Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: The “Columbo” 50th Anniversary Show with David Koenig

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

GGACP celebrates October's National Book Month by revisiting this 2021 interview with David Koenig, author of “Shooting Columbo: The Lives and Deaths of TV’s Rumpled Detective.” In this episode, David and the boys look back at the iconic detective series, its mercurial star Peter Falk and its impressive lineup of guest killers and character actors. Also in this episode: Bing Crosby takes a pass, Eddie Albert speaks his mind, Steven Spielberg knocks it out of the park and Larry Cohen signs on as “murder consultant.” PLUS: Vito Scotti! The brilliance of Jack Cassidy! The genius of Levinson & Link! The debacle of “Mrs. Columbo”! Truman Capote “bumps off” Johnny Carson! And David reveals the truth (?) about Danny Kaye and Laurence Olivier! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And on the 9th of September 15th, 1971, NBC aired a 76 minute installment of one of the rotating programs on its NBC mystery movie featuring a shrewd but disheveled LAPD homicide detective. That program, Murder by the Book, helmed by a 24-year-old director named Steven Spielberg was the first series episode of Richard Levenson and William Lynx Columbo and that series would continue in various forms over the next 35 years winning numerous Emmys Golden Globes and Edgar Awards, including four Emmy's for its star Peter Falk. And in 1991, TV Guide ranked Lieutenant Columbo at number seven on its list of 50 Greatest TV Characters of all time. Joining us to talk about this iconic show, its creators, its 50 year anniversary,

and the temperamental star who donned the raincoat for 10 season and numerous specials is the author of the new book Shooting Columbo, the lives and deaths of TV's Rumple Detective. He's also the author of five books on Disney and Disney theme parks, including the best-selling Mousetails, a behind-the-ears look at Disneyland, Reality Land, true-life adventures at Walt Disney World, and his latest, The Fifty Fivers, the pioneers who settled Disneyland. And get this, the guy also wrote a 2012 book

on one of our favorite topics, actor-comedian Danny Kay, called Danny Kay King of the Gestures. Hmm, I wonder if I'll think of any questions. Ah, Frank and I are excited to welcome to the show a writer of many interests and a man who's going to tell us the story behind... Ah, just one more thing. And tell us why this beloved 50-year-old detective show seems more popular today than ever. David Koenig. Wow thank you guys my life just passed before my

ears. As it should. Yeah. Welcome David. Thank you. Now, the story I heard years ago was that Lawrence Olivier was arriving at the airport in America and Danny Kay disguised himself as a security guard, took Olivier in the room and shoved his finger in Olivier's asshole. Put your seatbelt on, David. Yes. But then we had Malcolm McDowell on the show, and he claims that Danny Kay arrived at a London airport and Laurence Olivier shoved his finger in Danny Kay's asshole. Our public has a right to know. So what's the truth?

Well any good Columbo episode should feature an unsolved crime. Do you want the truth for me to break your heart? Yes. What is the, before we jump into Columbo, nice opening by the way, Gilbert. Shed a little light on this long-believed rumor about Danny K and Olivier. Alright, I think it's baloney. I wasn't in the room with Danny K at any point, so I don't 1000% know for sure. But the story as it goes is, if you read it in its original version which didn't come out until many many years after Danny K died it just it has filled with so many logical loop you know nobody's gonna airport is gonna

let him dress up as a customs agent you know I don't think so I mean for all the studies that I've done for Danny K. I think most of the Rumors of him being gay started when he was on Broadway and played a gay character in his first Broadway show He's a sort of an effeminate actor With very graceful he did Anatole of Paris is kind of an effeminate number effeminate number that made him famous So there there's always been people talking about that, but none of these elaborate rumors until he was gone and Gilbert Gottfried's show was here.

What about the gay rumors that have dogged Gilbert for years? Yes. That's the subject of my next book. Me and Charles Nelson Riley. In the airport. But as long as we're talking about Danny K on a Colombo show, David, we had several guests on this show. You want me to tell them, Gilbert?

Yes. We had Bernie... Dick Van Dyke, Larry Storch, Lee Grant... Well no no I was gonna talk about actors we've had on the show who work with Danny Kay. Oh who worked with Danny Kay because people hate Danny Kay. There are a few. Well we had Bernie Coppell here who disliked him and Jamie Farr disliked him and the only... and several other people disparaged him but Joyce Van Patten came to his defense yes joy span that who i interviewed for the book

uh... thirty years ago about what the social and plus columbia work is she she didn't say anything bad about anybody ever in her whole life she's lovely now now everybody hated josh bichel that's that's actually a fact. Everyone did. Oh, here's what I wanted to ask. Was Columbo based on the detective in Crime and Punishment? Well, it was inspired by him, but it wasn't exactly based on him. But in original form, it was not really close to what

it became because what it became was Peter Falk. It was originally written for a one-hour TV drama in the early 60s which starred like a hard-boiled, you know, tall, mean-looking, all-serious guy who played the part with a very similar script called Enough Rope. It was the same script, but it just didn't pop. Then once Peter Falk took over and started pouring more of his own personality into it with his indecisiveness and his likeability and little curiousness and pauses and gestures, then it really became the Columbo that we know. And they didn't want Peter Fowl. No, no. Levinson and Link, the creators of the show, did not. They were extremely talented writers who

did not, you know, very protective of their work and they didn't want anybody screwing it up. They trusted nobody but each other, so they certainly didn't trust Peter Fowl, who was, you know, he's just a wild card. He just, he trusted nobody at all. So it was, it was a perfect match and a bad match all at once. Gilbert mentions crime and punishment. David, what's the, what's the Billy Wilder connection, too, that you mentioned in the book? Yeah, well he, I've heard a hundred different stories on where the name Columbo came from, but that's one of the possible reasons where the name Columbo came from is that was the

name of the character in Some Like It Hot, which came out just shortly before they wrote the story Prescription Murder. Spatz. Yeah, Spatz Columbo, correct. So that's, that's the most likely, most likely source of the Colombo name. Oh, interesting. And I was talking with Frank earlier that, um, one of the people that they were considering was, um,

Lee J Cobb. Right. Right. And what's interesting is when I saw, I didn't know about this, and years ago when I saw The Exorcist and he was the detective in there, I thought he's kind of like Columbo in this. A lot, a lot like Columbo. Interesting. And that used to make Blatty, the author of The Exorcist, real mad because he thought Columbo was a ripoff of his character in The Exorcist, but the timelines don't match up. Columbo actually predated The Exorcist even though it didn't have all those bells and

whistles that Peter Falk put into it. But a very similar character if you watch it. And Der Bingle, Bing Crosby, was famously approached as well. Right, Bing Crosby was Levinson and Link's first choice. They thought he would be the perfect Columbo and now you look back and you think, you know, Columbo is singing White Christmas. It doesn't seem to make any sense, but at the time he had done a little bit of dramatic work and Columbo didn't have all the Peter Falk baggage. Now it was pretty open book and they could see him sucking on a pipe,

mulling over the clues and such and they wanted somebody older. That was another problem they had with Peter Falk. He was too young. He was 39 at the time? Yeah, yeah. And they wanted somebody like Thomas Mitchell played him on stage. Right. Like Colombo on stage right Columbo Billy Yeah, and he was almost he was in his 70s and you know that didn't last long But and and being cross me was a bit of a scumbag That I can't speak to I know

Beat up his kids his kids fucking hated Well, so presumably Gil he turned the roll down to have more time to beat his kids. His kids fucking hated him. Well, so presumably Gil, he turned the roll down to have more time to beat his kids. And according to a story I heard, someone brought up how Bing Crosby would beat his kids. They brought it up to Buddy Hackett. And Buddy Hackett said, you wanna know why Bing Crosby beat his kids? Because Bing Crosby couldn't get a heart on. David, do you want to rethink your invitation to be on this program? I'm good. I'm alright. I'm a big boy. He has no comment on Bing Crosby, Gilbert.

