Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - The "Columbo" 50th Anniversary Show with David Koenig

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

To mark the 50th anniversary of the series premiere of "Columbo," Gilbert and Frank are joined by author and pop culture historian David Koenig for a loving look at the iconic show, its mercurial star Peter Falk, its impressive lineup of guest killers and character actors and David's new book, "Shooting Columbo: The Lives and Deaths of TV's Rumpled Detective." 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 a "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! The boys pick their favorite episode! 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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Please enjoy our products responsibly. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And on the 9th of September 15, 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 year old director named Steven Spielberg was the first series episode of Richard Levinson and William Lynx Columbo and that series would continue in various forms over the next 35 years winning numerous Emmys Golden Globes and Edgar, including four Emmys 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. the 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 seasons and numerous specials is the author of the new book, Shooting Columbo, the lives and deaths of TV's Rumpel 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, Realityland, 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 Kaye, called Danny Kaye, King of the Jesters. I wonder if I'll think of any questions. 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 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 now david uh the story i heard years ago was that lawrence olivier was arriving at the airport and tanny k 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 Kaye arrived at a London airport

and Laurence Olivier shoved his finger in Danny Kaye'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. I mean, what is the—before we jump into Columbo. Nice opening, by the way, Gilbert.

Before we jump into Columbo, nice opening, by the way, Gilbert. Shed a little light on this long-believed rumor about Danny Kaye and Olivier. All right. I think it's baloney. I wasn't in the room with Danny Kaye at any point, so I don't 1,000% know for sure. But the story as 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 and you know it's just that's not gonna and it's a great story having an affair

though i don't think so i mean for all the studies that i've done for danny k i think most of the 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 uh with very graceful he did uh anatole of paris is kind of an effeminate an effeminate number that made him famous. So 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 Kaye on a Columbo show, David, we had several guests on this show. You want me to tell them, Gilbert? Yes. We had Bernie Cohen.

Dick Van Dyke, Larry Storch. Well, no, no. I was going to talk about actors we've had on the show who work with Danny Kaye. Oh, who worked with Danny Kaye because people hate Danny Kaye. There are a few. Well, we had Bernie Copeland here who disliked him and Jamie Farr disliked him. And several other people disparaged him. But Joyce Van Patten came to his defense.

Yes, Joyce Van Patten, who I interviewed for the book 30 years ago. Oh, she did Columbo episodes, too. Yeah, and plus Columbo work. She didn't say anything bad about anybody ever in her whole life. She's lovely. Yes. Now, everybody hated Joyce Bishop. That's actually a fact.

Everyone did. Oh, here's what i wanted to ask uh was colombo based on uh 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 if it was originally written for a one-hour tv drama in the early 60s um 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. But you know, it was the same script,

but it just didn't pop. And then once Peter Falk took over and started pouring more of his own personality into it with his indecisiveness and, you know, that is likeability and, you know, little curiousness and pauses and gestures, then it really became the Columbo that we know.

And they didn't want Peter Falk. No, no. Levinson and Link, the creators of the show, did not. They were extremely talented writers who did not, 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 Falk, who was just a wild card.

He trusted nobody at all. So it was a perfect match and a bad match all at once. Gilbert mentions crime and punishment. David, what's the Billy Wilder connection, too, that you mention in the book? Yeah, well, 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, which became- Spatz.

the story prescription murder um which is spats yeah spats colombo correct so 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 jacob right right and 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. 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 singing White Christmas. It doesn't seem to make any sense, but at the time he had done a little bit of

dramatic work. Columbo didn't have all the Peter Falk baggage. Now it was a 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, and they wanted somebody like Thomas Mitchell played him on stage.

Right. Columbo on stage. Uncle Billy. Yeah, and he was almost in his 70s, and that didn't last long. And Bing Crosby was a bit of a scumbag, wasn't he? That I can't speak to. I know he made a movie with Danny Kaye. He beat up his kids.

His kids fucking hated him. He beat up his kids. His kids fucking hated him. Well, so presumably, Gil, he turned the roll down to have more time to beat his kids. Yes! Yes! Well, 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 want to know why Bing Crosby beat his kids? Because Bing Crosby couldn't get a hard on. David, do you want to rethink your invitation to be on this program? I'm good.

