August 18, 2025 • 47 mins
The sixth season of Columbo kicks off with “Fade in to Murder,” and we’re right there with it. Yes, we had to scrap our planned chat on Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky (Mike just couldn’t stomach it), but that means we get to dive straight into William Shatner swaggering his way through one of the great villain roles of the NBC years. Chris can’t help but heap praise on Shatner’s performance as ego-fueled actor Ward Fowler, while Mike wrestles with the episode’s meta conceit, its TV-within-TV layers, and Peter Falk’s always-dependable rumpled brilliance.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is William Shatner, and I would like to invite
you to take a journey with me into the twenty
first century. So take the next few minutes and listen
very closely. You'll be amazed at what you hear.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Colombo podcast. I'm
your host Mike White. Joining me, of course, is mister
Chris Tashue.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So I hope I don't enlisten any eye rolls for
this one, but not saying that Shatner didn't have any
memorable lines in this episode. But for me, I always
think of Shatner with one thing in terms of his
TV appearances. There's something something on the wing our dear friend,
William Shatter and Twilight Zone. Hi'm here and I'm ready
to talk Season six of Colombo, which technically was not
(01:06):
supposed to be our first recording for this tranch of episodes, Sir,
would you like to clue our audience and as to
what we normally talk about and what we were supposed
to talk about and what we're talking about instead?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Last episode we were saying that we will take on
Mikey and Nikki and Chris. I think you did not
check that out I did.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I was going to watch it the day that you
texted me and were like, this is awful.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Don't watch it. We're changing that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, absolutely, I said no, it was a miserable experience.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It just it was just.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
John Cassavetti's acting crazy. You've got god, who is the
hit man in? That was somebody very unexpected, this guy
going around in a car after them. And then Peter
falk Is a he's a friend of the hit man,
but that's a twist at the end because you think
that he's friends with the Cassavetti's but really he's not
(02:03):
friends with him, and he's there to kill him. Oh
it's ned Baty was the hit man And yeah, it
wasn't good. It just was not good. And I don't
know if the Elain make Hut was good, but so
far she's zero for two for me, because I've tried
watching Ishtar and I know a lot of people now
are like.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, e Shtar is really good. It's well you really.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Got a reavalue. No, it sucks. It absolutely sucks. And
Mikey and Nicky, how fuck did this gut? On Criterion?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
We know that there are films on Criterion that make
no sense more than that Armageddon.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I'm okay with Armageddon. It's the Wes Anderson ones for me.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I'm more okay with the Wes Anderson ones that I
am Michael Bay. But I guess we sound like movie
snob shitheads either way.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, I'm sure people are like, oh, Mikey and Nicky
is a classic. You're just such a plebeian you just
don't understand it.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
But I feel like I dodged a bullet, which is
a shame, because I do love me some John Cassavettis,
even if he is acting crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I really was looking forward to it. I was like, Okay,
this is going to be great. You're going to get
Cassavettis and Falcon here. It's just going to be this powerhouse.
And yeah, I was miserable watching it. I ended up
turning it off fifteen minutes before the end, and my
wife is like, you have to turn that piece of
shit movie back on. I want to know how it ends.
I hope John Cassavettis dies and I'm like, WHOA, Okay, yeah,
(03:29):
because he was such an obnoxious prick through the whole movie.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's the point that I didn't get a chance to
watch it now like in retrospect. But I'm not going
to watch something that we're not going to talk about
for no reason at this point, especially given what you're
saying about it. It doesn't come well regarded. This is
stay away from this thing is not good. Okay, I'll
take your word for it, and I'll do exactly that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Maybe Griffin and Phoenix should have bound non Criterion instead.
It wasn't a great movie, but I found it better
than Mikey.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And Nicky anything else. They have a very wide net
that they cast, and sometimes when they cast that wide net,
we get things like that.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Like I said, I'm sure there are people out there
that love it that think I'm just stupid for not
liking it, But yeah, I couldn't get behind it. So instead,
I said, Chris, let's just skip right to season six.
Check out one of my most favorite episodes, Hey whoops
spoilers One of my favorite episodes, Fade into Murder, first
episode of the very abridged sixth season.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Where was the abridged speaking of Shatner and twilights on,
where were the abridged seasons of those anthology shows like
this is giving us because man, I would have taken
a three episode season of Twilight Zone eighty five in
those later seasons, but Columbo three episodes, what the actual fuck?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Very odd? So yeah, this one came out October tenth,
nineteen seventy six. It's a seventy minute or pretty much
all the episodes this season are around seventy minutes. The
next one that we're going to talk about came out
like a month and a half, and there was six
months where there was no Colombo and finally coming back
to finish off the season in the Bye Bye Sky
(05:08):
High IQ murder case. But yeah, let's talk about Faden
to Murder, which stars, as you already said, William Shatner
as Ward Fowler aka some other dude, AKA some other dude.
And I love this episode. I just think this is great,
and especially the more I know now about Colombo and
(05:30):
the goings on behind the scenes. I'm surprised that Peter
Falk allowed this episode to air because, my friends, he's
Ward Fowler.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
He is the show as representative of this studio. I
will not stand for this president. There is no actor
in the business who is irreplaceable.
Speaker 7 (05:48):
Ward Fowler is not the first actor on this network
to win an Emmy and he's already one of the highest.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Paid performers in television.
Speaker 8 (05:54):
If we give into him now, I say, you don't
give in to him. He walks, what are you going
to do without Ward Flower?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
There isn't going to be any next year for this show.
Speaker 8 (06:06):
And because of Ward Fowler, Detective.
Speaker 9 (06:09):
Lucern has the highest rating in television.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
Ward Fower is the show.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Without Peter Falk there is no Colombo. I just love
how meta, and this episode is meta on top of meta,
on top of meta. I just love how deep it goes.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I'm with you one hundred percent the idea it was
weird to me. That was the first thing I wanted
to ask, is like, Peter Falk just why, like why
was he okay with this? Is clearly talking about him,
not even like a question. It's so clearly meant to
be him, and he's the murderer, but they make him
sympathetic because he's being blackmailed supposedly. I love that about
(06:52):
the episode. It's like it could be sympathetic. Yeah, fucking right, though,
because William Shatner in this episode, I will give him.
Ward Fowler I think verges on being one of the
more sympathetic one. I would say, like he verges on it. However,
he's still a murderer in like cold ass blood, like
(07:12):
straight up. And this is one of the ones that
cracks me up because there are so many other episodes
where people are being killed in other ways, like off screen.
He just murders her ass shoots her fucking point plan
holy shit, Shatner.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
From thirty feet away. But it is a shot right
in the heart, shot that only a marksman could really.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I know, should have thought about that. What do you think, Mike, Yeah,
what do you think? I want to know your thoughts
because this is an episode that you've been waiting to
talk about.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I thought I was going crazy when I was trying
to describe this episode. I think it was to you.
As far as how Shatner's character, Shatner is basically two
at least multiple people. And that's the other thing that
I like is like, so he's Ward Fowler the actor,
but he's actually this Canadian guy. But actually his this
(08:04):
American guy, a deserter from the Korean War who moved
to Canada, was found by this producer. She recreates him,
paps his teeth, probably teaches him elocution. All this stuff
he was doing plays in Toronto, which is great since
Shatner's a Canadian and makes him into this new person,
Ward Fowler. But then Ward Follower is Lieutenant Lucerne. This
(08:28):
very I would say he would fit right in on
britt Box type of show. This wonderful white outfit that
he wears with this white hat with the black band
and his cane and all this, and I just very
similar to murder By the book for me as far
as he's not writing mysteries, but he plays a detective
(08:49):
on TV. I'm not a detective, but I want.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
To that's Shatner in this episode.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
As his character as Lucerne. He's throwing Ward Fowler under
the bus.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It is the whole like gag of the episode that
like William Shanner's character is like really mentally unwell because
part of it, I'm just like, he is Detective Lucerne.