Well, why do we think Bing Crosby turned it down? He was kind of down... No, he was winding down his career. Yeah, exactly. He wanted to just do Christmas specials and golf. You know, that was enough for him. And the whole purpose of prescription murder while it was billed as a TV movie was a presumptive pilot. All these TV movies at that point, if NBC liked him, they gave him the green light to make a series. So Bing Crosby probably would have done one he didn't want to do a whole series and and Peter Falk was a was a really easy guy to work with right that's incorrect no that yeah no he well he was he was could be very difficult to work

with but certain people loved working with him and everybody loved being around him. He was just this lovable guy, but I mean, you just imagine he had the best qualities of Columbo and the best qualities or the worst qualities of the Columbo villain all in one personality. He was, you know, this like Columbo, He was lovable and a twinkle in his eye and a good storyteller and he was really smart but he came off as humble and he, you know, talked like Columbo and kind of slow and so everybody liked him but he also was sort of,

didn't trust anybody and wanted to make sure his show was this A plus show so he constantly wanted more and more power and, you know it sometimes made some bad decisions and threw some tantrums and screwed up the show a little bit too and you know his sort of bad behavior kind of led to the eventual demise of the show twice. Can you imagine anybody else playing Colombo and making it that big a hit? No, I can't and all you have to do is look at that first show that he wasn't in, and you realize here's the exact same show he would do five years later, which is kind of flat, and it's because it doesn't have Peter Falk in it. Yeah. Tell us, since Gilbert mentions it in the origin, and we jump all over the place here, so we apologize, David. What do you, you describe the origin of just one more thing in the book. Right. Yeah well that happened

when they were writing this, when Levinson and Link were writing the stage play and they, I don't know if anybody remembers back in the day when you have to write with a typewriter and I know my first book was written on a typewriter and if you made a mistake you had to either use whiteout or you know start from scratch and they had typed up this beautiful script, this beautiful formatted script, and they realized the scene was too long. But Columbo had already left the room. You know, he was interrogating the suspect and he left the room.

So they said, well, let's, I don't want to retype this page. Let's just have them come back in the door and say, ah, just one more thing. And it turned out to be, you know, one of the most, the biggest laughs in the play. So they included multiple, just one more things in the pilot. And then, you know, almost every episode, he's just one more thing in.

And it always appeared like, it was so important to the show, cause it's like, that's when the bad guy would get nervous right when he'd say one more thing and it would be something really important yeah yeah well usually it would seem like it was inconsequential all these little clues that at first the the bad guy would not think much of it and in fact sometimes offer to help Colombo solve the case. But after three or four he started getting a little too close and it usually made that bad guy nervous and then started getting angry.

Let me go back to the beginning of this project David for a second and here we are jumping around again as I said. But you said in the preface to the book there have been other books that have covered the series, notably Mark Dwidziak's book. Am I saying his name right? Yeah, you are. Yeah, terrific book, The Columbo File. But among the fascinations with the show is how it differs from other mystery shows. You describe it in the book as one long reveal.

But also, I want to ask, what attracted you to doing this, to tackling this, to tackling this project in the first place? I assume a lifelong fan. Yeah, yeah, a lifelong fan. The show was in its first run on NBC in the 70s when I was a little kid and I loved you know old movies and Disney and so after the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights then came on Colum, which was my mom's favorite show. So one TV in the house. We all watched Columbo. And even though it was intended for older audiences, you know, I just I just loved it. I mean, Peter Falk was so engaging and the sort of backwards mystery that they had.

I always like puzzles and that was kind of kind of neat how they not tried to figure out who done it, but how's how are they going to catch them? Would any of Colombo's discoveries, like it would always be something small that would reveal it, would any of those stand up and call you? You know what, I think a lot of them would not. I can't think of any specific examples, but I mean there's one episode actually with Robert Culp and he plays the most crucial game and he plays the head of the general manager of a football team. And there's a recording in which he's supposed

to be in his office where you're supposed to hear the background of an alarm clock go off or the chimes of a clock go off and Columbo listens to his phone call which was made from his ding-a-ling ice cream truck where he's out murdering the victim and there's no sound of the of the alarm, no sound of the chime so he's like oh no you got me you don't hear the you don't hear the clock and I'm thinking what what you guys not going to prison because you don't hear a clock that's that one, what, what, you guys not going to prison because you don't hear a clock? That's, that one wouldn't have held up.

I just watched one that worked very well, Gil. I just watched, cause I went back and watched a bunch of these and Gil, you and I were talking about, now you see them, where Jack Cassidy is the ex-Nazi, who becomes the illusionist. That one is pretty tight, David. And he produces the typewriter ribbon.

Right. Because Nehemiah Persoff is writing the blackmail letter to the naturalization service. You would have to think that would hold up in court. Yeah, that one I have to think of. It's physical evidence. Oh, well not only did that hold up in court, but that particular clue, like two or so years after that episode originally aired, a real life police officer was watching that episode and goes, I wonder if, and he went and cracked the real case in the exact

same way. And the guy in that case was arrested, tried, and convicted on the evidence of a typewriter ribbon. How about that one, Gil? That's excellent. Department of Immigration and Naturalization, Washington, D.C. In close, find a letter which proves that Santini is in reality an ex-Nazi named Stefan Mueller. I don't think there's any need for me to go any further, is there, sir?

No. Means... opportunity... motive. And I thought I'd perform the perfect murder. Perfect murder, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. There is no such thing as a perfect murder. That's just an illusion. But there's another one with John Cassavetes as a conductor.

Attitude in black. Where in in in some films some security camera he goes in the house and he's not wearing a rose on his lapel and then when he's leaving he's wearing a rose on his lapel and and that of course means he's guilty of murder. Well that's incontrovertible proof, no rose. The other thing with that episode though is his wife who you know this frail little thing who has all the money she catches on she figures it out and he's he's in trouble with that so I don't prison at that point I'm sure was no no penalty compared to the wrath of his wife. David when you decided to tackle this project,

and I'm very interested in your process, why was Peter Falk's memoir not particularly helpful? Well, because it was all made up. So that was a problem. There you go. It's called just. I like the stories on this show. Yeah, well, I'll send it.

It was called Just One More Thing, and it is a fantastic, really fun read as if you were sitting down with Peter Falk and he were telling you stories. But just like the real Peter Falk, most of it came off the top of his head. And it's just filled with things that could never have happened or things that if they happened, they

happened at a different time or a different place, because you could provide proof that these things couldn't have happened this way. So that was not super helpful. So I figured I needed closer, more reliable sources. And you were talking about one of them, Dean Hargrove. Dean Hargrove became one of your sources. Yeah, Dean Hargrove became one of one of your sources. Yeah Dean Hargrove is a brilliant producer. He wrote the second pilot, Ransom for a dead man starring Lee Remick. I have to correct you there, podcast guest Lee Grant. Oh Lee Grant, excuse me, you're right. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely right. Although we love Lee Remick. Yeah, well.

Good call, good call. No way to treat a lady. And then he became the producer in season two, three, and four of Columbo and a real nice guy. His only problem, occasionally problems with Peter Falk, but some big problems with John Cassavetes. He produced that episode Etude in Black and I guess Cassavetes was running roughshot over the production You know, it's funny the Cassavetes connection you you kind of allude to this in the book That because Falk was also working with Cassavetes on Cassavetes projects That he started bringing what a more improvisational

that he started bringing what a more improvisational approach to acting to the colombo set oh a hundred percent that I think that that was a great inspiration for Peter Fox work on colombo was he was a more traditional actor until in the late sixties he started working with John Cassavetes and he would ask Cassavetes why are you some of the movies Cassavetes did he would ask Cassavetes, why are you, some of the movies Cassavetes did were sort of beneath him, we'll say. And Cassavetes would say, these are the type of movies I have to make to make the money

to make the movies I wanna make, you know, where we just kind of don't know much of a script and then I can hire all my friends and we'll have a looser feel. And Peter Falk at first didn't understand that and very quickly came to love that and institute that on Columbo, where he would just kind of make a lot of the stuff up and bring an improvisational feel

and a lot of his friends to work on the show. Was there a negative aspect to that? Was it part of why he stopped trusting scripts and demanding to see dailies? Yeah, well, all that, that may have been pre-existing before, but that gave him a reason to react because he just completely admired John Cassavetes. So he would... Oh, go ahead, Gilberto. And he... So, John Cassavetes and he were friends, and he had Cassavetes on this show. Why was his other pal, Ben Guzzara, not on the show?

Well, Ben Guzzara directed an episode or two of the show, but he was supposed to be cast in one of the episodes. There's an episode called A Case of Immunity, which is this sort of Iranian diplomat with the sheik, and it ended up being with Hector Elizondo, ended up getting the part, and it was because NBC at that time had taken over the approval of the budget on the shows, because it was paying all overages at that time had taken over the the approval of the budget on the shows

because it was paying all overages at that point and so Ben Guzzara wanted too much money to play the Sheik and so NBC said no just Hector Elizondo will play the part for half the price so you're out of luck. You mentioned in the book that that that not casting Guzzara pinching pennies was one of the things that set him off. Right absolutely well that was the very first episode in which NBC stepped in. It was in the fifth season. Universal was fed up with Peter Falk. They wanted to just end the show because they didn't want to lose money on it and he was by his stalling and taking 30 takes for every scene and it was supposed to be a

10-day show and it was it was taking was taking 15, 20 days to make a show. So they were ready to be done with it. And NBC stepped in and go, this is our number one show on the network. We need to keep this continuing. Whatever it costs you, every penny over budget, we will pick up. And so that meant sending somebody from NBC onto the universal lot to sort of keep track of costs and That was the first episode was a case of immunity where they said, okay we're gonna pay up to twelve thousand five hundred dollars for a guest star and that's it we're not paying a penny more and

Which is why Orson Welles doesn't turn up as the magician the the choice to play the illusionist in the episode I just referenced. Yeah, that was the very next episode that they filmed after that was they wanted Orson Welles to play the magician, and he was a part-time magician and a well-regarded actor, was interested in it, but he wanted $20,000, and they're like, no, $12,500 or nothing. So you get Jack Cassidy is what you get. And that's why you get Jack Cassidy three times in the series. Well, Jack Cassidy worked cheap.

