, and Cash like, well, look at the guitar. Look at the guitar. Here you see how the guitar is put together with the glue, and it's this is like the best worst lie you've ever seen someone tell where he's he believes that Peter Falk buys it one. But there is no fucking universe where Colombo is buying your special guitar with the glue. But I really loved that scene because you actually get to see Johnny Cash think on his feet.

But it doesn't happen a lot in this episode. It really doesn't, which feels like a shame. They're so amicable back and forth that there's like the animosity that we've seen towards some of these other people is not here. I think he calls him his little buddy at one point, does literally his little buddy. The way he says Colombo's name is just funny and I wish I could impersonate it, but just the he puts some emphasis on the wrong salable when he says it, and it's just what, how are you saying?

Oh? Okay, it's just a little off, but it's just very distinct. I just love that he calls him his little buddy. The height disparity between the two men is obvious. They don't have to make Johnny Cash look big.

He's a big fucking dude. But him and Peter Falk standing next to each other, it's just adorable. He is his little buddy. That's the thing. It's almost a shame that Johnny Cash murdered somebody in this episode because him and Peter Falk have such good chemistry together.

They feel like a genuine like fringe. There's like a genuine like friendship being struck up between the two of them. It's just too bad Johnny Kash had to murder someone to get Colombo to walk through his front door. From what I understand, the idea of Johnny Cash in a show like this was so appealing that there was even talk of him being a private eye on another seventies private eye show, but that never even I don't think it even made it to pilot. Unfortunately, I would have watched that.

Here's the thing, you're fucking here. Here's where I'm gonna get crucified, but I'll do it willingly. In this one episode, I think Johnny Cash has better screen presence than Elvis did in any of those Elvis movies I've seen. You can see that he commands the fucking screen. Johnny Cash is just he's a big dude, and he's there and he just it's natural.

It doesn't feel like a put on. If you told me he's just playing Johnny Cash and this, I sood be like okay, because like he pretty much is. I've never seen Five Minutes to Live, the movie that where I think he has a lot bigger role, but I would like to. But that was also made twenty years before this, and he had a lot of time to practice. And Johnny Cash was everywhere in the seventies, like it was amazing.

Country music was a lot more closer to regular mainstream culture, like you could see the Oakridge Boys all over the place or alabib. Yeah, like these things broke through and it wasn't even like they broke through into popular cultures that they were just embraced by popular culture. And like you look at in the nineteen seventies, and you look at things like Johnny Cash. I think I think he was because I know he and Elton John were on the same episode a Saturday Night Live, and they switched clothes at one point. So when Johnny Cash introduces Elton John, He's wearing Elton John's outfit, and Elton John's wearing his outfit on stage, which is hilarious.

That sounds amazing. That would lead me to believe that Johnny Cash might have been the guest star, not the guest musician, because you're not gonna have two guest musicians, so that I need to track that down. But like he was all over the place, Willie Nelson was all over the place, Merle Haggard, What was George Jones devil went down to Georgia guy, Charlie Daniels, Charlie Daniels. I could see his face with his hat. Yeah, George Jones.

Yeah, Johnny Rebel or not Johnny Rebel, Johnny paycheck is now it take this job and shove it? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Even like Harper Valley, Pta was a popular song and it was a TV movie with Barbara Eden in it. The seventies was also the time of like trucking culture being a big thing, a quake country music and like trucker culture not not no truckers, like truckers. If you're listening to this, I don't assume you'll listen to country music.

But that time and place it was like there was like that crossover. And yeah, a seventies. I know people always say, what's the time you would have liked to have been alive? That's so culturally interesting. Everybody always shits themselves at the eighties, but the seventies were where it was at man like big time.

The just look at what they're wearing, what Johnny Cash is wearing, like the jean jacket and stuff, like, it's that time and place in America is like I would have loved to have been alive for what you're talking about, like the music and stuff. I know that other shit was shitty, but the music and the culture was right there like country. You're right, I don't think country music has ever been his mainstream. Maybe in the nineties, maybe in the night with like Tim McGraw and stuff, but it still felt like it was its own thing. Like you had your bootscoot and boogies and your line dancing and these kind of things.

But in the seventies you had I'm watching morning television on the Great Space Coaster and they're doing a segment and it's all set to it's about a rodeo, and it's Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys, and they've got like Ryanstone Cowboy was a mainstream head Electric Cowboys starring Robert Redford, and here we go Willie Nelson. That was a big hit. I was going to say, we didn't even mention Willy, which feels like a shame, but and he had a movie career, a music career. Again, he showed up. And so many of these people that we were mentioning are showing up on things like the fucking Muppet Show.