So he's throwing himself under the bus because he thinks
that he can get away. What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I know, right, what.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Was the end game? I guess in my mind back
and forth, You're like, what the hell in your mind
is his endgame? What is he doing with Colombo. I
don't understand it makes her compelling television, but let's just
be clear here, it literally makes no fucking sense. It
is as confounding as possible. It makes no fucking sense.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I feel like he's so into character that he sacrifices
everything and he has to be Licern, and Licern has
to be the smartest guy, and he's solving a murder
that Ward Fowler.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Committed that he he committed Ward.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Fowler committed that, right, I did not.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
He relishes being Lieutenant Lucerne, and he relishes the attention
that Lieutenant Colombo is foisting upon him. And he's playing
right into Colombo the entire time, of course, and Colombo
is such a different type of detective. And I love
that the differences between a Locerne and a Colombo are
(10:29):
highlighted in this episode, where it's like, Okay, you're used
to drawing rooms and these kind of things. I'm used
to more of this, Like I'm the one who's figuring
out these clues, and I'm figuring out all the things
that Ward Fowler did wrong. And I don't think Lucerne
can admit that he would have a misstep it's just insane.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's great. It's insane, but it's great. But he's Ward
Fowler is insane. That's and that's the thing. Like, by
the end of this episode, all I could think is, like,
remember how I said at the top of You're Like
he's sympathetic as someone who struggles with mental illness. All
I could think is this guy's like dissociative identity disorder
or something like he's lost it. Like by the end
(11:13):
of the episode, I'm not sure he understands that he's
going to jail.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
He basically confesses as concern.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
It's insanity. It's just as insane as in your own
house having giant pictures of yourself on the.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Walls, which he so does. I noticed that yesterday too.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Is it's like what in Christ's name he's painted so
broadly and specifically that I do really question Peter Falk,
like why would you let them do this unless you're
just like, I don't care that they're gonna I would
rather be part of it than be exterior to it,
(11:51):
Like are they poked? They're not poking fun at him,
are they? I guess it could be interpreted that way.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It could be I'm thinking King the beginning where they
reveal who the murderer in the case that Lucern is working,
that he's Fred.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Draper pill you, baby.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
That misstep of him a treasure to pill you. I'm like,
is that a reference to last salute of the commodore?
Like he just came in and fucked this up?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Is what everybody? Which is, which is what everybody wants.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Please apologize for that episode the love of Christ, Jen
you flecked in front of us, for the love of God,
because that's what we deserve, is for you to be
penitent in front of us.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Probably bad that episode was.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I just love that he fucks that up and Lucern
just walks over to the producers like get a new guy.
Speaker 10 (12:43):
Fire, yeah, fire that asshole. I'm like, okay, great. This
whole episode for me sings, and it's one of those
where I'm like, there's no dead weight whatsoever. Every single
scene adds to this. The one thing that stands out
so much from me is Tony.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Okay, because the supporting characters in this episode are fucking wild.
Timothy Carrey and brother the Wessels are here. Baby. I
like saw him and I was like, is that Walter Kanig.
It is in fact Walter Kanig, and they're in the
same scene together.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Carrie and Kanig are, but Knig is never on screen
with Shatner.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I was wondering what the deal with that was. I
was like, why are they not on the Is it
because they'd be too like on the nose?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Like it was funny. I interviewed Kanigg a couple of
years ago for Star Trek the Motion Picture, and I
was like, do you have any stories about because he's
only in the one scene.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I'm like, what the hell do you have?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
An actor? And I know a lot of people rip
on Walter Kanigg, but I like the guy.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
What for what?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
A lot of people hate checkof They're like, oh, he
ruined the show him and his stupid monkey's haircut and
blah blah blah. And there's that. There's a great episode
of Next Generation where they're stuck in a time loop
and the Enterprise keeps exploding at the end of every loop,
and my friend was like, you know what I want.
I want that to be. Data looks over right before
(14:09):
the ship explodes and sees Chekhov getting killed in different
ways every single time, and I'm like, oh my god,
you hate this, guys, I fucking hate Chekov. I'm like,
and a lot of people did not like Chekov.
Speaker 8 (14:22):
Man.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Did they have the same issue with Sulu?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
No? No, Sulu's cool man, suls very cool. But Checkov
something about I guess it was like showing up in
season two and being more of a like a draw
for the kids and stuff. I don't know what it was,
but I never had a problem with Chekhov. And like
you said, I love the nuclear vessels thing. I think
that whole bit and start Trek four is great. I
(14:46):
like him quite a bit. But yeah, he was like
he's yeah. I didn't really have a whole lot of
memories of that. And I was like, what's it like
working with Timothy Carey And he was like, oh, he's
a trip.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
So what about Timothy Carrey is a trip? Mike per
our friend Walter Kanig.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
So you can see it right there on screen. He
is grabbing for as much attention, like literally grabbing at times,
like grabbing lieutenant's Lieutenant Columbo's arm and stuff. Just given
this whole thing about.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
As cool as a cucumber ring, a blue bottle, a
red ski mask, lutoles, batta olives, on top of that counter.
Another big guy about your head, Abertike, Wow, that's right,
average high, a little.
Speaker 8 (15:42):
Shorter, what shorter?
Speaker 5 (15:48):
That's about it?
Speaker 8 (15:55):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (15:56):
This sweet person? Well you go back ten years, lieutenant.
Here we are two weeks after I open another place.
What a soul is? Lady manly looked at it.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Please look behind Fulk and you can see Kanig is
smiling like.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yes, I noticed. I noticed.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
He is having the best time with having Carrie giving
this speech.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Man.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I'm like, oh my god, this is great.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I love Timothy Carey. I was so glad to see
him back. I was a little glad that you didn't
warn me that he was going to be in the hip,
that he's just there, or Walter Kaneig for that matter.
When Walter Kanek showed up, I was just like, Wow,
this is Star Trek episode. Obviously Shatner's in it. And
for me you already mentioned TNG. I'm more of a
TOS guy or TOS boy BOI. I never really got
(16:49):
into TNG. I have a lot of my friends are
into TNG. It probably makes some people even sadder to
know that I've seen a handful of TNG episodes, but
I've seen all of Enterprise molt times. It's a long
road again from there to hear.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Take My Life, Take My Land. Oh wait, no, that's
the wrong one.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, that's the shitty show. Some other show. That's Firefly.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I know, I watch I love Firefly. I watched Serenity.
You don't get to see this on your plex server,
but my wife watches Serenity every single Sunday. So I've
seen that movie probably one hundred times.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I am surprised to learn that you like Firefly and Serenity.
I just find it to be like fine, I like it.
It's just I don't know, it got blown out of proportion.
And then a movie was made and the movie was
nowhere near as good as the show.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I don't know, I like that movie a lot man,
Are you okay?
Speaker 7 (17:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I really like chewtel Agia four. I think that his
character's great. And yeah, I don't know, I dig it,
but I can see where you're coming from. And yeah,
I totally agree. The show got blown way out of proportion.
Give me a second season before you dedicate your life
to this entire thing.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So yeah, like, for the love of God, people, for
so many people like William Shatner, is Star Trek, and
so seeing him in this is just it's a trip.
It's a trip like seeing Shatner in This is so
much fun. I don't think I've ever talked about him
on a podcast. How do you personally feel about William Shatner,
Because I know his acting is not for everybody, and
(18:20):
I would get it. He's like Chris Walking in a way,
like it's it with Shatner in Walking. It's all about
the delivery. It's not really about what they're saying. That's
that stilted, weirdo delivery that they both do. So we've
never talked about him.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I love Shatner. I love him to pieces. I imagine
that in real life. All the stories about him being
just this self centered asshole are absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
But I hen he was. He was. I think I
don't think he is anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I like his whole thing where he makes fun of himself.