He was $10,000. He was even under budget. That may be my favorite episode. I mean, this is one of those shows where you're constantly changing your mind about favorite episodes. I do love the Ruth Gordon episode. I do love the Donald Pleasance episode.

But I got to shout out this writer, Michael Sloan, who wrote Now You See Him. That is a really tidy episode. Yeah, and that was one of his first writing jobs. He ended up creating the show The Equalizer and doing a lot of other really important work. But that was one of the first things he ever did. And he was living in Europe and out here in Los Angeles

on a holiday or visiting friends and wrote a Colombo script for fun and figured he knew the head writer on Colombo, Peter Fischer, and gave it to him and said, hey, you dropped my script off? And he did and Peter Fischer read it and like, oh my gosh, this is terrific. And so they bought it right then and there.

Loves. And, um, oh, here's something I always wondered about. Colombo yogurt for years had a radio commercial with a guy imitating Peter Falk. Do you remember this, David? I don't. What is this? How long ago was this? It might've been East Coast, Gil. Okay.

Yeah. It ran for years though and it always amazed me how nobody put a stop to it. I wonder if they had to base some sort of royalties because Universal is not one to let any any pennies escape their grasp. As long as Gilbert's talking about extracurricular projects or do you remember Peter Falk on the Dean Martin roast in character? I do and I was surprised when he came out. I think they even build him as, you know, guest star Lieutenant Columbo. I don't think they build him as Peter Falk. Gilbert always hated that. Yeah. It's like how...

Might have been the Sinatra roast. Yeah. It's like how Art Carney would show up as Aidan Norton and all that stuff. It always seemed really uncomf- Yeah, well I don't know, like Foster Brooks seemed to work, because nobody knew who Foster Brooks was, apart from his- Yes! Gino reminded me, Gilbert, that at some point,

that when Fawkes stopped showing up as Columbo, they had Casey Kasem come out as Columbo. Oh, jeez! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha shit. On the roasts. Let me ask you about the creators of this wonderful, enduring program, David. Levinson and Link, and we just lost Bill Link somewhat recently. Right, yeah, last December. Nah, it's another missed opportunity in booking the show.

But these guys met as teenagers and fortunately did not go into their parents, into their father's line of work, into textiles and what was the other one? Yeah, something equally boring. Yeah, something equally boring. And they started writing mystery stories together. And fortunately for us, they did. Yeah, from junior high, they met. They got put in the same school for the first time

and they instantly found out that they shared every interest in common from both like magic and mystery stories and writing. And they became instant, inseparable best friends for literally the rest of their lives and started writing together while in grade school, wrote school musicals, and once they got out of the army, they started pursuing a professional career,

and that was one of their first big hits, was Prescription Murder, which turned into the beginning of Columbo. They also created a little show called Mannix. Yeah, Mannix, their first series, yeah. Levinson and Link. On the Dick Cavett show, Falk, Gazar, and Cassavetes all showed up in what was, I guess, the most uncomfortable episode of Dick Cavett that anyone's ever watched.

Except for the one where the guy died. Oh, yeah. That one never aired. That one I missed. Yes. Well, I heard they were plastered on the on the Cabot shows. I think you can find that. Yeah yeah so they they came in well prepared or lubricated I guess. Why did Levinson and Link leave early? Was it was it really because it mostly to pursue other opportunities? Yeah it was. Was it because of clashes with Falk?

No, I think it was in spite of clashes with Falk because they wanted to do new things and different things and they didn't want to work with Peter Falk, but they wanted to maintain 100% control. And that's one reason why the first season in which they produced, and the only season in which they produced and and the only season in which they produced, and oversaw all the writing,

was because they retained all the power, and walked through a few temper tantrums, and sit-outs, and got barred from the set a few times, but they somehow finished that season on time, and they were done for other projects, and that was sort of the beginning of the end of the show in that Dean Hargrove, who took over, gave Peter a little power,

and then the next guy after him gave him a little more power and pretty soon, just like a good Columbo villain, if you get enough rope, you hang yourself, and he hung the show. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing Colossal podcast, but but first a word from our sponsor. I was telling Gilbert one of the most fascinating aspects of the book where we're talking about his temperament and him being a... I don't want to use the word troublemaker, but he was certainly disruptive.

but he was certainly disruptive. And the episode that really stands out is the Suzanne Pluchette Eddie Albert episode. Which was directed by Jack Smite, who by the way directed No Way to Treat a Lady Gilbert. And there's that, what, he wanted, Falk wanted to direct and he decided to stage a sick out? Yeah, well what happened is he always wanted more control, more power. And part of his deal was that that first season, which was supposed to be six shows, he would

get to pick his own producer on half of them. So he had a buddy who was also buddy with John Cassavetes, who was sort of feisty, like he was. And he had him produce that third show. It was called Dead Weight with Eddie Albert. Dead Weight, I was trying to think of the name. And after the previous show was the one with Steven Spielberg directed. And when Peter Falk saw Steven Spielberg and what he could do to elevate the show, he's like, ah, I want to do direct. And's like we got you know we got to finish this

show we don't have time for you to learn how to direct you've never directed anything and you know so this went on for weeks and finally he went to the producer and said hey how can I get my way how can I direct how can I and he said well what you got to do is you got to get sick and since you're the star you know you'll start getting your way and so he said he was sick and didn't come back to the set and they had to finish that episode without him they didn't know what to do and they still had a couple scenes to shoot so they got his stand-in who looked kind of little shaggy haired kind of like Peter Falk and shot the rest of the scenes from behind over his shoulder. So that's not

really in a couple of scenes is not really Peter Falk that's his you know fake Falk in there finishing up that episode and then he finally came back they said okay okay come back for the next episode and we'll let you direct but once the episode started it was yeah he found out yeah we'll let you direct And he went, I don't want to direct Night Gallery. I want to direct. So he had to go through it again. And once again, he left the set and they had to finish that next episode without him. And finally, he wouldn't come back until they assigned him an episode.

And, wow, they did. And and years later, when he when Colombo came back and Falk was older, he owned everything. Yeah, pretty much. And that was, like I said, to give him a little more rope, a little more rope. And they gave him the whole barrel of rope at the end just to have him come back. Because at first they cut the show and then ABC wanted to bring it back 10 years later. And so they figured that the best way to get Peter Falk back is to get Bill Link back, who his partner, Dick Levinson, had just passed away.

Bill Link didn't know if I could. I've never written anything without him in my whole life. And they said, yeah, you can run this show if you can get Peter Falk back. And that was letting him be co-executive producer, giving him first significant power. And then each season after that, he got a little more power, a little more power. Until after two more seasons, Peter Falk was making all the decisions, overseeing everything, usually to not great results.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, the original NBC version is the most beloved version of the show. I did find the story where his sick out was really disruptive to his co-star. Suzanne Pluchette was worried that he was throwing the production so far off schedule that she wasn't going to make it to her next assignment, her next acting job. And tell us what Eddie Albert wound up saying to Falk. You're going to make me curse, aren't you? Well, it's in the book. Ha ha ha.

But yeah, Suzanne Plachette, who was personal friends with Peter Falk going into that, got really upset to him and didn't speak to him again for several years because she thought she was going to miss her next job because she didn't have a stop date. And Eddie Albert, who was really, he had just finished Green Acres, he'd always wanted to work with Peter Falk because he was known for such an interesting actor and he was really looking forward to this. He finally had time to appear with him. And after the show where the last couple scenes they had to film without him, he just walked up to Peter Falk and he said you know I always wanted to work with you but you're a real a-hole and

and was not happy. How about that Gil? And yeah that's I remember when when I was a teenager I saw Prisoner of Second Avenue on Broadway with Peter Falk and Lee Grant. Right exactly right and that was that was one of the reasons why they really had to finish Columbo quickly that first season was the deal was I've got to be in Broadway on September 15th to begin rehearsals for Prisoner of Second Avenue. So yeah I'll do your six and what turned out to be seven shows but I've got to be on the plane by September 15th and so there was no time to... that's why everybody was so paranoid they weren't gonna finish it and finally got let Peter Falk direct an episode in exchange

for him agreeing to make a seventh episode that season instead of six in case he screwed one up. And then he went and did the show on Broadway in between the first and second seasons and that was always a he was you know very proud of that role but was always bothered because that was the same time Columbo began. So all the reporters, nobody wanted to talk about Prisoner or Second Avenue, they all just wanted to talk about Columbo. Do you remember, Gil, by chance when you saw that production, did you see it early in the run or later in the run when

Columbo was already a thing? Do you have any memory of that? Yeah, I, well, Columbo I think was already a thing, yeah. Was he worried about typecasting, too? Because you make the point in the book, David, that Jack Lemmon got the part of the character in Prisoner of Second Avenue in the feature. Right, exactly. Yeah, that's Steve. He thought people couldn't see him, couldn't see Columbo in that part?