I'm all right. 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? He was kind of down. No, he was winding down his career. Yeah, exactly.

He wanted to just do Christmas specials and golf. 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 them, they gave them 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 uh was a really easy guy to work with right that's incorrect no that that he will comment on yeah yeah no he well he was, he 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 Columbo, and the best qualities or the worst qualities of the Columbo villain all in one personality. He was, you know, 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, 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 Columbo 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. You describe the origin of just one jump all over the place here, so we apologize, David. You describe the origin of just one more thing in the book. Yeah, well, that happened when Levinson and Link were writing

the stage play. I don't know if anybody remembers back in the day when you have to write with a typewriter. I know my first book was written on a typewriter. If you made a mistake, you had to either use whiteout or 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. He was interrogating the suspect and he left the room. So they said, well, I don't want to retype this page. Let's just have him come back in the door and say,

just one more thing. And it turned out to be one 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 this show because 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 bad guy would not think much of it. And in fact, sometimes offer to help Columbo solve the case. But after three or four, he started getting a little too close, and it usually made the 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 Dowizziak'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 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 old movies and Disney. And so after The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights, then came on Columbo, which was my mom's favorite show. So one TV on Sunday nights, then came on Columbo, which was my mom's favorite show. So one TV in the house, we all watch 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 liked puzzles and that was kind of neat how they not tried to figure out who'd done it, but how are they going to catch him?

Would any of Columbo's discoveries, like it would always be something small, I would reveal it, would any of those stand up and call? You know what? That's the question. 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 alarm, no sound of the chime. So he's like, oh, no, you got me. You don't hear the clock. And I'm thinking, what? You guys not going to prison because you don't hear a clock? That one wouldn't have held up. I just watched one that worked very well, Gil. I just watched, because I went back and watched a bunch of these.

And Gil, you and I were talking about Now You See Him, 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. 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. typewriter ribbon how about that one gil and that's excellent yeah department of immigration and naturalization washington dc and close find a letter which proves that santini is in reality an ex-nazi named stefan nazi named Stefan Muir. 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 performed a 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. A twoed in black. Where 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 that, of course, means he's guilty of murder. Well, that's incontrovertible proof. The no rose. Yes. 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 in trouble with that. So I don't... Prison at that point, I'm sure, was 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. Like the stories on this show. Yeah.

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 know, 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. Right. Dean Hargrove became 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 Although we love Lee Remick Good call No way to treat a lady No, absolutely right. Although we love Lee Remick. Yeah, Noel. 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 roughshod over the production. You know, it's funny, the Cassavetes connection. 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 approach to acting to the Columbo set? Oh, 100%. I think that that was a great inspiration for Peter Falk's work on Columbo, was he was a more traditional actor until in the late 60s he started working with John Cassavetes. And 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 want to make, you know, where we just kind of don't have 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 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 and and demanding to see dailies and yeah well well all that i i that may have been uh

pre-existing before but that gave him a gave him a a reason to react because he just just completely admired uh john cassavetes so he would and oh go ahead gilbert and he so john cassavetes. So he would. And go ahead. And he so John Cassavetes and he were friends and he had Cassavetes on this show. Why was his other pal Ben Gazzara not on the show? Well, Ben Gazzara 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 point. And so Ben Gazzara 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 mention in the book that not casting Gazzara pinchinging 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 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, OK, we're going to pay up to $12,500 for a guest star. And that's it. We're not paying a penny more. Which is why Orson Welles doesn't turn up as the magician, 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 Cass you know, 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 you know he knew the head writer on colombo peter fisher and gave it to him and said hey you dropped my script off and he did and peter fisher read it and like oh my my gosh, I love this is terrific. And so they bought it right then and there.

And oh, here's something I always wondered about. Columbo 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 have been East Coast, Gil. Okay.

Yeah. I don't. What is this? How long ago was this? It might have 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 pay some sort of royalties, because Universal is not one to let any pennies escape their grasp. As long as Gilbert's talking about extracurricular projects, 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 billed him as guest star Lieutenant Columbo. I don't think they billed him as Peter Falk. Gilbert always hated that. Yeah.