Obviously we talked about him a little bit with Airplane Too,
the sequel. I think that he's that was really the
first time where he played himself kind of thing, just
like really went into this whole Captain Kirk type of
thing that he's doing and really made fun of it.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
But Mike is that famous SNL sketch as well that
he literally named his book after.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
You know, before I answer any more questions as something
I wanted to say. Having received all your latters over
the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and
some of you have traveled, you know, hundreds of miles to.
Speaker 9 (19:27):
Be here, I just like to say, you.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Get a light.
Speaker 11 (19:37):
I mean, I mean for crying on Love's it's just
a TV show.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I mean, look at you. Look at the way you're dressed.
Speaker 11 (19:45):
You've turned an enjoyable little job that I did as
a lark for a few years into a colossal waste
of time.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I mean, I mean, how old are you people? What
have you done with yourselves? You?
Speaker 9 (19:59):
You must be almost have you have.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
A kissed girl? I remember seeing that back in the
pre YouTube days. A family friend showed at me because
he was like, I know you love Star Trek, and
I was like, what the hell's Shatner doing? But it's
he's he could do that, like he's always been. He
was never nimo couldn't. He just didn't like it. And
Shatner like probably never didn't like it. He's enjoyed it
(20:23):
the whole time. Is what it seems like.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I find or I feel that the Star Trek reboot
the movies with Chris Pine. I think that those three
movies are, at least the first and the third one
are directly making fun of William Shatner by having the
Beastie Boys sabotage in both of those movies. Have you
(20:47):
ever heard how William Shatner says sabotage?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I have not spot sabotage the system.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Okay youham Wayne's when ninety three in with sabatta, I can.
Speaker 9 (21:00):
Ask a high I don't say sabotage. You say sabotage.
I say sabotage.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
What do you buy it? A sabotage?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
When they started playing sabotage in the first of those
Star Trek reboots, I was like, you gotta be fucking
kidding me? Is this And then that they use that
song to take out the aliens and the third movie spoilers,
I'm just like Jesus Christ, this is so fucking good.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Sabotage.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Sabotage.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yes, I'm never gonna be able to hear that.
Speaker 8 (21:28):
Now, sabotage of a government installation.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
I sabotage and he told me where he hit sabotage
the prime energy circuits.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
Is this why you sabotaged my ship? And a deliberate
act of sabotage.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
Lieutenanto Hura has effectively sabotaged the communication.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Station, Spock sabotage the system.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
But yeah, I fucking love him. I think he's great,
and I just love that overactory type thing that he does.
There are certain movies where he just goes over the top.
There's an exploitation film called Impulse where he plays a killer.
I want to say, he's a killer of children. And
anytime he gets upset, he puts his finger up to
his mouth and starts chewing on his pinky nail. And
(22:07):
it's just, oh my god, it's so good.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I actually misspoke. We have talked about Shatner before. It's
funny because it was for your show The Intruder.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
The Intruder, Yes, so good.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Atypical of Shatner too, like very actor. Speaking of actorly,
that's what I like about Shatner. He's an actor like
he is. Again, to compare him to Chris Walkin, I
think is a fair comparison. Chris Walkin is also an
actor like a capital A. And there are and I
genuinely believe this. There are actors now, young actors now
(22:41):
who are going to be like this in the future,
treated this way, and I'm not sure for a while
there were people like that, but there are again, And
I don't understand where that gap was because Shattner, I
don't know, like something about the overacting and just not
letting people take the piss out of you, but taking
the piss out of yourself as an actor. I feel
(23:02):
what Shatner's always done. Maybe the most amusing thing is
who he's opposite in this episode, because I don't see
that guy taking the piss out of anybody. No, it's
just like a lot of people to be in an
episode opposite playing ostensibly the same character that he's playing,
but the like up is further up his own ass version.
How did Peter Falk not notice? Or maybe he did,
(23:23):
But like Shatner just plays it perfectly because he's just
again like he can play an asshole like a capital
a actor can, because he's just tapping into that side
of himself that everybody expects that he has as an actor.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, I honestly think that he's a great actor or
can be at times, Like do you mention the Intruder.
I really think that performance is great. I honestly think
his performance in Star Trek two Wrath of Khan is
one of the best things a great of course, there's
the over the top con moment, but it is.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
It's an earned moment, man, It's an earned moment.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And then you get those moments towards the end of
the film, like when he's leaning on his arms and
he's looking at the Genesis planet and he's just.
Speaker 9 (24:07):
It's a far far better thing I do than I
have ever done before, far better resting place than go
to and I have never known? Is that a part
something spun was trying to tell you, Okay, Joe, how
(24:32):
are you feel?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
And it's just that whole theme of that movie of
him getting older. Like I love when he takes his
glasses out of his pocket and he says dang before
he puts them back out and puts them on. I'm like, oh,
that's so.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Good Shatner for me, Like I'm clearly already given away,
Like he again, he's my captain for Star Trek. That's
the show I've seen. The most of those episodes are
the ones that have stuck with me. I have a
couple posters in my house of classic Star Trek episodes
that Mondo did posters of I love the original show,
and I know it's campy, but it set the tone
(25:20):
for like most everything sci fi of a certain like Swath,
and that's a pretty fucking large sloth of stuff. And
a lot of it comes down to having perfectly cast
that original crew of the Enterprise, and every single one
of those actors was perfectly cast, from Gene Roddenberry's wife
(25:40):
all the way up to William Shatner. And that's saying
something because again, she was just in the sick bay
with doctor McCoy and Shatner is the lead. But everybody
in the show pulled their weight. And the thing that
Star Trek always did with Star Trek was about a
more hopeful future where we didn't have to blow each
other up, which is something to aspire to. And I
always felt like Shatner set the mold that was copied
(26:03):
further by other captains, because yes, Kirk got his hands dirty.
He didn't like to, though he didn't want to. The
most famous thing about Captain Kirk is that he cheated
to pass the unpassable test. The Kobayashi Muru. He cheated
to win, like he wasn't a guy who had to
beat anybody up. He was a smart guy, like he
was a part Han Solo Park Luke Skywalker in a
(26:24):
lot of ways, like he's a rogue, but he's also
the hero at the same time. And Shatner, the gentleman
who's playing Superman in the new Superman movie, was asked like,
how do you feel about possibly only ever being associated
with one role? And he's like, if it's a role
that's as good as this one, I don't care. And
I've gotta assume because not everybody's like that. Daniel Craigs,
(26:45):
I'd rather slip my wrist than play James Bond again.
It's like, Wow, you get to play James Bond, a
character that's been around fifty plus years. Must really suck.
I appreciate that there are clearly actors then now and
still that look at an opportunity like Shatner got and
really went after it. And that show is amazing because
Shatner and everybody in that cast committed. But Shatner is
so charismatic in that show, and I think that's just
(27:07):
because he's a charismatic actor all the way down and
something like this show. Even when he's the villain, you
still can't help but root for him. Even in Leith
Loaded Weapon Part one, he's one of the best parts
of that movie. He's so funny in that movie, and
he's so charming as the villain.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Him with that piranha in his mouth.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, General Mortars like Jesus Christ, he's so good. I
don't know. Again, I think there's a lot of people
my age that throw TOS out because they're like, it's
too campy and Shatner is overacting, and it's like, you
know what, there is no TNG without TOOS, there is
no Jean luc Picard because people clearly watch TOOS and
felt the same way that certain people who watch it
(27:47):
now do, which is I want it more. I want
more of a command protocol as opposed to this guy's
just the Captain TNG. He's leading a group of people
and cos Kirk did his own shit from time to time,
fairly frequently, frankly, but again you let him get away
with it because he's so charismatic, because it's William Shannon.