Right. Well, that was one reason he didn't want to do a series and reluctantly did because what had happened is he had a business manager who ran off with a lot of his money. So he needed money quick and his financial advisor was Wayne Rogers, the guy who appeared in MASH. Yeah, and the best man at his wedding. Exactly right. And so he said, well, how can I get, you know, I just lost all this money. What do I do? And he said, well, why don't you just do this series. It's a limited, it's called the Wheel series.

It's just a half dozen shows. It's not like every week. And you'll get a lot of money. It'll move up your profile. You get more, a higher payday for your film work. And so he agreed to do one season, which turned out to be a lifetime. Yeah. Gilbert has mentioned a show on this show before, Trials of O'Brien, Gilbert.

Yes, I remember that as a kid watching that. An earlier failed Fox series. Right, yeah, that was his only other series. And he thought it was a great show. But I mean, they were like, I don't have it at the top of my head. But there were like 25 episodes or something. Right, yeah, that was his only other series. And he thought it was a great show, but he, I mean, there were like, I don't have it at the top of my head, but there were like 25 episodes or something. And so every single week for an hour.

And so he, you know, he was just burned out on that really quickly. And the ratings were, I mean, he was like number 99 in the ratings. It was really poorly received by the public, even though the critics loved it. So he really was in no hurry to do another series. I can imagine. And I remember Peter Falk on an episode of Twilight Zone where he's basically like Castro. Oh yeah! Yeah, he's talking in a Cuban accent. Yeah, well he would do occasionally TV appearances including one appearance on the Danny K show. So that's... One of our fans Rob

Martinez wrote in to say that his appearance on the Danny K show, this is just fun trivia, was two days before the JFK assassination. Oh, is that... no relation I'm hoping. No, no relation at all. Did this feeling that he'd kind of been burned by a series factor into, I'll put it mildly or kindly, his meticulousness? Yeah. I won't say his disruptiveness or his meddling. No, well he didn't see it as meddling. He thought he was trying to make the show the best show that was one of the promises he got from Universal was you only have to do six and every one of them will be like the equivalent of a feature film we're gonna hire the top producers and directors and writers and this is gonna be an a-class production all the way and that was one reason he

was a little miffed at first when he found out Spielberg was gonna be directing one of the first episodes but he he was like, wait, what this 24 year old kid and then he saw him work and he's like, oh my gosh, this guy's so good. And that made him want to direct himself. But yeah, sure. He was a lot of trouble because he was always trying to make the show the show better. But and aside from Eddie Albert, do you have any stories about other actors and how they felt about Volk, Pearl or Khan? Most of them enjoyed working with him even though they were exhausted by working with him because he'd do so many takes.

He wanted to do things over and over and over again. He wanted to keep that improvisational feel so he wouldn't look at the script until that morning when he arrived. Okay, what scenes am I doing today? And he would learn it on his feet. So he didn't know it at first and he'd want to try it 10, 20, 30 different ways. Every single line of dialogue he ever delivered in Columbo, he rewrote himself. He just rephrased everything because he was convinced since he was Colombo, he knew how Colombo would really say that line with the right pause and the right words. And it just slowed everything down. There is a story about Ed Asner, our late friend. Yes, but Ed Asner never appeared on the show,

but actually signed a contract to be on the show. It was the first episode that Patrick McGuinn would end up doing called By Dawn's Early Light, in which he plays the commandant of an all-boys military academy. And originally signed for that was Ed Asner to play that sort of general figure during a break from the Mary Tyler Moore show and right before that episode Peter Falk decided to go out on one of his strikes because he wanted more money and more control and you know different

concessions and Ed Asner was so fed up he's like I'm done you know I can't I'm out and so he he pulled out and did not do that show. What do we know about Van Dyke return Dick Van Dyke and other person who's done this show declining the invite to return. Yeah well that that's funny because Dick Van Dyke loves Peter Falk I I mean, they were not social friends, but they liked each other. And Dick Van Dyke was hired to do the one episode called Negative Reaction, which he plays the photographer, and did a great job against hype, but didn't like how Peter Falk was turning it into the Peter Falk show rather than, you know, he thought he'd be sort of on equal footing as Peter Falk, but he was playing second fiddle. And

so they asked him to come back the second year in an episode called Forgotten Lady, which they ended up getting Janet Leigh and John Payne in it, but they wanted Dick Van Dyke for that song and dance man in that role. And he's like, I can't do that again. He didn't want to play second banana to Falk at this point in his career. What were the rules?

I found this fascinating too, maybe because I'm a writer. But Levinson and Link's original rules for writing Columbo. Right, all of which, what were they David? Yeah, all of which NBC was against, and there was a they were just not written down in stone, but these were the things that they wanted all future writers to work into the show, and they were things like you know we should never see Colombo's wife we should he should not have a partner he should just sort of drift into the show about 20 25 minutes later you know he should make a big entrance and he should you know be sort of a mysterious figure like like Colombo would be one of

the main mysteries of the show is he just be this really mysterious figure he wouldn't have romantic entanglements. And also, there wouldn't be a lot of violence. It would just be a chasm. No drug busts, no shootouts, no car chases. We're three of them. No prostitutes. No, unfortunately, no prostitutes.

Because they didn't want to show the gritty real life Los Angeles or alleyways. They wanted this to be, you know, sort of a fantasy LA, which was just filled up with these million dollar mansions where Robert Culp and Jack Cassidy were behind closed doors knocking off their wives. And champagnebo. Fred Silverman. Right exactly well what that has happened when Fred Silverman did come in at the end of the seventh season of Columbo and Peter Falk just assumed they

were gonna pick up the show but they were waiting for permission from Silverman who they knew was coming in to take over. And when he came in he's like, I certainly don't want to work with Peter Falk and plus I'm all about Charlie's Angels and Happy Days and this younger, hipper show, so it'd be a lot easier and cheaper if we made our own Columbo. Let's do Mrs. Columbo. And originally they hired Levinson and Link to help develop the show, which Peter Falk I'm sure felt quite a bit betrayed by them creating his replacement. But they quickly realized that they wanted nothing to do with the show because they cast a 24-year-old woman to play Mrs. Columbo, and it just didn't work.

It had all the things that went against the rules of Columbo. It had the violence and the slasher murderers and the danger, all these things that weren't supposed to be in Columbo. Poor Kate Mulgrew. I mean, that thing was dead on arrival Oh that that concept and and and if you're going to make the show about Columbo's unseen wife You know cast you know cast Charlotte Ray Gilbert Why would they care I mean I guess it was Silverman and that's what that's what his background was right? He's a jiggle TV and Charlie's Angels guy as you point out. But why cast a 24-year-old?

You imply in the book that that's when Levinson and Link said, this is, we're bailing. Right. With that casting decision, they knew it would no longer be about Columbo. They were just using the Columbo name and dropping in like, oh, there's the car parked out front and, oh, I got to take the dog to the vet, you know, and that type But I mean Peter Falk would not even let him put his picture on the mantelpiece He wanted nothing of that. I wanted nothing to do with the show. They tried changing the title It was what Kate it was like Kate Columbo gil and then it was Kate loves a mystery

They started phasing Columbo out. Yes exactly it's kind of like the wife in the Colombo series was sort of like how Jimmy Durante would say, good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. It's this mysterious woman. Yeah. And it worked that way. Yeah. Like making a show about Vera on Cheers, right? Wasn't that Norm's wife? Yeah, yeah Yeah, Carlton the doorman or one of those in the doorman Yeah, all those type of things work great But once you show her it's kind of and they'd actually thought about an episode showing Mrs Columbo they knew it was what they thought would be one of the second to last season

It was an episode about Columbo goes on a cruise If you've seen that one with Robert Vaughn and they were... Isn't that one of the ones Guzzara directed? Yeah that's the second one Ben Guzzara directed, filmed on the real Princess Cruise, in which you can see the people walking around just gaping at the filmmakers. But the original script was going to be, you know, the big reveal at the end was here's finally Mrs. Columbo and at the end they chickened out and they didn't show her, which was probably for best. That's like Columbo meets the Lumbo.