It's like how— Might have been a Sinatra roast. Yeah. It's like how Art Carney would show up as Ed Norton and all that stuff. Right. It always seemed really uncomfortable. Yeah, well, I don't know. Like Foster Brooks seemed to work because nobody knew who Foster Brooks was

apart from his father. Gino reminded me, Gilbert, that at some point when Falk stopped showing up as Columbo, they had Casey Kasem come out as Columbo. Oh, 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.

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, you know, 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. They both liked magic and mystery stories and writing, and they became instant, inseparable best friends for literally the rest of their lives. 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. Oh. Levinson and Link. On the Dick Cavett show, Falk, Gazzara, 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 I missed. I heard they were plastered on the show. I think you can find that. Yeah, so they came in well-prepared. Or lubricated, I guess.

Why did Levinson and Link leave early? Was it mostly to pursue other opportunities? 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 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. season on time and they were 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 you know the just like a good colombo villain if you get enough rope you hang yourself and he he hung the show we will return to gilbert godf's amazing, colossal podcast. 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 but he was certainly uh he was certainly disruptive and the episode that really stands out is the suzanne plushette um uh eddie albert episode right well that was directed by jack smite who by the way directed no way to treat a lady gilbert uh and there's that what he wanted falk wanted 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 a buddy with John Cassavetes, who was sort of feisty, like he was. And he had him produce that third show.

It was called Deadweight with Eddie Albert. Deadweight. I was trying to think of the name of it. And after the previous show was the one with Steven Spielberg directed. And when Peter Fox saw Steven Spielberg and what he could do to elevate the show. He's like, ah, I want to do direct. And Universal's like, we've got to finish this show. We don't have time for you to learn how to direct. You've never directed anything.

And 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? And he said, well, what you've got to do is you've 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 of scenes to shoot. So they got his stand in who looked kind of a 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. That's not really Peter Falk. That's his fake Falk in there finishing up that episode. And then he finally came back. They said, OK, OK, 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 Night Gallery. And he said, I don't want to direct Night Gallery. i want to direct uh so he had to go through it again and once again uh he left the set and they had to finish that next episode without him and 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, pretty much. And that was, you know, like I said, to give him a little more rope, a little more rope. And and they gave him 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, well, 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'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, you know, letting him be co-executive producer, giving him, you know, 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, you know, 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 Plachette 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. 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, you know, the last couple of 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 was not happy. How about that, Gil? And yeah, that's, I remember 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 one of the reasons why they really had to finish Columbo quickly that first season. 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 going to 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 he was 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 Second Avenue they all just wanted to talk about Columbo do you remember Gil by chance when you when you saw that production uh 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 I well I Columbo I think was already a thing yeah did you have any memory of that? Well, Columbo, I think, was already a thing. 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. 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 a wheel series. It's just, you know, a half dozen shows. It's not like every week. And you 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 Falk series. 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 did be. 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 Kaye Show. One of our fans, Rob Martinez, wrote in to say that his appearance on The Danny Kaye 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? I won't say his disruptiveness

or his meddling. No, 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 going to hire the top producers and directors and writers, and this is going to 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 going to be directing one of the first episodes. But he 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 a lot of trouble because he was always trying to make the show the show better and his book and go ahead kill aside from eddie albert, do you have any stories about other actors and how they felt about Falk, pro or con? Well, yeah. 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 Columbo, he knew how Columbo 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, 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 McGowan 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 different concessions. And Ed Asner was so fed up, he's like, I'm done.

I'm out. And so he pulled out and did not do that show. What do we know about Van Dyke, Dick Van Dyke, another person who's done this show, declining the invite to return? Yeah, well, that's funny, because Dick Van Dyke loves

Peter Falk. 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, in which he plays the photographer, and did a great job, you know, against type, but didn't like how Peter Falk was turning it into the Peter Falk show. 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 Fogg 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. What were they, David? Yeah, all of which NBC was against. 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 Columbo'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 be sort of a mysterious figure. Like, like Columbo 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 sort of a chessboard.

Yeah, no drug busts, no shootouts, no car chases were 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 didn't want to show the gritty real-life Los Angeles or alleyways. They wanted this to be sort of a fantasy L.A., which was just filled up with these million-dollar mansions where Robert Culp and Jack Cassidy were behind closed doors knocking off their wives. Champagne killers.