I don't know. I just it bugs me when people
(28:09):
go off about Shatner and cos because has he transcended
self parody at this point.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Him doing that ben Folds five album after he had
already done the Transform Man, there would not be that
ben Folds five album if Shatner was oblivious to what
he was bringing to the stage. He must know that
those early musical performances are really embarrassing, the things that
(28:36):
he was doing on The Dinah Shore Show with Harry
Chapin's Taxi Song. And then of course he already mentioned
the Rockaman performance.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh oh, sublime Rockaman performance is great. It's laughably bad,
but it's amazing. Like it's I don't know, like he's
such a singular talent as an actor, like Peter Folk,
Like really, I don't know how to put this, and
this might ruffle some feathers, but like Peter Folk was
in a lot of movies, but he's known for one role.
(29:05):
This is it. This is what he's known for. And
so in a lot of ways, having him opposite William Shatner,
another actor who ostensibly is known for one role, like
it makes sense that you have the two of them
going back and forth. But I think you're gonna probably
tell me this is the only time Shatner's on the show, right.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
No, thank goodness, he comes back, Thank god, he comes
back in the new series, and it's probably one of
the best episodes of the new series because he's in it.
And he's got this great cheesy mustache in that one too.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Oh that must have been when they were filming Loaded
Weapon one.
Speaker 9 (29:36):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, it's amazing. So yeah, I think that he is
perfect in this and I love well because one of
my other favorite episodes is Stitching Crime, where you've got
me moy and then you come over here you get Shatner,
and both of them are playing to their strengths.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Oh my god, yes, being that cold.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Surgeon and just thinks he's so much smarter than everybody else.
And here you got Shatner's charismatic actor and just yeah,
everybody like, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Well my trailer, Yeah of course you will. She's such
an tird.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Maybe the reason why falk was okay with this is
the whole idea of word Fowlower actually isn't getting paid
that much because half of his salary goes to the producer.
Her arguing for him to stick around, stay on the
show and get more money is just lining her pockets
and I kind of love that.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, I was, so that was why I was assuming
fulk was because at the end of the day, like
they do, will out. But this is such a weird
episode for Falk to be involved with. It seems like
the kind of thing that would be on another show,
sending up this show. But it's always so smart to
have Shatner playing an actor. Can I know you mentioned it,
(30:51):
like with Nimoy playing to his strengths, but like Shatner
could have literally played anything else because we've had all
these other actors on the show not playing and now
we have him playing an actor. Like this might be
one of the best episodes of the show because I
think everybody is really like leaning into the strength of
their inherent strength. And Columbo's never been better and the
(31:13):
villain's never been better because the villain is just villainous.
William Shatner, It's.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Just and it's like such a greatest hits when it
comes to this. I'm surprised there's no Dennis Dugan. No,
I'm surprised there's no Bob Dishy or Bruno Kirby in
this because otherwise get that amazing shot. You know that
we use technology in this one, the video tape recorder,
(31:39):
which has clearly labeled across it in letters that are
probably an inch high video tape.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Recorder right just in case for the people in the
cheap seats.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So we're using technology. We've got all. My wife is
going to be so thrilled about this. We've got so
many things we've got. Timothy Carey is back in here.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
For like a for a hot second, Brah.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Hats like it's so good though. When he does show up,
We've got so many good things happening in this episode.
It's like the greatest hits for me, with like just
all of these moments coming together for this. It's so
much fun. I'd loved like the whole thing of he
destroyed the coat in the mask, but he didn't destroy
the gun and what happened with that, And of.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Course there's some threads on the there's some threads on
the ground. I will say maybe my only singular knock
against this episode, and I think you know what I'm
going to say. The conclusion is borderline moronic. You touch
the bullets, motherfucker. For real, of course you touch the bullets.
(32:45):
Fuck man. I felt like that was such a cop out.
There were so many. I don't know, is it just me,
am I wrong? I don't know what was that? What
was the one where it's oh, there was like a
marble in the trunk of the car or comb you
know what I'm talking about. We're Columbus flicked it into
the trunk of the car while he wasn't looking.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, that's the umbrella from the Dagger of the Mind episode,
and you're conflating that with the contact in.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
The back of That's what it was. The contact, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
The car where like they it wasn't even the same
contact or something.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
It's just complete entrapment on Columbo's part.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I love the moments when Columbo's wandering around the set
and just fucks up the entire take and everything where
he looks like Godzilla outside in the windows and everything,
busting up the lights.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
They really love the outfits that they give Shatner too.
He's wearing a lot of white, a lot of floral,
a lot of flowers and pockets or on collars. He's
a lot of pontificating in this episode from Shatner. He's
just genuine. He's just pontificating a lot.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Jesus Christ when they first meet after Fall comes in
and knocks over all the light stands and stuff them
going back and forth, and it takes forever this dialogue
between the two of them, and you even have his
friend coming up and no, we are watching the game.
Bert rams in his mark and Shadows get out of here.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
You're trying to.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Provide an alibi for me, yelling at him and stuff
and those.
Speaker 9 (34:16):
Do you think she was murdered, don't you?
Speaker 8 (34:19):
I beg your pardoner, sir. You heard me, yes, sir,
I did? I mean yes?
Speaker 7 (34:28):
I do think it was a premeditated killing, Sir. I
mean I think the robbery was staged the cover of
the murder.
Speaker 8 (34:35):
How did you know, sir?
Speaker 9 (34:37):
Why else would you be here?
Speaker 8 (34:39):
It couldn't be just a routine check, sir.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
I don't send a police detective stumbling around asking silly,
fake inno some questions on a routine check.
Speaker 9 (34:54):
I know that from my show.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
For silly, fake innocent questions.
Speaker 6 (34:57):
Like what, sir, like, mister Dailey wasn't at home last night,
He wasn't there this morning, they told me at the office,
so they didn't know when he'd be in. And I
was wondering if anybody here had any idea where he
would be a man on the route to your character
just asks for mister Bailey, thank you.
Speaker 7 (35:19):
Your absolutely amazing Surrey. You're right, and here I thought
you were in shock.
Speaker 9 (35:27):
You didn't.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
We thought I was confused, perhap scared, and I'm probably
playing for time.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Amazing Columbus, just playing into it. Just yeah, watch this
guy hang himself. I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
And that's so. That was the other question I had
for you is when does Colombo know it's word Fowler,
Like the moment he steps on the sea.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I think it's some momny steps on the set. Yeah,
I honestly do. He changes his story in his attitude
like two or three, three times, just in that dialogue scene.
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
It's the Lucern though, it's the Lucern and the Fowler
of it.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
I'm going through and timing it right now, and I
think that dialogue takes seven minutes with just solid dialogue
between the two of them. It's great.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
And it's again like that's some well written dialogue. Why
Peter Fiebelman and lou Shaw like they do a great job.
Like I like this script. I like this episode's dialogue
back and forth, this feels like Colombo and that is
not always the case.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Even the dialogue between Fowler and the producer. I love
that stuff too, where it's oh, you didn't used to
feel this way, and remember when we used to make
love and all this stuff, and like all these little
like giving them a real rich backstory, and then seeing
just how much Shatner doesn't like her, even though he's
putting on this big happy face, but you hear it
(36:51):
in the dialogue that he's trying to cut into her
every single time. It's great. I was talking about how
this is the greatest hits. Also being filmed on the
Universal backlot, with the tram car coming through all the time,
and Colombo stopping at Amity and seeing the shark and saying, oh,
is that the shark that they used in the picture.
(37:11):
And I'm like, there's your Steven Spielberg reference.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
That's great, And according to the Internet, that is the
original shark.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
From John's No that's Bruce, okay, But I thought they
blew it up.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Smile you said, of a bitch. I love the Universal backlot.
I love it. That's where they shot Fletch Lives.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's perfect, right, It's a perfect location.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Cheap and easy, baby. We just don't out have to
dress anything. Just the sets, just the sets.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
And they spend so much time that Lieutenant Lucern set
with him explaining the whole thing of the if your
arms are up and you're not running away, and make
this mark on this on my coat, please be easy.
I don't want to have to. Don't ruin my coat.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
He's not shabby enough.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Put this chalk mark on my back.