Somebody may have been thinking that. Quick question from a listener, David, our friend Daniel Frank. I found on IMDb a claim that Patrick McGuinn was actually approached at one point to replace Falk. Is there any truth to that? Any validity to that at all? I think that... Is that one of those things that turns up by the interwebs? Yeah, well I didn't put that in the book because I wasn't sure how true that was, but it does make sense because at that time when it was phasing out the networks were looking for a new show a series to regularly

star McGuinn and in fact Dean Hargrove told me today that his show with Tony Curtis McCoy the first person they asked to do that show was Patrick McGuinn and his agent turned it down and then he said he saw McGuinn like a week later and said okay I'm ready to do that show and he's like ah too late we already asked Tony Curtis. And what did Tony Curtis say when he got the part Gil? Oh wonderful wonderful. That's a nod to Gino. There's also a story that Tony Curtis ran into Danny Kay at a party and Danny Kay

was insulting Tony Curtis. And Tony Curtis says, so I walked up to him and I looked him straight in the eyes and I said fuck you Danny Ever the wit Not exactly Oscar Wilde, you know David you're you're you're an obsessive like me and you remember We do a lot of weird nostalgia on this show and you remember some of the lesser remembered or lesser known spokes, shall I say, in the NBC mystery wheel. Right?

Well, when it started- There was McCoy, you mentioned one right there. That came a little later. What happened when it first started is it was Columbo, Macmillan and wife, Rock Hudson, and McCloud with Dennis Weaver, which it actually started on a different wheel the year before, so McCloud actually predated Columbo.

And then when that was so successful, especially Columbo, NBC kept rerunning the seven episodes they had of Columbo, NBC kept rerunning the seven episodes they had of Columbo, you know, all through the spring and all through the summer. And Peter Fox was like, no, you can't show these four times. That's ridiculous. So they figured they needed a fourth spoke in the wheel. And they tried various ones. One was Hec Ramsey. Sure, with Richard Boone. Exactly right, yeah. Playing a forensic investigator in the Old West, and then McCoy. And the only one that turned out to be a hit out of them all

was Quincy in the last season of the NBC mystery movie. And after two episodes of Quincy, when they realized they had a hit, they spun him off immediately onto his own series. So he didn't last long. I remember a show around that time period about a black detective named Tenafle. James McKeachin.

That was a wheel show. Yeah. And that was a Levinson and Link show as well. Yeah. Well done. Also the Snoop sisters. Yeah, they had, well what had happened is... They were in the wheel. Yeah, they were in a different wheel though. Wait a minute, let's establish this. There was originally the Wednesday night

wheel. The Wednesday night NBC mystery movie and then what, the spin-off was the Sunday? Well sort of the original then became the Sunday because what happened is the ratings were so good that first year, especially for for Colombo that they didn't want to waste them on Wednesday so they wanted to move their hit wheel to Sunday night so starting the second season it was on Sundays and they created all new shows Madigan with Richard Widmark and Bannecek and I wanted two others to take the place of the Wednesday Night Wheel, all of which bombed and they replaced with the Snoop sisters and you know a bunch of others.

There was one with Dan Daly. Yeah and they just kept trying different things. Dan Daly who almost appeared in, who was signed to appear in a Colombo that next year but it didn't happen. I have a memory of, I don't remember the title of it, where Tony Franciosa was a detective. That one is not... I know what you're talking about. I don't know if that was one of the wheel shows. After the name of the game. Years later, right? Yes. Well, I remember Dan Daly had one. Tenafly is the one Gilbert mentioned. There was the Snoop Sisters. There was McCoy

with Tony Curtis, as we established. I'm trying to remember the other ones. Yeah, there were a few others. What was a Banachek you mentioned, Madigan? They had all kinds of different wrinkles. Yeah, but none of them did well as part of the wheel. There were a couple that were non-wheels that were inspired by Columbo that did well like Kojak. You know, that was a big hit,

which was inspired by, as the anti-Columbo. Everything about Columbo, you know the shaggy hair will make him bald, he's sucking on a cigar, we'll give him a lollipop. He's you know so every wrinkle they flipped on its head and made him the anti-Columbo and after he was a big hit he was moved on the schedule to go head-to-head with Columbo. It's interesting too. I want to bring up, well you brought up, let's ask about the one that he did get to direct after all that we'll call it negotiating. Right yeah. It's the episode with with Patrick O'Neill in season one and it's a good one. Yeah it's good it's called Blueprint for Murder and it's with, Patrick O'Neill plays this architect who while building this high

rise in Century City knocks off a guy and tries to bury his body in his concrete pylon and that's the one they gave to Peter Falk to direct mostly to punish him because they figured that would be the most difficult one to direct, because six of the ten days were out on a construction site with all the bulldozing equipment and the jackhammers, and he had to work around all that and quickly discovered if he couldn't go back and re-film something the next day, because a pylon that was there no longer existed. Everything changed from day to day. Steven Boschko script.

And tell, tell Gilbert who the murder victim was in that particular episode. It was Forrest Tucker. There you go, Gil. Ah. All right. You're not standing a chance. Now, you know what Forrest Tucker is known for?

I have no idea. Poor David. Something to do with David. I'm ready. The same thing that Milton Burrell is known for. I have no idea. Poor David. The same thing that Milton Berle is known for. The same thing Uncle Milti was known for. Now that I have heard. Allegedly, allegedly. This is I think.

No, we've had people on the show who have seen. Forrest Tucker or Milton Berle? Nobody that saw Forrest Tucker's. All right. No. I think too, and this is stating the obvious, but one of the smarter aspects of the show is that you are pitting this great mind, this great detective against so many calculating minds, inventive people, chess masters, brilliant surgeons, other mystery writers.

Right, yeah that was... That's sort of the fun of it, and it's in this case, in Patrick O'Neill's case, a brilliant architect. Yeah, exactly right, and they figured... They all become chess games. Right, not just chess game, but they figure the more foolproof of a crime that the villain creates, the more we're at home going, there's no way they're gonna trap him, you know, and then, you know, one thread at a time is unraveled until that big gotcha at the end. Now, there were two. One of them with Janet Leigh, where he meets a famous actress.

Right. And that's one with Ann Baxter. Ann Baxter as well. Oh, Ann Baxter. That's the one I was trying to where he goes, you and I have been in love with you my whole life. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's it.

Yeah, the one with Ann Baxter was inspired by her movie All About Eve, in which she's playing characters 20 years later based on her character from that movie. And the one with Janet Leigh was an episode that was originally written for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. At that time, the movie That's Entertainment had just come out, which was this retrospective of MGM musicals. And it was a big hit, so that inspired that episode.

And we thought it'd be perfect you know Jean roger ginger Rogers knocks off her husband and you know Fred Astaire's her old dancing partner steps in to save her but it didn't quite work out that way they ended up going through a number of other people and they actually when they cast Janet Leigh then cast Donald O'Connor as her partner in the movie but Donald O'Connor had a fair, a county fair he had to pair in so he had to drop out. Poor Donald O'Connor had a commitment to a county fair so he couldn't be in Colombo. That's unfortunate.

But yeah so then they signed Don, Dan Daly to do that part. And then when it was time to begin filming, he came down with rheumatic fever. So they needed somebody at the last minute and John Payne was willing to do it for 12-5. John Payne from Miracle on 34th Street. Exactly right. Who had done some musicals in, you know, Fox in his day? Yeah. Speaking of the villains too, I find it, I think this was another rule. I don't know if this was a Link Levinson rule or something imposed by the network. Make sure the villains are unlikable. Yeah, well that was

that was based on seeing Lee Grant, who they found to be extremely likable in her role. I've heard from a lot of people who think she wasn't, she was fairly evil, but they thought she was too likable and they said no matter who the villain is, we have to make sure it's a bad guy, you know, who you don't like. And it didn't happen until season three, after Levinson and Link were gone, that they started building in villains who could be sort of sympathetic, like Donald Pleasence, Johnny Cash. Ruth Gordon.