So that's where I'm being exposed to some of them. The Redheaded Stranger. Wouldn't that have been great if Willy Nelson had showed up on Colombo? Oh yeah. I can't say I'm a big fan of country music, but when I went down to Nashville, I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and that was amazing.

And you're talking about like trucker music, and they had a whole section that was just about Trucker Music, A W. McCall, baby fucking Red soviaing up the ass Man. It was fucking great. And then they had a whole thing about yeah, outlaw country, and they had all Johnny Cash was huge, and all of these guys were just such groundbreaking acts and Willy ties together like Patsy Kline and more like the grand old Oppry type of singers and stuff. Because he's writing songs before he gets his own solo career.

And then you have somebody like who I'm surprised never shows up on the show, though I'm assuming he doesn't. I'm assuming you would have mentioned it if he had someone like a Chris Christofferson who also big screen presence. But in the barbar streisand version of What's Star is Born? A Star is Born? I always forget what the version that version's title is.

I guess it's always the same. But yeah, it's not the Rose that's a thing like that was a thing in the seventies, So yeah, it's not so much with country music anymore. But also country music is what is country music now? I think is the question that everybody seems to ask and the answers don't. I think maybe in the seventies, the answer was a little bit more obvious what country music is.

And I think now similarly with like movies and TV show not wanting to be put into a genre box. Now, so much country music is other things, and country music like Jelly Roll, who's fantastic, or one of my favorites who's very similar to Johnny Cash and Chris Christofferson is Orville Peck who does like a he's a gay country musician who wears a tasseled mask and sings, Oh that guy, okay, gay country music. It's fucking amazing. Shure up as a guest on RuPaul Okay, cool, awesome, He's amazing. I don't know if he played any of his music.

He's amazing. His music's amazing, and he is like that logical progression of the Johnny Cash of like taking the music and doing something unique with it as opposed to just regurging bootscoot and boogie for the ninetieth time. But Johnny Cash has the thing that so many country music performers don't have now, which is like a genuine screen presence. And this is a human being who is interesting as who he is on top of everything else. Because like his life story is interesting, but he also has an amazing career too.

So I forgot about the Mandrell sisters. I've talked to you about variety shows in the seventies and just how they were fucking everywhere and weird acts like Shields and Yarnel, the two Mimes. They got their own show, of course, like Sonny and Cher and just all of these people had shows. Barbara Mandrel and the Mandrell sisters had their own show. So there's a country act who's mainstream enough to support a weekly variety show for however long that they did it.

Hopefully they're not part of the one season show. Again, like if they're basing movies off of these country singers lives, like they must have made an impact. Again, we mentioned Tom Hidleston playing Hank William Senior. You mentioned Joaquin Phoenix playing Johnny Cash. I'm sure before my lifetime is done, we'll see god knows what else.

Technically Elvis. I don't know what anyone would consider Elvis other than Elvis. But Elvis had country in him as much as he had anything else. Yeah, that's the thing, the time and the place for Johnny Cash to be on Colombo these were two things happening at the right time. And again, I think he's good in the episode.

I just wish it wasn't so airplane heavy like I wish it had been maybe like the tour bus or something. He sabotage is a tour bus, something that felt a little bit more rooted in music, to be fair, because I'm sure there's somebody pounding the table right now going what about the Big Bopper? I get it. I get that that's what they were getting at. That not have been not going through their minds when they were doing this episode.

Remember all these musicians who have tragically died that are almost contemporaries of Jommy cash. Well, that's the thing. I get what they were going for. It's I maybe it might even be in bad taste. I don't know if anybody was getting upset like murdering people with an airplane while John Denver's getting killed by flying an airplane, Jim Krosche gets killed by flying an airplane, Like, are you saying Jim Croche as Jim Krosche?

Is that how you say his name? I've only ever heard Crocy, But you could be totally right. So I now I need to find this out. Man, that's funny. Is this like a Is this like a Jim Nabors is way cool thing?

Nobody would say that. No, I'm definitely not saying that. No, that's interesting. I'll have to look up how other people say. And because I've only ever heard my mom say his name, so I could be living in a lie.

But he died in an airplane. So that's that's always like the thing is musicians airplanes. I mean fucking Stevie ray Vaughn. Again, Like if that's why they set this in an airplane, I one hundred percent understand then, But I don't know if that feels a little on the nose, given how many artists at the time are eating shit in airplanes. I mean, skinnered man.