Speaker 9 (37:57):
Please.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Uh yeah. I just like I said, I don't feel
like there's really a dull moment in here. He's constantly
digging finding the shoes. That whole thing where Timothy Carey
is like, yeah, he was your size. Like I'm trying
to basically say short.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
A short dude. He's a short guy like you and
a shabby guy like you.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
There's no dead moments in this And that was the
thing was some of these episodes, even the seventy minute ones.
I'm like, okay, this is just some padding. We've talked
a lot about some of the padding that he does
in some of these episodes, Like it's like Peter Falk
knows to get out of the way in this one
and just let Shatner do his thing, and then he
(38:41):
plays around with him, which I find to be great.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
We haven't had an episode in a while where the
Columbo is batting his prey around like a little rat,
but that's what it feels like here. And Ward Fowler's
doing his best to keep up with it, but he can't.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Lieutenant Lucerne is always one step ahead of Ward Fowler.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I know, shocking, right, It's just.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
The most schizophrenic episode of all of that. Yeah, I
just love it.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I don't understand. I just it's it's just confounding to me.
Other than the fact and I'm assuming my assumption here,
my head canon is he just thinks that he can
get away with it and that he's going to be
able to like look ed kemper right. He was trying
to help the cops solve the murders that he had committed.
(39:28):
That's a thing they always talk about. We'll keep an
eye on the crime scene just to see if the
killer comes back. Like I'm wondering if that's where they
drew the inspiration from. It's this kind of like the
helpful killer, because why would I logically help you catch
me if I did? It makes no sense, right, other
than you possibly being like deeply mentally unwell because you
(39:49):
thought murdering someone was okay to begin with.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We've seen helpful killers before, which I really like. Even
Jack Cassidy had murdered by the book, it was just like, oh, lieutenant,
didn't you think about this? And he's leading them, trying
to lead him down the wrong path. But there are
killers that do say, oh, let me help you with that.
Even Robert Colpan the one where he was like at
the same one that you just mentioned, the whole thing
(40:12):
where he runs the detective agency. There are times where
he's like, oh, yeah, lieutenant, I'll help you out. But
again he leads him in the wrong direction or tries
to hire him and be like, oh, yeah, I can
pay you way better. You just have to drop this
case kind of thing. But here Shatner is oh, yeah,
I'll help you, and then he fucking does.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
And again, like to what end? That's always been the question,
like to what end? But like you said, maybe it's
the idea that Lucerne just can't feel like an idiot.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I think it is. When they talk about oh, it's
like Holmes and watsays, no, it's Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes,
and it's.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Like, there's no lesser here, Like.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
What's that phrase that the kids use, game for game
or whatever, like games recognize his game? Yeah, And he's
just like okay, yeah, all right, this guy knows it.
There are moments in this, like towards the end when
he's laying out everything. Lucern is laying out everything. Hey,
Columbu's just sitting there with his hand on his chin,
just listening to all this and occasionally prompting him for
(41:12):
more stuff.
Speaker 9 (41:13):
Where did you look?
Speaker 8 (41:15):
Yes, sir, I'll give you three guesses.
Speaker 9 (41:21):
Studio wardrobe department.
Speaker 7 (41:22):
You got it in one third. That's absolutely amazing. You're right,
the parker and the ski mask. That's where they both
came from.
Speaker 9 (41:32):
I'm a gun.
Speaker 7 (41:33):
Oh come on, so you're putting me on you Loaded
guns don't come from the wardrobe.
Speaker 8 (41:38):
Department, of course, are stupid of me?
Speaker 7 (41:42):
No, that's the prop department, not the wardrobe department. How
does a smart man like Lieutenant Lincern make a mistake
like that?
Speaker 9 (41:51):
Because you're not talking to Lieutenant Liscern at the moment,
are you, Lieutenant? You're talking to Ward Fowler.
Speaker 8 (41:57):
What's the difference here?
Speaker 6 (41:59):
The difference is Ward Fowler is under suspicion of murder,
and a man under that kind of threatus.
Speaker 9 (42:06):
My mistake. You just have to get a rattle.
Speaker 7 (42:08):
Well, whoever said anything about Ward Fowler being under suspicion
of murder?
Speaker 9 (42:12):
Lieutenant lincerned.
Speaker 8 (42:15):
He did? Well? How did he come to that conclusion?
Speaker 9 (42:19):
Sir? She had to face the same fact you did.
Speaker 8 (42:22):
What fact is that, sir?
Speaker 9 (42:25):
There are only four people who could have murdered de Claire.
Speaker 7 (42:27):
You mean the four people who knew where Claire Daily
was going to be that night.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Exactly, and only one of those is instantly associated with makeup,
wardrobe and props.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
And Lucern's just laying out the entire case, and for
the most part he's laying it out correctly and not
saving himself.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Giving himself rope more and more rope.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
This is how you start the sixth season of this show.
And what's fucked is that there's only two more episodes
this season. Good night, folks.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
If memory serves, Old Fashioned Murder is not that great.
It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'm
going to give it a second shot, of course, and
try to figure out what's going on with this episode?
Joyce fan Paton is back. She was the one that
played the nun at the soup kitchen who is trying
to get Lieutenant Colombo a better coat. I think that
(43:18):
must have been the one with Dick Van Dyke, because
Vito Scot no Vitoskota in this one either, but when
he's the drunk and I think he witnessed the crime
or something. So she's back now as a killer. And yeah,
I barely remember anything about it, just from the title
old Fashioned Murder. I was thinking it was the Ruth
Gordon episode, but that's not right. But I will tell
(43:39):
you that Sky High Murder Case is one of my
favorites as well. So six season for early being three episodes,
two really good ones in my.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Opinion, sixty six percent success rate. It's not bad.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, it's a d right, I'm passing.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
You are passing. What's your stage name? This is a
great episode. It is too bad there are only two
episodes this season because I know that we are careening
into season seven, which is the beginning of that's the
beginning of the show being completely different.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Right, Season seven's is still the NBC year, is still
universal yep.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
So it's the season past that one.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, it's when you get into eight.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
We're robbed of what four episodes, at least two or three. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I think a lot of that is because of the
original subject. That way he brought up fucking Mikey and Nicky.
I think that kept him away a lot of the time,
and he sunk a lot of his own money in there.
Falk put a lot of money into that movie and
was trying to help out a friend. I guess he
really liked the Laye May obviously he really likes Gassavetti's.
But yeah, I think that was just a real shame
(44:49):
that happened. But again, maybe it's a classic and I
just don't see it. Maybe I'll come to it again
in twenty years and be like, oh, masterpiece. But for
now we're skipping out. I'm not going to talk about
Mikey and Nikki, but we will continue talking about season
six next month when we come back to discuss Old
Fashioned Murderer.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I can't wait. I'm excited. If this season has two
good episodes, maybe this next one won't be as bad
as you remember. Maybe it'll be three good.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Episodes, and man, after last salute to the commodore. We
need some good episodes, Chris, when you are not showing
the scenery, what are you doing these days?
Speaker 3 (45:26):
I'm over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com working on audio diversions
that you can check out and listen to, and you should.
Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is the podcast network that Mike and
I co founded, Oh my god, five years ago.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah, you're right. Oh check out the shirt Man.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Yeah, weirding Way we are part where we were Dune
fans before they remade those goddamn move If anyone is
looking for anything worthwhile to listen to in terms of
audio diversions, weird Way Media is probably the best place
to do it. You can find this show, Mike's show,
The Projection Booth, my show, The Culture Cast, Father Malone Show,
Midnight Viewing, a whole host to shows. So that's where
you can find the stuff that I work on.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
What about you, Mike, same thing other than the one
thing he didn't mention, which is the show that we
do for our respective patreons. That's patreon dot com slash
Projection Booth and patreon dot com slash Culture Cast, and
that's called Ranking on Bond where every month we talk
about a different James Bond film in order. For the
most part, we've had some diversions here and there, but
pretty much for the Bonds we go in order. We
(46:23):
are just about to talk about GoldenEye. So looking forward
to another era of Bond and yeah, been enjoying listening
to the audio commententary for that. We really do it up, folks,
try to ingest as much material as we possibly can
in order to provide some good quality insights on things.