Oh, none more than Ruth Gordon. And that part was actually written for Bette Davis, and they decided, nah, nobody's gonna like Bette Davis. Everybody loves Ruth Gordon, let's get her. I like the sympathetic villain episodes, but I'm kind of a purist. Give me the sociopaths like Leonard Nimoy in Stitchin' Crime in season two, or that son of a bitch that Ross Martin plays in Suitable for Framing. Right. Yeah, I think they play a little bit better when you really hate that villain and

you get that pleasure out of him finally getting nailed. But every once in a while throwing a Johnny Cash is kind of fun. Yeah, the Johnny Cash character is likable. The Pleasance character is rather tragic. Yeah, but he's, I mean, I know. It's a different dimension to him. Yeah, I like him. And at the end, I mean, certainly Columbo likes him. That was the first, they love that scene. There's one last scene at the end where he catches him and he knows he's done for and they sit in Columbo's little Peugeot and Columbo offers

him a glass of wine and they have one last glass of wine before he... Oh, and he says, this is the only thing that I ever really loved. Yeah, exactly right. And they loved that ending so much that two episodes later, they wrote it into another episode with a guy who likes cigars. The last season, or the last out scene, Columbo shares a final cigar with him. And then in the Johnny Cash episode, where the last scene is they sit in Columbo's car and they turn on the radio and listen and listen to a Johnny Cash song one more time before they go to the yeah that's sweet yeah

Cassidy manages to always play a son of a bitch yeah he's yeah especially I mean I just like I said I just watched now you see him where he's the ex-nazi guard but also murder by the book you know he's a rat yeah no and he's that's why to me he's the he's the best Colombo villain cuz he the Book, you know, he's a rat. Yeah, no, and he's, that's why to me, he's the best Columbo villain, because he's just so, you know, platinum hair and that cool manner. Yeah, McGuinn's pretty hateable too. Yeah, he, yes, he earns his.

Yeah, yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal podcast after this. Talk about somebody who did this show and we lost him a couple years ago. Gilbert and I were very fond of him, the late great Larry Cohen. Yeah Larry Cohen had an interesting relationship with the Colombo show in that he was working on the Universal Lot when Levinson and Link in the first season were hurriedly trying to come up with ideas for plots. They had to come up with six plots in like a month and get those scripts done. And Larry Cohen suggested, well, what if your

killer was Levenson killing Link or Link killing Levinson. You know, you have these two mystery writers and one has all the talent and he knocks them off and they're like, ooh, that's good. And so they give the idea to Steven Bochko and Larry Cohen gets no credit. So he's steamed and Universal ends up sending him like a little color TV set as a thank you.

And so he's like, oh, this lifetime of residuals I've lost I'm all upset and Peter Falk didn't like that so he goes well you know what let's let's send some business his way and so they hired Larry Cohen in the in the second and third seasons as a murder consultant. I love that he took the title of murder consultant. That was just a way to get a chance. Yeah, I love Larry Cohen. So he came up with, after the second season and after the third season, with each season came up with 12 ideas, so 24 total ideas for murder mysteries, of which some actually did become episodes.

Yeah, including the one we were just talking about, Any Old Port in a Storm. Yeah. And written tele we were just talking about, any old port in a storm. Yeah, so... Written, or it's written, teleplayed by Stanley Ralph Ross, another one of my favorite writers, Larry's idea, or Larry's story. Yeah, his idea, because Larry Cohen didn't write any Columbus, but he, you know, he wrote a couple paragraphs of many and then handed them all in and got his $100,000. And it was a huge amount of money for an afternoon's worth of work. Yeah, sure.

I mean, he's talking about how he's walking around the streets of London, coming up with ideas for Colombo stories, and checks are coming in. Yeah. He's a very prolific writer, Larry. And as long as we're talking about people who've done our show and were on Columbo, I think I mentioned some of these to you on the phone, David. We mentioned Dick Van Dyke, some people who we were lucky enough to have on the podcast who turn up on Colombo. In that Dick Van Dyke episode, Negative Reaction, Gilbert, two other podcast guests, Joyce Van Patten, who we mentioned,

and Larry Storch turns up as a driving instructor. Which is tremendous, because they're two bits. And they're only in the episodes for a couple minutes each. Yep. Because of the two, in my opinion, funniest bits in the history of Colombo. And they're both in the same episode with Joyce Van Patten playing a nun at the homeless shelter that mistakes Columbo for

a homeless guy and tries to take away his coat. And then Larry Storch is the Mr. Weekly, the driving instructor who's driven mad. So Storch and Tucker, Gilbert, both turned up in instructor who's driven mad. And so Storch and Tucker, Gilbert, both turned up in Columbo. Oh wow. And one of your favorite actors is in that Van Dyke episode Negative Reaction, the late Don Gordon. Oh? Yes.

Yeah. I have no Don Gordon tales, sorry. Don Gordon, another actor who pops up on the Twilight Zone. Yeah. Well, Joyce came back in an episode called Old Fashioned Murder, and she was the murderer this time. Yeah well Joyce came back in an episode called Old Fashioned Murder and she was the murderer this time. Yeah well she got hired because of Elaine May is that this was... That's the notorious Elaine May episode. Yeah where Peter Falk started getting a little nervous about about where the show was headed so he hired Elaine May without telling Universal or the producer or anybody to rewrite this

script and she changed everything on its head and one of the things was casting all her friends and co-writers and typist and everybody in the show including Joyce. Yeah. I'll mention a couple other people Gilbert. Julie Newmark turns up in the Landau episode, Double Shock. A fun episode, by the way, with Landau playing two parts. Our old friend Chuck McCann in Double Exposure. Ed Begley Jr. in the later years, season seven.

And Greg Evigan. I will quickly shout out an actor, Burr DeBenning. I don't know if you know that actor, David, but he's in Dawn's Early Light. Right, right, right, right. And his son is a super fan of this podcast, so I wanna mention him. Oh, really? Well, his father's picture is in the book, so.

Oh, that's right, what am I saying? Burr DeBening, he's in the book. And tell us about Mike Lally, this is interesting. Yeah, who he is, Mike Lally was this real old time, old timer. He was like a guy who was always looked like he was 100 years old. I think he started in silent movies. But he wanted to be silent.

He didn't want to talk. He just wanted to be an extra. And so he always got, had this sort of, he was short and sort of lovable looking, but real sort of rough. So he was always the lovable bartender or security guard or something like that and Peter Falk took a shine to him and starting with the very first episode of the NBC mystery movie he had him as his number one stand-in he had two stand-ins and he

was a lally was one of them and he also was sort of like his personal helper. So when it came time to go in his trailer, he'd make sure that all his, you know, everything was there and it was all set up for his liking. And yeah, Peter Falk just loved him. And in fact, whenever they were shooting, they would send a car for Peter Falk to make sure he showed up on time. And the requirement was they stopped by Lally's house to pick him up first on the way to picking up Falk. That's nice that Peter took care of him. And not just him, but Vito Scottie and Bruce Kirby.

Oh, Vito Scottie's in everything. Vito Scottie's in the one I was just talking about. He's in the wine episode. Yeah, yeah, he's great in that. Yeah, important to start. And now when Peter Falk came back, it was kind of odd. Well, that's when Columbo's hair, like Peter Falk's, became white. Curly white hair.

And I don't know, I thought Falk changed the whole character in those later. He was making it more like goofy and yeah No, no, you're right very perceptive He I mean at first the idea was to show him with gray hair because that's what he had when the show came back in 1989 but at the last minute they chickened out and for the first season or two after he came back They actually dyed his hair and then slowly let the gray show until he was all gray by by the end of it and then slowly let the gray show until he was all gray by the end of it. But when he took over, when Peter Falk took over as the ultimate arbiter of what was allowed and what wasn't, he always was interested in making his character more funny and lovable and goofy.

And when he had, you know, real strong-armed producers atop him, they'd sort of rein him in. But I mean, in later years when he was calling the shots, whatever he wanted to do, he did. And that's if he wanted to, all of a sudden, there's one episode where he's walking to go interview a woman who's a sex therapist, who's committed a murder. And as he's walking into this lobby of the building, he notices, for some reason, a music teacher instructing a group of kids how to play a tuba and ask Peter Falk, you know, Columbo to play the tuba. And all of a sudden, Peter Falk's playing the tuba

for no reason at all, just because he thought it'd be fun. Yeah, maybe a little too much comic relief. Yeah. Yeah, when Falk, you know, at the classic at the classic Columbus, he's like, you know, he's talking like that and it's very quiet and very slow and then all of a sudden he's still, he has a high-pitched voice and he's acting goofy and joking around. Yeah, well where that started was with Patrick McGuinn because he so enjoyed that By Dawn's Early Light episode, working with Patrick McGuinn, that Patrick McGuinn, he'd come

back and do another one if he let him direct. And Patrick McGuinn is sort of an oddball person with oddball characters, tried to build that into Peter Fox's character and make him a little, you know, stretch his character but I mean at some point you stretch it too much you break it and Peter Falk, you know, he just got carried away sometimes. Seems like there was a push and pull like Dick Simmons was trying to make him more serious and less of a joke. Right, well you know exactly right and that's the producer who came in after the big Elaine May blow up

and they needed a new producer somebody who could keep him on schedule so they brought in Dick Simmons the guy who did Trials of O'Brien right whom they knew Peter Falk respected and could keep him sort of on schedule and on a on a shorter leash and so he sort of reigned things in but by then it was it was too little too late. Was Spielberg gonna direct a comeback for Colombo 2.0? Yeah well that was that was one of the the rumors and Bill Link was convinced he was the executive producer and he was convinced that Steven Spielberg would direct the return of Colombo that very first episode back after being gone for 10,

11 years. And at the last minute, for whatever reason, Spielberg declined to do that. But as an homage to that, Dick Simmons was hired to run the show, and he decided to have the first episode he did as Spielberg as the killer. So there's actually an episode where the killer is based on Steven Spielberg, you know, hot shot director who gets carried away and the murder is kind of accidental at first based on sort of the Twilight Zone movie mishap. Let me mention some more of these actors that I. Because this is one of the joys of going back and watching these shows. And Gilbert, we've talked about some of them here. Eddie Albert, we mentioned Nehemiah Persoff.