September twentieth, nineteen seventy three is when Jim krosche or Kroschey or however we're pronouncing it dies. Okay, this episode comes out March third, nineteen seventy four, like a little less than a year later. That's my point. It's it's a little on the nose. The airplane is the crux of this.

There's always those other like little things that could colombo, those little details that he can't close up the case. His bosses always bother and I'm what about Oh geez, I gotta ask this question. I'm so sorry, But the questions in this one just aren't that point itt. And to your point, Johnny Cash can think on his feet fast enough that I'm talking about the guitar or hey, you've got this. I've got this recording of I Saw the Light, which is different than this other one.

And you wrote a new part for this girl, and you did that a week before the other girl died. I liked her singing better. And yes, I've been working on that. He just has an explanation ready to go. That's how he is for so many of these things.

But to your point, those little details just don't add up to hell of beans in this one. No, once he finds out it has to be the parachute, then it has to be the parachute, and that is the singular focus. And again we as the audience, know that it was the parachute, not saying that this might be the one time that the format of Colombo gets in the way of Colombo. But it might again. But the problem is, it's a fucking airplane.

Crashing out of the sky like it's just I say lost. People aren't surviving because like a magical fucking bullshit. We're supposed to believe Johnny Cash, what he tells the police that he expects them to believe is he jumped out at the moment the plane crashed. Oh, actually, he was thrown out because he didn't have a seatbelt on, thrown through the front window of the plane. That's why seatbelts are dangerous.

Man. Oh okay, I knew it. Big government has been telling us to wear these seat belts, and they just won us murdered. Big seatbelt. Huh, big seat belt.

I've heard Detroit is the home of big seat belt. Oh yeah, big seat belt rules this city. That's right, because they don't even concede that he jumped out. Their contention is that he didn't have his seatbelt on, and because he didn't have a seatbelt on, he was thrown clear of the crash safely Does that work in car crashes? Has anyone heard of someone not wearing their seatbelt being ejected through the window into an intersection and just standing up a going I'm fine, I'm good again.

It's just like so boguss to me, like, again, like the base conceit of the episode, I'm sure someone's gonna be like, this guy just can't deal with it. But it is so hokey that I can't get out of the way of it. It is so fucking wild. It's funny though, because again I think I mentioned in the last episode the idea that like this guy is savage, he just lets him crash and burn alive in an airplane because they're drugged. Mind you.

Best moment of this episode for me is Sorel Book, who is in this and he will come back later in another episode. I think it's in the seventh season. He's in the Bye Bye Sky High IQ case. He is I think the music arranger JJ Stringer, and he just basically shows up to be in the foreground as Colombo is talking to Johnny Cash in the mid ground of the shot, and he's got those amazing huge round lenses in his glasses and he's just that little short, bald guy just trying to look menacing in the front of the frame. I'm like, what are you doing, sorrow Book, what the fuck?

Boss Hog? That's funny? I do, I do think it's funny. You mentioned the guy at the airport before. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that he reminds me a lot of Burton Gilliam's role from Fletch, where it's just like this like shit heel guy who works at the airport, because he's like, oh I loved him, he was great.

I want to let me drive his cars. This guy fucking give this that guy. Yeah, that guy I was talking about. John Randolpho's the air Force dude. He's just like Colombo.

Colombo has a great phone conversation and he's talking about parachutes and stuff, and he's also talking to John Randolph at the same time, and you're like, who's he talking to? Is he talking to randolp or is he talking to the guy on the phone. I really liked that moment. But yeah, that guy that you're talking about at the small airport, the little where the plane comes in and out, Oh my god, he is amazing. He's just yeah, oh yeah, I'm such a big fan.

Oh he's a homer, big time. He's a big time homer for Johnny Cash, shaking his hand like crazy, Oh, I'm such a big fan. I'm like, oh my god, call yourself dude. Yeah, we do a Chevy Chase podcast and we'll be talking about John Randolph in the future because he plays Chevy Chase's dad in Christmas Vacation. Okay, great, yeah, I know.

I actually, like I said, I enjoyed so much of this episode. Man, the thing with the glasses, the boss hog thing with the glasses tripping me up? Is that great? Is that great? I don't know what the point of it?

Is so good? In the studio, he's just one of those studio hangers on. He's the guy who provides everybody with cocaine. Oh, there you go. That's true.

He's not the arranger because the arranger just gets a name drop and it's the director's name but varied instead of Cola Santo. It's no Lola Conso or something like that. Raw they do it, but it's oh okay. I guess they were just dropping Nick's name in here. So I guess that.