Frank and I were laughing earlier about the horrible idea of the TV show Mrs. Columbo. Fred Silverman. Right, exactly. Well, 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 going to 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, well, you know, 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. 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. And 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, that concept. And if you're going to make the show about Columbo's unseen wife, you know, cast Charlotte Ray, Gilbert. Why would you cast? Why would they cast?

I mean, I guess it was Silverman, and that's what his background was, right? He was a Jiggle TV and Charlie's Angels guy, as point out but why cast a 24 year old you you imply in the book that that's when Levinson and Link said this is yeah 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, I got to take the dog to the vet. But I mean, Peter Falk would not even let him put his picture on the mantelpiece. He wanted nothing to do with the show. They tried changing the title.

It was what, Kate? It was like Kate Columbo Gill, and then it was Kate Loves a Mystery. They started phasing Columbo out. Yes, exactly right. It's kind of like the wife in the Columbo 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. Yes, yes. Carlton never see? Yeah, Carlton the doorman or one of those. Carlton 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 Gazzara directed? Yeah, that's the second one Ben Gazzara 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 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 love boat. Yeah, that's, well. Somebody may have been thinking that. Quick question from a listener, David, our friend Daniel Frank. I found on IMDb a claim that Patrick McGowan was actually approached at one point to replace Falk. Is there any truth to that? Any validity to that at all?

I think that I didn't put— So one of those things that turns up on 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 McGowan. And, in fact, Dean Hargrove told me today that his show with Tony Curtis, McCoy— Oh, I remember McCoy. The first person they asked to do that show was Patrick McGowan. McCoy. Oh, I remember McCoy.

The first person they asked to do that show was Patrick McGowan. And his agent turned it down, and then he said he saw McGowan a week later and said, okay, I'm ready to do that show. And he's like, nah, 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 there's there's also a story that uh Tony Curtis ran into Danny Kaye at a party and Danny Kaye was insulting 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 uh spoke shall i say in the nbc mystery wheel right well when it when it was mccoy you mentioned one

right there that came that came a little later because what happened when it first started is um it was colombo mcmillan and wife sure rock hudson and mcleod with dennis weaver which had actually started on a different wheel the year before so mcleod actually predated uh colombo and then when that was so successful especially colombo nbc kept rerunning the seven episodes they had of Columbo 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 Heck Ramsey. Sure, with Richard Boone.

They tried various ones. One was Heck 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. Right.

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 he didn't last long was that i remember a show around that time period about a black detective named tenna yeah but james mckeachin that was that was a wheel show yeah yeah that was and that was a levinson and link good gilbert yeah well done also the snoop sisters yeah they had well what had happened is they were in the wheel 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. Different wheel. Wait a minute. Let's establish this. There was originally the Wednesday night wheel, the Wednesday night NBC mystery movie. And then what? The spinoff 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 Columbo, that they didn't want to waste them on Wednesday. So they wanted to move their hit wheel to Sunday night. Snoo shows Madigan with Richard Widmark and Banachek and one or two others to take the place of the Wednesday Night Wheel, all of which bombed, and they replaced with the Snoop Sisters and a bunch of others. There was one with Dan Daly. Yeah, and they just kept trying different things. Dan Daly, who was signed to appear in a Columbo that next year, but it didn't.

I have a memory of, I don't remember the title of it, where a 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. Ten of Fly 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. There were a few others. It was 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. That was a big hit, which was inspired by as the anti-Columbo. Everything

about Columbo, the shaggy hair will make him bald. He's sucking on a cigar, we'll give him a lollipop. So every wrinkle they flipped on his 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. 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 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 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 this 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 10 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 refilm something the next day because his you know a pylon that was there no longer existed everything changed from day to day uh steven bosco script and tell uh tell gilbert who the murder victim was in that particular episode it was forrest tucker there

you go gil ah you're not standing you know what forrest tucker known for? I have no idea. Poor David. I'm ready. The same thing that Milton Berle is known for. The same thing Uncle Miltie was known for. Now, that I have heard. Allegedly. Allegedly. No, we've had people on this show who I've seen. Forrest Tucker or Milton Berle?