Robert Loggia, McGeehan, Jose Ferrer, Richard Kiley, Ida Lupino, Jenna Rowland, as you mentioned, Ann Baxter, Richard Bassehart, Myrna Loy, Don Amici, Roddy McDowell, Ray Milland, Gilbert, your favorite sorrow book. Mary Wicks turned up in the Ross Martin episode. It is like Macmillan and Wife. We had John Shuck here a couple of weeks ago, who told us, by the way, that Columbo really helped carry the ratings of the other NBC mystery shows. There would have been no Macmillan and Wife second or third season without Columbo really helped carry the ratings of the other NBC mystery shows. There would have been no Macmillan and Wife second or third season without Columbo.

Sure, sure. But Macmillan and Wife is one of those shows where you can do the deepest dive for character actors. Yeah. And Columbo is another show that offers those rewards. Right, absolutely. And to me that was that's one of the joys is being able to see a lot of these people who were fairly famous in the movies would they thought it was an honor to appear on a Columbo. Yeah, sure. Where else were you seeing Ann Baxter and Myrna Loy? Yeah, no. In those days. Yeah. And somebody as long as I'm talking about people who who did this show and were on the show,

here's somebody that did this podcast that almost appeared on Columbo. And David, you'll know the story because it's in the book, Paul Williams. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He actually agreed to be on a Columbo. It's one of the most famous non-Columbos, you know, never made. And this was during the third season, was Steven Spielberg was a friend of Dean Hargrove, the producer, and he said, hey, I've got a director friend who needs some work. His last pitcher didn't do so well. His name's Brian DePalma. He's a good friend of mine. He'd be interested in doing a Columbo and Dean Hargrove, whatever Steven Spielberg says, sure, I'll talk to him. And so he comes in, DePalma gives him his pitch, and his pitch is,

okay, imagine this, Truman Capote kills Johnny Carson during an episode of The Tonight Show. It's nuts. And that was the idea for his shooting script. And the first scene was gonna be filmed from a height of four feet, nine inches with a handheld camera to as if it was Truman Capote's vantage point.

And Dean Hargrove thought well that's that's very unique go develop the the script and he did he wrote it he turned it in Hargrove loved it and at the last minute Brian De Palma said I just got this dream movie Phantom of the Paradise I can't do it'm so sorry, but I got somebody else who could do it for me, who could direct for me. Maybe you've never heard of him, but he just, he's got this movie that's coming out called Mean Streets, and I can show you a preview.

So he went and saw Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and said, wow, this guy's really something. And he met with Scorsese to direct the episode. And they were all set to do it. They talked to Paul Williams, who was all in on starring as the Truman Capote character. And at the last minute, Peter Fox says, nah, I don't know. I don't want to do this script.

And he's like, wait, what? It's a beautiful, such a unique story. And he's like, ah, that's one too many colorful characters in a Columbo. And he just didn't want to compete with another quirky, oddball character in an episode of Columbo. He thought everybody else should be straight and narrow.

Try to wrap your mind around that, Gilbert. We love to talk on this show about things that never work. I really, while David was telling that story, And you try to wrap your mind around that Gilbert that we love to talk on this show about things that never were really that well David was telling that story. I thought god. I wish they would have made that I mean think about Paul Williams Astrum and Capote if that doesn't blow your mind enough score. He would have been hysterical Of course, it was Scorsese or Brian De Palma behind the camera shooting it. That's almost too much. Yes, lost opportunity.

A couple of more quick questions, David, from listeners. Jimmy Angelina, I'm curious about the Falk-McGuin collaboration. You meant you talked about it. But my other question is Falk wearing a Colombo-esque coat. Throughout much of the Elaine May movie, Mikey and Nicky can't be an accident or coincidence. No, probably not because that movie was made in between seasons of Colombo. In fact, in between multiple seasons because Elaine May worked like Peter Falk in Cassavetes where he's just kind of turned

she had a script but she was into improvisation and just letting things run and not quite sure how things are gonna end and Peter Falk got into a big contract negotiation one after one filming that movie he didn't want to come back to work even though they gave him his contract demands because he wasn't done with the movie and he finally had to come back and finish the movie after the next set of Columbo's. It's a pretty fun movie by the way. Yeah. Peter Falk always used to say that his coat was the coat he wore in Murder, Inc. Yeah, that's not true. Sorry. That's probably in his book.

Oh, another thing he would say would be that his coat was the coat he wore through all the Columbus from day one. But if you look at that coat really closely in the very first episode, Prescription Murder, and then look at it in the next one, Rancifer, Deadman. They're very slight, you know, it's cut a little bit different, has a different number of buttons, the seams in a different place, you know, the slight, very slight differences. So which of those was actually the original coat? I don't know, but they're definitely at least two different coats there. And now you see him has a running gag with his wife

Bought him a new raincoat. Yeah, yes Dark one that he doesn't want to wear And and that's the one where his dog shows up yeah his dog What was the deal with the dog with it now that that started in season two with the Cassavetes episode, is that all through season one, NBC wanted there to be more recurring characters. You can't carry a whole series with just one guy. You know, you need a wife or a girlfriend or a buddy. So what they really wanted was another cop you know the young new to the force green detective that could be taken under Columbo's wing almost like the Bob Dischi character exactly right and so more than a few times right and they wanted him to be you know on every single week and

Levinson and Link kept resisting and finally before they'd start the second season they agreed okay we'll we'll give him a buddy you want him to have a pal and Levinson and Link kept resisting, and finally, before they'd start the second season, they agreed, okay, we'll give him a buddy. You want him to have a pal, a buddy? We'll give it to him. And so they wrote him in, in a Steven Boschko script, into this dog. And the dog became the only other recurring character

who was this big, lethargic, basset hound who's basically four-legged Columbo. What is this thing I heard, and this could be bullshit too, that they put makeup on the dog to age the dog? Yeah, I don't know. That's supposedly... That doesn't sound real. That's another Peter Falk story is that he used to say, because after the first season, they had the dog,

they had this really old dog, and between the second and third seasons, that dog died. So they're like, we need a new dog, they had this really old dog, and between the second and third seasons, that dog died. So they're like, we need a new dog, and the only dog they could find was much younger. And so Peter Falk used to say, truth or not truth, I don't know, that the dog spent more time in the makeup chair than he did, because they had to add gray highlights

to the dog, and he was just, you know, uncombed his hair and was ready to roll. Here's one from Julian Maruzzi, one of my people, Gilbert. What was Thomas, what can you tell us about Thomas Mitchell's stage performance as Columbo? And to David's knowledge, did Peter Falk ever happen to see it?

Oh, well, I don't know if he saw his performance on stage. I think it's unlikely because it never played like Broadway. It closed in Boston didn't it? Yeah. Correct and it toured quite a bit. They had hoped for Broadway but they never made it and one of the reasons was is they lost Thomas Mitchell just about a month or two into the run, he got sick and found out he had cancer and was dying. So he was out and had to be replaced. And he was the best thing about the stage show,

because for the first time, that character was given sort of a little Peter Falk-ish-ness, this sort of Irish elf twinkle in my eye type thing, make a more engaging character rather than this hard-boiled detective as the part was originally written. So he didn't play the part for long, but he was the first one to play it well. And I think Gilbert, Joseph Cotton, and Agnes Moorhead were in that production. Wow. Geez. Wow.

Geez. Yeah. Mark Scoback, please ask David, was Peter Falk almost a name of the game regular? I know he replaced the fire Tony Franciosa in one episode between the first and second Colombo pilots. Do we know anything about that? Yeah, I don't know if he was a regular. I don't think so. I know he made multiple appearances on the

show, but I don't think he was hired specifically to be a regular on the show because knowing him he would have refused. You know, he didn't want another series. And last question. Go ahead some... I just was curious if there's any stories about Falk in Mad, Mad World. Yeah, that I don't know. You know, he had, for a guy that was worried that he was going to be typecast as Columbo and not have a movie career, he had a formidable movie career. Well, he did, and I'm not quite sure. He got nominated for an Oscar for Murder Incorporated. Right, yeah.