The other question I have, because this is the first and probably assuming unless you tell me otherwise only time, how many episodes of Colombo have a live musical performance in them? Ash, that's a good question. I can't swear to the eighty nine and up episodes, but as far as these early ones, I think this is it, and man, oh man, there is a really horrific thing where there's a tuba playing this old man and some dancing water and stuff. If memory serves, it's pretty awful. I literally, I know that you were speaking English, but I have no idea what you just said.

When we get there, you're going to be like, oh, this is what man, Okay, But it's just wild to me that this episode has like a full dead ass performance with him singing that you mentioned the song. I think we need to mention it again. It wears its welcomeb out real quick, because it's not a Johnny Cash song. Like you said, this episode of all the episodes, had the least written about it in all of the Colombo books, which are found to be amazing. Yeah, I was like, what some of the trivia on this one is that they shot a concert because they're like, Okay, we need this concert footage, so like that whole opening and everything, we need this concert footage.

They got the footage back and it was basically completely useless. So Johnny Cash is a touring musician living by his tours at this point, not used to like the whole We have a schedule, and Peter Falkleck's to go over schedule and stuff, who to funk it right? And his managers, Hey, Johnny's kind of lead even two days, how much longer do you have? And they're like four days. That's not gonna work for Johnny's schedule.

Also, Johnny leaves the production, hires his own fucking film crew and redes the concert footage and comes back to the set and says, here you go, here's all the concert footage that you can use. So that was like him paying that. I don't know if it's out of pocket or what, but that was him like his responsibility that all that concert footage is. In the beginning of this, I was gonna ask it looks okay when they cut to the audience, it's okay. Job.

Yeah, they try to mesh the two of him, and I think it's the lighting for me that throws it a little bit. The lighting of the audience is not great lighting itself. In the when they're on the sound stage and you get that star filter working overtime, Oh my god, yeah, over overtime, good night, and hey, you know what, Idolupino and Johnny Cash are like Will Ferrell and Ricky Bobby. I don't know what to do with my hands. They keep doing these I don't know.

She starts doing this hand thing and then he starts mimicking it, and it's just it. I don't know. Like that whole concert thing at the beginning is just really funny. And to know that, like you mentioned, they spent all this time to do it, it's like, man, all that for that, Like he enjoyed his time and they were talking about doing a cop show with him. I'm like, yeah, I would have watched it.

Oh hell yeah, there's a universe where we're covering that instead of covering Barney Miller or Columbo. It probably would have been No, you still would have liked Columbo. I wonder what that would have been like that would you have been like a musician turned detective? Like would they have integrated the music part? That's the thing, like how do they not?

Right? Every episode ends with a song. Yeah, oh yeah, I'll play a little song for you doing this, or asked me a number that my mama taught me back in Tennessee. Yeah, that'd be great. Every episode has like how many songs did your mama tea.

That's the thing again. You never want your guest star to overshadow your star of your show. They get close here, very close. You think for a minute that he's getting away with it too, because when it's like again another phone call, and it's like, oh, okay, yeah, you got all the boy scouts and the forest rangers. Okay, yeah, we'll go out and comb for that thermos tomorrow morning.

Okay, great, And then Johnny Cash is, yeah, sounds really good. Sea, I'm leaving. Why wait what, you can't just leave this episode? He no, I'm leaving the episode. And then the whole thing of Colombo with the car keys when he realizes that Johnny Cash had car keys, and that was because there's that moment way back in the early part of the episode where Lupino says something about like, oh, yeah, you're not allowed to drive or something, and he's I could go there if I could drive, and it's like, no, you're not allowed to drive.

So she's got him so well healed that he can't even drive a car. Man. I assume that's because he was getting up to lascivious things when he we're in fake beards, right, all the fake beard she opens up a box. All the fake beards start tossing out Foo Man Chew, Groucho marks. No, you thought this would work, Like you got the skull cap and the whole, like long Beard with the side curls and everything.

This is when the one exactly you've got, like the talus and everything. Yeah, you thought this would work. He's got the box that to fill in on the head and oh man, yeah you thought any of this would work. They kept saying that this weird Jewish man was showing up over the weekends. I do find it a little hard to believe that with all the time that takes place in between when the plane crashes and when Colombo etis Johnny Cash's ass out there with the lights, Johnny Cash would have gone back out there, like you would think, yeah, right.

It's it's also such a cliche of returning to the scene of the crime. But that's my point. When has this show gone that cliche? Like they tend to not. This is the first time where I'm like, wow, like he's doing the thing.