Milton Berle, Schlong and May. But nobody that saw Forrest Tucker's. All right. No. seen forrest tucker nobody that saw forrest tuckers all right no uh i think i think too when this is stating the obvious but one of the uh one of the smarter aspects of the show is that you are pitting this great mind this great detective against uh so many calculating minds inventive people chess masters, brilliant surgeons, other mystery writers. Right, yeah.

That's sort of the fun of it. And in this case, in Patrick O'Neill's case, a brilliant architect. Yeah, exactly right. 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 going to trap him. And then one threat 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. and that's one with ann baxter and baxter as well oh and baxter that's the one i was trying to where he goes you know i've been in love with you my whole life yeah yeah no that's yeah the one with ann baxter was inspired by her movie all about eve you know in which she's playing characters based you know 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. Oh, right. 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. Ginger Rogers knocks off her husband, and Fred Astaire, 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 actually when they cast janet lee

then cast donald o'connor as her partner in the movie but donald o'connor had a fair a county fair he had to appear in so he had to drop out yeah that was donald o'connor had a commitment to a county fair yes so he couldn't be in colombo well that's that's a long way hit um but yeah so then they signed don uh dan daly to do that 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 do it for uh 12 5 you know so john payne from miracle on 34th street exactly. Who had done some musicals in 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 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 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, and Johnny Cash, and oh, none more than Ruth Gordon. And that part was actually written for Betty Davis, and they decided, nah, nobody's going to like Betty 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 Stitch and Crime in season two, or that son of a bitch that Ross Martin plays in Suitable for Framing.

Right. 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 in 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. There's a different dimension to him.

Yeah, he's – I like him. And at the end, I mean, certainly Columbo likes him. That was – 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 love that ending so much that like two episodes later, they wrote it into another episode with a guy who likes cigars. At the last season, or the last 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 to a Johnny Cash song one more time before they go to the party. Yeah, that's sweet. Cassidy manages to always play a son of a bitch. Yeah, he's... Especially, I mean, like I said, I just watched Now You See Him, where he's the ex-Nazi guard, but also in Murder by the Book, You know, he's a rat.

Yeah, and that's why to me he's the best Columbo villain because he's just so platinum hair and cool manner. Yeah, Magooin's pretty hateable too. Yes, he earns his. 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 Columbo 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 Levinson 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 Stephen Bochco, 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 send some business his way. And so they hired Larry Cohen in the second and third seasons as a murder consultant. I love that. He took the title murder consultant. I love Larry Cohen.

That was just a way to get a check. I love Larry Cohen. That was just a way to get a chance. 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 teleplay by Stanley Ralph Ross, another one of my favorite writers. Right, yeah. Larry's idea, or Larry's story. Yeah, his idea, because Larry Cohen didn't write any Columbo's, but 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, you know,

an afternoon's worth of work. Yeah, sure. I mean, he's talking about how he's, what, he's walking around the streets of London, just coming up with ideas for Columbo stories, and checks are coming in. 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 Columbo. We were lucky enough to have on the podcast who turned up on Columbo. 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 the two, in my opinion, funniest bits in the history of Columbo, and they're both in the same episode with Joyce Van Patten playing a nun at the homeless shelter that mistakes Columbo for the homeless guy and tries to take away his coat.

And then Larry Storch is Mr. Weekly, the driving instructor, who's driven mad. 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? That's okay. 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, she got hired because of Elaine May. Yeah, that's the notorious Elaine May episode. Yeah, where Peter Fox started getting a little nervous 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. Right. A fun episode, by the way, with Landau playing two parts. Our old friend Chuck McCann in Double Exposure. Yes. Ed Begley Jr. in the later years, Season 7, 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 want to mention him. Well, his father's picture is in the book. Oh, that's right. What am I saying? Burr DeBenning. He's in the book. And tell us about Mike Lally this is interesting Mike Lally was this real old time old timer he was like a guy who 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 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 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 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. Oh, and not just him, but Vito Scotti and Bruce Kirby. Oh, Vito Scotti's in everything. Vito Scotti's in the one I was just talking about.

He's in the wine episode. Yeah, yeah, he's great in that. Yeah, important story. 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. Yeah. Curly white hair. And I don't know.

I thought Falk changed the whole character in those later. He was making it more goofy and everything. Yes. No, you're right. Very perceptive. 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 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 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.