Early on in his, but he didn't want to play mobsters. He wanted a more well-rounded career. And so that's why he really wanted to do like Neil Simon stuff. Would have loved to have done Prisoner of Second Avenue, but he wasn't asked. And he thought it was because he had done Columbo and people could no longer see him in anything but Columbo. So then he got Murder by Death, you know, Neil Simon, which was a little sort of Columbo-ish,

and then the Chief Detective, which was a little Columbo-ish. And there was a very odd production, a television production of The Sunshine Boys with Peter Falk and Woody Allen. Yeah, have you seen that David? I saw it. I know that came much later, but it was once Columbo stopped, and I don't know, maybe it was just a coincidence, that people were able to accept Peter Falk as more than just a Columbo or a Columbo-ish character, and he started getting things like Wings of Desire and Princess Bride. especially the in-laws and all these other non- Brink's job. Brink's job, yeah all these things that came at the end of his first

Columbo run. Yeah even fun in an Altrich movie called All the Marbles. Right, absolutely. Lady Wrestlers. You know, he had a movie career. Princess Bride, did we mention that? Oh, yep, absolutely. Why, as we wind down, David, first of all, tell me your favorite episode, The Expert. I think Gilbert's, your favorite episode is still Jack Cassidy and the Nazi. It's a good one to pick. It is, yeah.

Well, I love that one. I love Leonard Nimoy as the doctor, and probably my number one favorite though is the is the Donald Pleasant says the The wine connoisseur is just I just love that. Yeah, that's well, that's a classic one Yeah, I'd like to shout out to suitable for framing with with Ross Martin. Yeah, that's that's excellent as well, which I mentioned I like the early ones Richard Kylie episodes great the one you talked about with with with Ross Martin. Yeah that's that's excellent as well. Which I mentioned I like the early ones. Richard Kiley episode's great. The one you talked about with with McGuinn and Bird to Benning is great. The Cassavetes episode is fun. Yeah the Cassavetes episode is excellent. It's only problem yeah it's only problem

is that when it was done and all finished, they liked it so much NBC said we're going to lead the season off with this but it needs to be a two hour show. So they had to go in and add another half hour or 22 minutes, however many minutes they needed to bring it to a two hour show. So at the last minute they had a lot of like drive by scenes where Cassavetes driving in his car and running here and there. And they wrote a couple last minute scenes. And then they had one scene that was entirely ad-libbed by Peter Falk and John Cassavetes, where Peter says,

hey, if we're going to extend this, I've got to give John Cassavetes a bigger role. And there's no big villain scene. So they ad-libbed a scene in a house where Fox shows up and just says, hey, how much you pay for your house? Hey, how much you're paying taxes? Hey, how much do you, you know, how much do you pay for your furniture? What's the episode from season four with Robert Conrad? That's excellent too. Yeah, that's called...

Oh, he's like an exercise guy. Yeah, that's based on... It's like an evil Jack LaLanne. Exactly, it's based on Jack LaLanne and it's called Exercise and Fatality. That's a good one. Yeah, we played Milo Janis and it's a winner. So, I guess an obvious question, but a question worth asking. Why does this show that is now five decades old,

and it's just, I mean, it's never really gone out of style, and I'm reading about it now and doing my research, it's just experienced a resurgence during the pandemic. It's one of the most popular shows on television during the pandemic. Yeah, absolutely. Why has it continue to endure? Well, I think mostly it's because of Peter Falk and how, you know, likeable and lovable

and unique of a character he is. You know, everybody who watches the show, just like everybody who worked with him, just, you know, loves him and loves being around him. But also it's just sort of calm and comfortable, especially during the pandemic where people don't know, you know know which way up is down, and it's very comforting. I mean, you already know how it works out, that you know the answer to the mystery

within the first five minutes, and it's a calmer world, it's a calmer Los Angeles, and even though there's mayhem, it's under control. It's a refined murder, and there's no violence out on the streets. It's, you know, in the back room of the millionaire mansion who the millionaire eventually get his come-up and... I think it's the Ann Baxter episode where Falk says about how he loves her movies

and he says, you know, why can't they make movies like that nowadays you know without the violence. Yeah that would be a good tagline for the whole series today would be why can't they do something in the spirit of that would be terrific. I also one of the things that's that you notice when you're watching these episodes, and I guess this points out the difference between storytelling then and storytelling now, they take their time. There are so many details.

If you watch the Blueprint for Murder, they've got the time to show Columbo going to various city offices, patiently waiting on line after line, running into different kind of clerks, encountering all of this red tape. I mean, each one plays out like a play, even more so than a movie because we associate a movie as being more fast paced and having action. Yeah. No, there's the early action. They are procedurals.

And it's tension through storytelling. I doubt you could even put a series on the air today that works at this leisurely a pace. Yeah, you would need just elite-level writing, and even back in the day, all the producers would say that was the trouble, was we can't get somebody who can make it just consistently tense and interesting and entertaining of two guys just talking at each other for two hours. Yeah and the cat and mouse it's just delightful but I'm watching the Ross Martin episode and I'm watching the Ruth Gordon episode and I'm just I'm delighting in how they take their time and detail after detail after detail

many that come back to pay off right in the third act nothing is really wasted true how many people did you talk to and putting the book together David I know a Hargrove obviously and right yeah about about 30, about everyone I could find who was still around, and almost everyone agreed to speak with me. And some of the producers through the years, directors, writers, and just to find out what it was like creating those episodes and behind the scenes

and working with Peter to make that magic. I'm glad so many of those people are still around. And how's the book being received? I noticed you're getting a fair amount of press. Oh my gosh, yeah. I guess I can announce this without getting in trouble. The first printing is gone. They're running off a second printing, and we just signed the contracts for the Hungarian translation rights. So next year, shooting Colombo, we'll be out in Hungarian. Is there a Fox statue in Budapest? There is. I think he's like the national hero or something. He is popular. I knew there was a Peter Fox statue somewhere.

That's a lot. Wow. That would be worth flying to Budapest. And the Gabor birthplace. Yeah, because in doing my research Budapest kept coming up. Yeah, I don't know what it is about maybe he's part Hungarian, Peter Falk maybe? I don't know, but he's huge and hungry. So is Gilbert. I'm considered the next chaplain. David, this has been a great ride. The book was a wonderful ride. I'm glad to hear it's going into another printing. The book is called Shooting Columbo, the lives and deaths of TV's rumpled detective. And it is truly a labor

of love like this podcast. And really, I thank you for writing it. And for inspiring me to go back and watch these wonderful shows. And our listeners should do that as well. And thanks for finally confirming the Danny K. Lawrence Olivier story. He took the fifth on that. Yeah, that. Is there, and I don't blame him, is there another project in the works, David? I mean, is it too early to talk about? I'll also say that in addition, it was in the intro, but in addition to this and the Danny K. book, you are one of the country's leading authorities on the subject of Disney products and Disney projects, I

should say, and the Disney theme parks. You've written many books. Yeah. Yeah. That is a sideline. Disney's best known outsider, I guess. So people can go on Amazon and it's K-O-E-N-I-G, look up David's books, find the books, find the Colombo book for sure. Can you talk about the next thing you might be kicking around or is it too early? I'm not sure what that'll be. This is just coming off this one, so unknown. It's a mystery. It's a wonderful read, it's a wonderful show. I was reading an article, I found an article in the Irish Times. If you Google Columbo and you put it into the news search, articles

keep coming up. I mean, the show is still newsworthy and still relevant. They called it the greatest TV show ever made. Which is lofty praise, but I guess some people would agree. I want to thank Greg Pear, Michelle Mantinen, and Josh Chambers, three people who mean a lot to this show, who came up with this idea. Who reached out to me and said, hey, get the Colombo author. Oh wow, I thank them especially. Yes, Colombo's hotter than ever. And I want to thank our pals, Landromo and Aristotle Acevedo at Starburns for making this possible. And David, thanks for making the schlep to Burbank.

My pleasure. And Gilbert, you would have made a wonderful Colombo killer. Oh, yes. Oh. Ha ha ha ha ha. I got an episode. If they ever reboot Columbo, Gilbert kills the CEO of Aflac. Oh, yes. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. But I don't think there'd be much mystery there, Gil. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. You want to do a little Columbo There you go You what you want you want to do a little a little Colombo sign off for David kill or what? Oh, I'd love it. Oh

You know I just Had one more thing one more thing. I just I have to do an ending this show If that's okay, I know I've taken a lot of your time I'm sorry It just bothers me just something that bothers me I have to end the show by saying this is been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadri and And our guest on the show confirmed I'm Gromish, thank God. I'm a tweeter. Lawrence.

Lawrence Olivia. Don't sue David. And Danny Cage. Affair. David K. Nick. David, thank you for sharing your passion and your hard work with all of us and our fans. I loved it. Thanks guys. Thank you. We'll see you. We'll see you again The End