That's what we do here weirding Way Media, as.
Speaker 12 (46:44):
We try to anyways, add two
Speaker 8 (47:07):
P
This is William Shatner, and I would like to invite
you to take a journey with me into the twenty
first century. So take the next few minutes and listen
very closely. You'll be amazed at what you hear.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Colombo podcast. I'm
your host Mike White. Joining me, of course, is mister
Chris Tashue.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So I hope I don't enlisten any eye rolls for
this one, but not saying that Shatner didn't have any
memorable lines in this episode. But for me, I always
think of Shatner with one thing in terms of his
TV appearances. There's something something on the wing our dear friend,
William Shatter and Twilight Zone. Hi'm here and I'm ready
to talk Season six of Colombo, which technically was not
(01:06):
supposed to be our first recording for this tranch of episodes, Sir,
would you like to clue our audience and as to
what we normally talk about and what we were supposed
to talk about and what we're talking about instead?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Last episode we were saying that we will take on
Mikey and Nikki and Chris. I think you did not
check that out I did.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I was going to watch it the day that you
texted me and were like, this is awful.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Don't watch it. We're changing that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, absolutely, I said no, it was a miserable experience.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It just it was just.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
John Cassavetti's acting crazy. You've got god, who is the
hit man in? That was somebody very unexpected, this guy
going around in a car after them. And then Peter
falk Is a he's a friend of the hit man,
but that's a twist at the end because you think
that he's friends with the Cassavetti's but really he's not
(02:03):
friends with him, and he's there to kill him. Oh
it's ned Baty was the hit man And yeah, it
wasn't good. It just was not good. And I don't
know if the Elain make Hut was good, but so
far she's zero for two for me, because I've tried
watching Ishtar and I know a lot of people now
are like.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, e Shtar is really good. It's well you really.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Got a reavalue. No, it sucks. It absolutely sucks. And
Mikey and Nicky, how fuck did this gut? On Criterion?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
We know that there are films on Criterion that make
no sense more than that Armageddon.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I'm okay with Armageddon. It's the Wes Anderson ones for me.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I'm more okay with the Wes Anderson ones that I
am Michael Bay. But I guess we sound like movie
snob shitheads either way.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, I'm sure people are like, oh, Mikey and Nicky
is a classic. You're just such a plebeian you just
don't understand it.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
But I feel like I dodged a bullet, which is
a shame, because I do love me some John Cassavettis,
even if he is acting crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I really was looking forward to it. I was like, Okay,
this is going to be great. You're going to get
Cassavettis and Falcon here. It's just going to be this powerhouse.
And yeah, I was miserable watching it. I ended up
turning it off fifteen minutes before the end, and my
wife is like, you have to turn that piece of
shit movie back on. I want to know how it ends.
I hope John Cassavettis dies and I'm like, WHOA, Okay, yeah,
(03:29):
because he was such an obnoxious prick through the whole movie.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's the point that I didn't get a chance to
watch it now like in retrospect. But I'm not going
to watch something that we're not going to talk about
for no reason at this point, especially given what you're
saying about it. It doesn't come well regarded. This is
stay away from this thing is not good. Okay, I'll
take your word for it, and I'll do exactly that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Maybe Griffin and Phoenix should have bound non Criterion instead.
It wasn't a great movie, but I found it better
than Mikey.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And Nicky anything else. They have a very wide net
that they cast, and sometimes when they cast that wide net,
we get things like that.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Like I said, I'm sure there are people out there
that love it that think I'm just stupid for not
liking it, But yeah, I couldn't get behind it. So instead,
I said, Chris, let's just skip right to season six.
Check out one of my most favorite episodes, Hey whoops
spoilers One of my favorite episodes, Fade into Murder, first
episode of the very abridged sixth season.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Where was the abridged speaking of Shatner and twilights on,
where were the abridged seasons of those anthology shows like
this is giving us because man, I would have taken
a three episode season of Twilight Zone eighty five in
those later seasons, but Columbo three episodes, what the actual fuck?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Very odd? So yeah, this one came out October tenth,
nineteen seventy six. It's a seventy minute or pretty much
all the episodes this season are around seventy minutes. The
next one that we're going to talk about came out
like a month and a half, and there was six
months where there was no Colombo and finally coming back
to finish off the season in the Bye Bye Sky
(05:08):
High IQ murder case. But yeah, let's talk about Faden
to Murder, which stars, as you already said, William Shatner
as Ward Fowler aka some other dude, AKA some other dude.
And I love this episode. I just think this is great,
and especially the more I know now about Colombo and
(05:30):
the goings on behind the scenes. I'm surprised that Peter
Falk allowed this episode to air because, my friends, he's
Ward Fowler.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
He is the show as representative of this studio. I
will not stand for this president. There is no actor
in the business who is irreplaceable.
Speaker 7 (05:48):
Ward Fowler is not the first actor on this network
to win an Emmy and he's already one of the highest.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Paid performers in television.
Speaker 8 (05:54):
If we give into him now, I say, you don't
give in to him. He walks, what are you going
to do without Ward Flower?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
There isn't going to be any next year for this show.
Speaker 8 (06:06):
And because of Ward Fowler, Detective.
Speaker 9 (06:09):
Lucern has the highest rating in television.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
Ward Fower is the show.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Without Peter Falk there is no Colombo. I just love
how meta, and this episode is meta on top of meta,
on top of meta. I just love how deep it goes.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I'm with you one hundred percent the idea it was
weird to me. That was the first thing I wanted
to ask, is like, Peter Falk just why, like why
was he okay with this? Is clearly talking about him,
not even like a question. It's so clearly meant to
be him, and he's the murderer, but they make him
sympathetic because he's being blackmailed supposedly. I love that about
(06:52):
the episode. It's like it could be sympathetic. Yeah, fucking right, though,
because William Shatner in this episode, I will give him.
Ward Fowler I think verges on being one of the
more sympathetic one. I would say, like he verges on it. However,
he's still a murderer in like cold ass blood, like
(07:12):
straight up. And this is one of the ones that
cracks me up because there are so many other episodes
where people are being killed in other ways, like off screen.
He just murders her ass shoots her fucking point plan
holy shit, Shatner.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
From thirty feet away. But it is a shot right
in the heart, shot that only a marksman could really.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I know, should have thought about that. What do you think, Mike, Yeah,
what do you think? I want to know your thoughts
because this is an episode that you've been waiting to
talk about.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I thought I was going crazy when I was trying
to describe this episode. I think it was to you.
As far as how Shatner's character, Shatner is basically two
at least multiple people. And that's the other thing that
I like is like, so he's Ward Fowler the actor,
but he's actually this Canadian guy. But actually his this
(08:04):
American guy, a deserter from the Korean War who moved
to Canada, was found by this producer. She recreates him,
paps his teeth, probably teaches him elocution. All this stuff
he was doing plays in Toronto, which is great since
Shatner's a Canadian and makes him into this new person,
Ward Fowler. But then Ward Follower is Lieutenant Lucerne. This
(08:28):
very I would say he would fit right in on
britt Box type of show. This wonderful white outfit that
he wears with this white hat with the black band
and his cane and all this, and I just very
similar to murder By the book for me as far
as he's not writing mysteries, but he plays a detective
(08:49):
on TV. I'm not a detective, but I want.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
To that's Shatner in this episode.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
As his character as Lucerne. He's throwing Ward Fowler under
the bus.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It is the whole like gag of the episode that
like William Shanner's character is like really mentally unwell because
part of it, I'm just like, he is Detective Lucerne.