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 asks 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. Maybe a little too much comic relief. Yeah, when Falk, you know, at the classic Columbo's, 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 doing he has a high pitched voice and he's acting goofy and joking around.

Yeah. Well, where that started was with Patrick McGowan, because he so enjoyed that By Dawn's Early Light episode, working with Patrick McGowan, that Patrick McGowan had said he'd come back and do another one if he let him direct. with oddball characters, tried to build that into Peter Falk'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, no, 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, whom they knew Peter Falk respected and could keep him sort of on schedule and on a shorter leash. And so he sort of reined things in, but by then it was too little too late. Was Spielberg going to direct a comeback for Columbo 2.0? Yeah, well, that was one of the rumors, and Bill Link was convinced, he was the executive producer, and he was convinced that Steven Spielberg would direct the return of Columbo, 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, hotshot director who gets carried away. And the murder's kind of accidental at first, based on sort of the Twilight Zone movie mishap. Let me mention some more of these actors that i mean because this is one of the joys of going back and watching these these shows and gilbert and we've talked about some of them

here eddie albert uh we mentioned nehemiah persoff robert logia mcguin jose ferrer uh richard kiley ida lapino jenna rollins you mentioned Ann Baxter, Richard Basehart, Myrtle Loy, Donna Meachie, Roddy McDowell, Ray Milland. Gilbert, your favorite Sorrell book. Mary Wicks turned up in the Ross Martin episode. It is like McMillan 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. 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's one of the joys is being able to see a lot of these people who were fairly famous in the movies, they thought it was an honor to appear on Columbo. Yeah, sure.

Where else were you seeing Ann Baxter and Myrtle Loy? Yeah, no, exactly right. In those days. Yeah. And somebody, as long as I'm talking about people 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. 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 picture didn't do so well. His name is Brian De Palma.

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 script, shooting script. And, you know, the first scene was going to be filmed from a height of four feet, nine inches with a handheld camera to as if it was Truman Capote's, you know, vantage point. And Dean Hargrove thought, well, that's very unique. Go develop 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. I'm so sorry. this dream movie, Phantom of the Paradise. I can't do it. I'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'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, 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 in a colombo and he he just didn't want to compete with uh you know another you know quirky oddball character in an episode of colombo he thought he everybody else should be straight and you know and narrow and you try to wrap your mind around that gilbert that we we love to talk on this show about things that never work. I really, while David was telling that story, I thought, God, I wish they would have made that one. I mean, think about Paul Williams as Truman Capote.

If that doesn't blow your mind enough. He would have been hysterical. Of course. With Scorsese or Brian De Palma behind the camera shooting it. Yeah. 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-McGowan collaboration. You talked about it. But my other question is Falk wearing a Columbo-esque coat throughout much of the Elaine May movie, Mikey and Nikki. Oh. Can't be an accident or coincidence. No, probably not, because that movie was made in between seasons of Columbo. In fact, in between multiple seasons, because Elaine May worked like Peter Falk in Cassavetes,

where he 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 going to end. And Peter Falk got into a big contract negotiation. 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, 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 Columbos. That'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 Incorporated. Yeah, that's not true. Sorry. That's probably in his book. Another thing he would say would be that his coat was the coat he wore through all the Columbo's 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, Ransom for a Dead Man, they're very slight. It's cut a little bit different. It has a different number of buttons. The seam's in a different place. The slight, very slight differences. So which of those was actually the original coat? I don't know, but there are 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 the 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 need a wife or a girlfriend or a buddy. So what they really wanted was another cop, or a girlfriend, or a buddy.

So what they really wanted was another cop, the young, new-to-the-force, green detective that could be taken under Columbo's wing. Almost like the Bob Dishy character that turns up. Yeah, exactly right. More than a few times. Right, and they wanted him to be 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 a buddy we'll give it to him and so they wrote him in in a Stephen Bosco script into this dog and the dog became the only other recurring character was this big lethargic basset hound who's basically you know four-legged Columbo what is this thing I, and this could be bullshit too, that they put makeup on the dog to age the dog? Yeah, I don't know. That supposedly is true. 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 the 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 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 on Broadway. It closed in Boston, didn't it?