He's going back to the thing to get the thing that he hid. Like most of the most of Colombo's boils in these episodes, are much better thought out. And this it's clear that Tommy Brown was thinking about this ahead of time. This was premeditated. This wasn't because we have seen some of these where it's I just murdered him in a moment.

This was like, now I had to crush the pills and the thermost and I get to drink. They had to open the window to keep the plane cold so that they would drink the thermost, and I had the parachute. This shit was beyond premeditated. So the fact that he just didn't plan what to do with the parachute, again, all the Colombo villains up to this point are better thought out. I just give him a pass because he's Johnny Cash.

It's a good episode. It's one of the better episodes that we've seen. I don't know if when the show ends if it will still be up there, but this might be the first time for me where this is a great great guest star. And we've had great guest stars, but this is the one where it's he's almost too good, like we said, like he almost is too good. Yeah.

It's funny because when I think about this episode, I think about Johnny Cash. I don't think about what Colombo does in this it's almost not Colombo's story at all, which, to be fair, I think we've talked about this before, is the point of this show. Columbo realistically is the antagonist in these stories because they're the villains, the foils, are the ones that we follow for most of the episodes, So the expectation should be that they're the heroes of their own story at least and in a lot of ways. Johnny Cash and that moment with Idelupino where he's like, you sanctemonious bitch, essentially, you can see that in this situation, outside of the fact that they have to paint him as a PETI ass he could be somewhat justified in doing what he's doing.

Again, murder is murder anyway you cut it. But how else was he gonna get out from underneath all of this? That was his only course of recourse. I don't think the statute of limitation on the Man Act has expired. Yeah, but Columbo is baby Glove and a lot of these killers all of a sudden, I don't know why, but you want to smoke a cigar, you want to sit in the car, you want to have a glass of Wine.

All right, Colombo, I'll tell you, hopefully you haven't watched ahead, but next month when we come back and talk, we are going to be talking about one of the more interesting villains as far as what he is and what he does when we talk about a friend indeed, directed by Peter Falk's friend Ben Gazzara. Here he is taking the director's chair the Friends of Fulk collection Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetti's and I'm trying to remember the name of the Oh the guy that like rented Suzanne Pluchette the boat and stuff. He's back in that particular episode and he's got a pretty good role in that one as well. He shows up quite a bit, Oh val Avery, thank you. Yes, So definitely another friend of Fulk will be in that episode as well.

Friends of Fulk here. So until then, Chris, what are you working on these days? Everything and anything that I'm working on can be found over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, which is the podcast network that you and I started with all of our goofy friends to make fun audio diversions that our will and should help preoccupy you while the world continues to spin out of control. At least you can take solace in the fact of knowing that we overhear at weirding Way media are taking our time as the world pulls itself apart to make content for you. That's where you can go to find all the things that I work on and all the things that I and you give an opportunity in a place to be.

So that's where you can find me. What about you, Mike, I'm taking a few months off. I'm working on the Chris Gaines biopic The Dark aired. Australian rock star yes, oddly never seen in the same place as another rock star from the eighties, Garth Brooks. You know that guy's wife has a cooking show.

Tricia Yearwood has a un ironic cooking show on Cooking Network on Food Network, and sometimes Garth shows up. Have I piqued your interest yet? Yeah? God, all about it? No, don't be.

I never heard Chris Caane speak. I only heard him sing, So I want to hear Garth's Australian accent. I'm from Australia. Until then, I want to like John Walker for our opening theme song and Colin Gallagher as our closing theme song artiste. I want to thank everybody for listening.

Thank you, especially to the folks that take the time to review the show wherever you happen to download it. Thank you very much. We appreciate you. I wanted to do it so ageless, like feel listen. I wouldn't let my dear say you're in these easess came like a strange friend to night praise the Lord.

I saw the die. I saw the lie, and I saw the lie. No more talking against no more. Now I'm so happy, be no sor at inside praising some bad I saw lie taketure. I wandered away, say your keep so I'm not gonna live.

Man. God gave that excided way I saw. I saw final so decided may I start? I saw the son lie, so I'm so start in side made that song. I start for the man.

Baby that's son don't know, don't know. I'm so happy this sullo and the signing Babe, that's all I want. The high goble die. I saw the hang over dog. There ain't no more.

Now I'm so happy. Ain't no suble inside pray the nor That's how the like. Thank your car brokers, jeerially, look, thank you, yell you ball thanks John Brother, thank you Jery