So he's throwing himself under the bus because he thinks
that he can get away. What the fuck?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I know, right, what.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Was the end game? I guess in my mind back
and forth, You're like, what the hell in your mind
is his endgame? What is he doing with Colombo. I
don't understand it makes her compelling television, but let's just
be clear here, it literally makes no fucking sense. It
is as confounding as possible. It makes no fucking sense.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I feel like he's so into character that he sacrifices
everything and he has to be Licern, and Licern has
to be the smartest guy, and he's solving a murder
that Ward Fowler.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Committed that he he committed Ward.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Fowler committed that, right, I did not.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
He relishes being Lieutenant Lucerne, and he relishes the attention
that Lieutenant Colombo is foisting upon him. And he's playing
right into Colombo the entire time, of course, and Colombo
is such a different type of detective. And I love
that the differences between a Locerne and a Colombo are
(10:29):
highlighted in this episode, where it's like, Okay, you're used
to drawing rooms and these kind of things. I'm used
to more of this, Like I'm the one who's figuring
out these clues, and I'm figuring out all the things
that Ward Fowler did wrong. And I don't think Lucerne
can admit that he would have a misstep it's just insane.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
It's great. It's insane, but it's great. But he's Ward
Fowler is insane. That's and that's the thing. Like, by
the end of this episode, all I could think is, like,
remember how I said at the top of You're Like
he's sympathetic as someone who struggles with mental illness. All
I could think is this guy's like dissociative identity disorder
or something like he's lost it. Like by the end
(11:13):
of the episode, I'm not sure he understands that he's
going to jail.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
He basically confesses as concern.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
It's insanity. It's just as insane as in your own
house having giant pictures of yourself on the.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Walls, which he so does. I noticed that yesterday too.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Is it's like what in Christ's name he's painted so
broadly and specifically that I do really question Peter Falk,
like why would you let them do this unless you're
just like, I don't care that they're gonna I would
rather be part of it than be exterior to it,
(11:51):
Like are they poked? They're not poking fun at him,
are they? I guess it could be interpreted that way.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It could be I'm thinking King the beginning where they
reveal who the murderer in the case that Lucern is working,
that he's Fred.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Draper pill you, baby.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
That misstep of him a treasure to pill you. I'm like,
is that a reference to last salute of the commodore?
Like he just came in and fucked this up?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Is what everybody? Which is, which is what everybody wants.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Please apologize for that episode the love of Christ, Jen
you flecked in front of us, for the love of God,
because that's what we deserve, is for you to be
penitent in front of us.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Probably bad that episode was.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I just love that he fucks that up and Lucern
just walks over to the producers like get a new guy.
Speaker 10 (12:43):
Fire, yeah, fire that asshole. I'm like, okay, great. This
whole episode for me sings, and it's one of those
where I'm like, there's no dead weight whatsoever. Every single
scene adds to this. The one thing that stands out
so much from me is Tony.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Okay, because the supporting characters in this episode are fucking wild.
Timothy Carrey and brother the Wessels are here. Baby. I
like saw him and I was like, is that Walter Kanig.
It is in fact Walter Kanig, and they're in the
same scene together.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Carrie and Kanig are, but Knig is never on screen
with Shatner.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I was wondering what the deal with that was. I
was like, why are they not on the Is it
because they'd be too like on the nose?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Like it was funny. I interviewed Kanigg a couple of
years ago for Star Trek the Motion Picture, and I
was like, do you have any stories about because he's
only in the one scene.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
I'm like, what the hell do you have?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
An actor? And I know a lot of people rip
on Walter Kanigg, but I like the guy.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
What for what?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
A lot of people hate checkof They're like, oh, he
ruined the show him and his stupid monkey's haircut and
blah blah blah. And there's that. There's a great episode
of Next Generation where they're stuck in a time loop
and the Enterprise keeps exploding at the end of every loop,
and my friend was like, you know what I want.
I want that to be. Data looks over right before
(14:09):
the ship explodes and sees Chekhov getting killed in different
ways every single time, and I'm like, oh my god,
you hate this, guys, I fucking hate Chekov. I'm like,
and a lot of people did not like Chekov.
Speaker 8 (14:22):
Man.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Did they have the same issue with Sulu?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
No? No, Sulu's cool man, suls very cool. But Checkov
something about I guess it was like showing up in
season two and being more of a like a draw
for the kids and stuff. I don't know what it was,
but I never had a problem with Chekhov. And like
you said, I love the nuclear vessels thing. I think
that whole bit and start Trek four is great. I
(14:46):
like him quite a bit. But yeah, he was like
he's yeah. I didn't really have a whole lot of
memories of that. And I was like, what's it like
working with Timothy Carey And he was like, oh, he's
a trip.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
So what about Timothy Carrey is a trip? Mike per
our friend Walter Kanig.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
So you can see it right there on screen. He
is grabbing for as much attention, like literally grabbing at times,
like grabbing lieutenant's Lieutenant Columbo's arm and stuff. Just given
this whole thing about.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
As cool as a cucumber ring, a blue bottle, a
red ski mask, lutoles, batta olives, on top of that counter.
Another big guy about your head, Abertike, Wow, that's right,
average high, a little.
Speaker 8 (15:42):
Shorter, what shorter?
Speaker 5 (15:48):
That's about it?
Speaker 8 (15:55):
Sure?
Speaker 5 (15:56):
This sweet person? Well you go back ten years, lieutenant.
Here we are two weeks after I open another place.
What a soul is? Lady manly looked at it.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Please look behind Fulk and you can see Kanig is
smiling like.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yes, I noticed. I noticed.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
He is having the best time with having Carrie giving
this speech.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Man.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I'm like, oh my god, this is great.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I love Timothy Carey. I was so glad to see
him back. I was a little glad that you didn't
warn me that he was going to be in the hip,
that he's just there, or Walter Kaneig for that matter.
When Walter Kanek showed up, I was just like, Wow,
this is Star Trek episode. Obviously Shatner's in it. And
for me you already mentioned TNG. I'm more of a
TOS guy or TOS boy BOI. I never really got
(16:49):
into TNG. I have a lot of my friends are
into TNG. It probably makes some people even sadder to
know that I've seen a handful of TNG episodes, but
I've seen all of Enterprise molt times. It's a long
road again from there to hear.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Take My Life, Take My Land. Oh wait, no, that's
the wrong one.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, that's the shitty show. Some other show. That's Firefly.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I know, I watch I love Firefly. I watched Serenity.
You don't get to see this on your plex server,
but my wife watches Serenity every single Sunday. So I've
seen that movie probably one hundred times.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I am surprised to learn that you like Firefly and Serenity.
I just find it to be like fine, I like it.
It's just I don't know, it got blown out of proportion.
And then a movie was made and the movie was
nowhere near as good as the show.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I don't know, I like that movie a lot man,
Are you okay?
Speaker 7 (17:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I really like chewtel Agia four. I think that his
character's great. And yeah, I don't know, I dig it,
but I can see where you're coming from. And yeah,
I totally agree. The show got blown way out of proportion.
Give me a second season before you dedicate your life
to this entire thing.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So yeah, like, for the love of God, people, for
so many people like William Shatner, is Star Trek, and
so seeing him in this is just it's a trip.
It's a trip like seeing Shatner in This is so
much fun. I don't think I've ever talked about him
on a podcast. How do you personally feel about William Shatner,
Because I know his acting is not for everybody, and
(18:20):
I would get it. He's like Chris Walking in a way,
like it's it with Shatner in Walking. It's all about
the delivery. It's not really about what they're saying. That's
that stilted, weirdo delivery that they both do. So we've
never talked about him.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I love Shatner. I love him to pieces. I imagine
that in real life. All the stories about him being
just this self centered asshole are absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
But I hen he was. He was. I think I
don't think he is anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I like his whole thing where he makes fun of himself.