It closed out of town. 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 Columbo 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, Gil. I just was curious if there's any stories about folk 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. He 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, with Neil Simon, which was a little sort of

Columbo-ish, and then The Cheap 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. 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.

Oh, that's a great performance. And especially the in-laws and all these other non- Brings Job. Brings Job, yeah, all these things that came at the end of his first Columbo run. Yeah. Even fun in an Aldrich movie called All the Marbles. Right.

Oh, absolutely. Lady Wrestlers. You know, he had a movie career. Princess Bride, did we mention that? Right. Oh, 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. It's a good one to pick. That is. Yeah. Well, I love that one. I love Leonard Nimoy as the doctor, and probably my number one favorite, though,

is the Donald Pleasence as the wine connoisseur. I just love that episode. Yeah, that's a classic one. Yeah, I'd like to shout out, too, Suitable for Framing with Ross Martin. Yeah, that's excellent as well. Which I mentioned. I like the early ones. Yeah, that's excellent as well. Which I mentioned. I like the early ones. The Richard Kiley episode's great.

The one you talked about with McGowan and Bird to Benning is great. The Cassavetes episode is fun. Yeah, the Cassavetes episode is excellent. 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 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 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 do you pay for your house? Hey, how much do you pay in taxes? Hey, 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 exactly based on Jack LaLanne, and it's called Exercise and Fatality. That's a good one. Yeah, where he plays Milo Janis, and it's

a winner. 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 just experienced a resurgence during the pandemic. It's one of the most popular shows on television during the pandemic. Yeah, absolutely. Why does it continue to endure? Well, I think mostly it's because of Peter Falk and how, you know, likable 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, which way up is down. And it's very comforting. I mean, you already know how it works out, you know, that you know the answer to the mystery within the first five minutes. And it's, you know, it's a calmer world. It's a calmer Los Angeles. And even though there's mayhem, it's under control. You know, it's a refined murder. And it's a you know there's no uh violence out on

the streets it's you know in the in the back room of the of the millionaire mansion who the millionaire eventually get his comeuppance i think it's the ann baxter episode where folk says uh about how he loves her movies and 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? It would be terrific. I also, one of the things 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. to show Columbo going to various city offices, patiently waiting on line after line, running into different kind of clerks and countering all of this red tape. I mean, each one plays out like a play. Yeah. Even more so than a movie, because we associate a movie as being more fast-paced

and having action. Yeah. 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 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, right. In the third act.

Nothing is really wasted. True. How many people did you talk to in putting the book together, David? I know Hargrove, obviously, and— Right. Yeah, about 30 people, 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 notice 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, Shootin' Columbo will be out in Hungarian. Is there a Falk statue in Budapest? There is.

I think he's like the national hero or something. He is popular. I'm telling you, Gilbert, I knew there was a Peter Falk statue somewhere. That's wild. Wow, that would be worth flying to Budapest. I may. And the Gabor birthplace. Yeah, sure.

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 in Hungary. 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 Kaye, 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 intro but in addition to this and the danny k book you are one of the country's leading authorities on the subject of of disney products uh uh and disney uh disney projects i should say and disney uh and the disney theme parks you've read many books yeah yeah that's 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 Columbo 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. Well, 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. Wow. Which is lofty praise, but I guess some people would agree. I want to thank Greg Pair, 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 Columbo author. Oh, wow.

I thank them especially. Yes, Columbo author. Oh, wow. Well, I thank them especially. Yes, Columbo's hotter than ever. And I want to thank our pals Lan Romo 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 Columbo killer. Oh, yes.

I got an episode. If they ever reboot Columbo, Gilbert kills the CEO of Aflac. Oh, yes. But I don't think there'd be much mystery there, Gil. I don't think there'd be much mystery there, Gil. You want to do a little Columbo sign-off for David, Gil, or what? Oh, I'd love it.

Oh, you know, I just... One more thing. One more thing. I just... I have to do an ending for this show uh if that's okay i know i've taken a lot of your time and i'm sorry uh but it just bothers me it's just this is something that bothers me uh i have to end the show by saying this is been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal

Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre and our guest on the show confirmed rumors, thank God, between

Lawrence Olivier and Danny Cage. A fair David Koenig. 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 again. © BF-WATCH TV 2021