Obviously we talked about him a little bit with Airplane Too,
the sequel. I think that he's that was really the
first time where he played himself kind of thing, just
like really went into this whole Captain Kirk type of
thing that he's doing and really made fun of it.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
But Mike is that famous SNL sketch as well that
he literally named his book after.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
You know, before I answer any more questions as something
I wanted to say. Having received all your latters over
the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and
some of you have traveled, you know, hundreds of miles to.
Speaker 9 (19:27):
Be here, I just like to say, you.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Get a light.
Speaker 11 (19:37):
I mean, I mean for crying on Love's it's just
a TV show.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I mean, look at you. Look at the way you're dressed.
Speaker 11 (19:45):
You've turned an enjoyable little job that I did as
a lark for a few years into a colossal waste
of time.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I mean, I mean, how old are you people? What
have you done with yourselves? You?
Speaker 9 (19:59):
You must be almost have you have.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
A kissed girl? I remember seeing that back in the
pre YouTube days. A family friend showed at me because
he was like, I know you love Star Trek, and
I was like, what the hell's Shatner doing? But it's
he's he could do that, like he's always been. He
was never nimo couldn't. He just didn't like it. And
Shatner like probably never didn't like it. He's enjoyed it
(20:23):
the whole time. Is what it seems like.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I find or I feel that the Star Trek reboot
the movies with Chris Pine. I think that those three
movies are, at least the first and the third one
are directly making fun of William Shatner by having the
Beastie Boys sabotage in both of those movies. Have you
(20:47):
ever heard how William Shatner says sabotage?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I have not spot sabotage the system.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Okay youham Wayne's when ninety three in with sabatta, I can.
Speaker 9 (21:00):
Ask a high I don't say sabotage. You say sabotage.
I say sabotage.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
What do you buy it? A sabotage?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
When they started playing sabotage in the first of those
Star Trek reboots, I was like, you gotta be fucking
kidding me? Is this And then that they use that
song to take out the aliens and the third movie spoilers,
I'm just like Jesus Christ, this is so fucking good.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Sabotage.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Sabotage.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yes, I'm never gonna be able to hear that.
Speaker 8 (21:28):
Now, sabotage of a government installation.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
I sabotage and he told me where he hit sabotage
the prime energy circuits.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
Is this why you sabotaged my ship? And a deliberate
act of sabotage.
Speaker 6 (21:39):
Lieutenanto Hura has effectively sabotaged the communication.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Station, Spock sabotage the system.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
But yeah, I fucking love him. I think he's great,
and I just love that overactory type thing that he does.
There are certain movies where he just goes over the top.
There's an exploitation film called Impulse where he plays a killer.
I want to say, he's a killer of children. And
anytime he gets upset, he puts his finger up to
his mouth and starts chewing on his pinky nail. And
(22:07):
it's just, oh my god, it's so good.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I actually misspoke. We have talked about Shatner before. It's
funny because it was for your show The Intruder.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
The Intruder, Yes, so good.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Atypical of Shatner too, like very actor. Speaking of actorly,
that's what I like about Shatner. He's an actor like
he is. Again, to compare him to Chris Walkin, I
think is a fair comparison. Chris Walkin is also an
actor like a capital A. And there are and I
genuinely believe this. There are actors now, young actors now
(22:41):
who are going to be like this in the future,
treated this way, and I'm not sure for a while
there were people like that, but there are again, And
I don't understand where that gap was because Shattner, I
don't know, like something about the overacting and just not
letting people take the piss out of you, but taking
the piss out of yourself as an actor. I feel
(23:02):
what Shatner's always done. Maybe the most amusing thing is
who he's opposite in this episode, because I don't see
that guy taking the piss out of anybody. No, it's
just like a lot of people to be in an
episode opposite playing ostensibly the same character that he's playing,
but the like up is further up his own ass version.
How did Peter Falk not notice? Or maybe he did,
(23:23):
But like Shatner just plays it perfectly because he's just
again like he can play an asshole like a capital
a actor can, because he's just tapping into that side
of himself that everybody expects that he has as an actor.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, I honestly think that he's a great actor or
can be at times, Like do you mention the Intruder.
I really think that performance is great. I honestly think
his performance in Star Trek two Wrath of Khan is
one of the best things a great of course, there's
the over the top con moment, but it is.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
It's an earned moment, man, It's an earned moment.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And then you get those moments towards the end of
the film, like when he's leaning on his arms and
he's looking at the Genesis planet and he's just.
Speaker 9 (24:07):
It's a far far better thing I do than I
have ever done before, far better resting place than go
to and I have never known? Is that a part
something spun was trying to tell you, Okay, Joe, how
(24:32):
are you feel?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
And it's just that whole theme of that movie of
him getting older. Like I love when he takes his
glasses out of his pocket and he says dang before
he puts them back out and puts them on. I'm like, oh,
that's so.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Good Shatner for me, Like I'm clearly already given away,
Like he again, he's my captain for Star Trek. That's
the show I've seen. The most of those episodes are
the ones that have stuck with me. I have a
couple posters in my house of classic Star Trek episodes
that Mondo did posters of I love the original show,
and I know it's campy, but it set the tone
(25:20):
for like most everything sci fi of a certain like Swath,
and that's a pretty fucking large sloth of stuff. And
a lot of it comes down to having perfectly cast
that original crew of the Enterprise, and every single one
of those actors was perfectly cast, from Gene Roddenberry's wife
(25:40):
all the way up to William Shatner. And that's saying
something because again, she was just in the sick bay
with doctor McCoy and Shatner is the lead. But everybody
in the show pulled their weight. And the thing that
Star Trek always did with Star Trek was about a
more hopeful future where we didn't have to blow each
other up, which is something to aspire to. And I
always felt like Shatner set the mold that was copied
(26:03):
further by other captains, because yes, Kirk got his hands dirty.
He didn't like to, though he didn't want to. The
most famous thing about Captain Kirk is that he cheated
to pass the unpassable test. The Kobayashi Muru. He cheated
to win, like he wasn't a guy who had to
beat anybody up. He was a smart guy, like he
was a part Han Solo Park Luke Skywalker in a
(26:24):
lot of ways, like he's a rogue, but he's also
the hero at the same time. And Shatner, the gentleman
who's playing Superman in the new Superman movie, was asked like,
how do you feel about possibly only ever being associated
with one role? And he's like, if it's a role
that's as good as this one, I don't care. And
I've gotta assume because not everybody's like that. Daniel Craigs,
(26:45):
I'd rather slip my wrist than play James Bond again.
It's like, Wow, you get to play James Bond, a
character that's been around fifty plus years. Must really suck.
I appreciate that there are clearly actors then now and
still that look at an opportunity like Shatner got and
really went after it. And that show is amazing because
Shatner and everybody in that cast committed. But Shatner is
so charismatic in that show, and I think that's just
(27:07):
because he's a charismatic actor all the way down and
something like this show. Even when he's the villain, you
still can't help but root for him. Even in Leith
Loaded Weapon Part one, he's one of the best parts
of that movie. He's so funny in that movie, and
he's so charming as the villain.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Him with that piranha in his mouth.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, General Mortars like Jesus Christ, he's so good. I
don't know. Again, I think there's a lot of people
my age that throw TOS out because they're like, it's
too campy and Shatner is overacting, and it's like, you
know what, there is no TNG without TOOS, there is
no Jean luc Picard because people clearly watch TOOS and
felt the same way that certain people who watch it
(27:47):
now do, which is I want it more. I want
more of a command protocol as opposed to this guy's
just the Captain TNG. He's leading a group of people
and cos Kirk did his own shit from time to time,
fairly frequently, frankly, but again you let him get away
with it because he's so charismatic, because it's William Shannon.
I don't know. I just it bugs me when people
(28:09):
go off about Shatner and cos because has he transcended
self parody at this point.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Him doing that ben Folds five album after he had
already done the Transform Man, there would not be that
ben Folds five album if Shatner was oblivious to what
he was bringing to the stage. He must know that
those early musical performances are really embarrassing, the things that
(28:36):
he was doing on The Dinah Shore Show with Harry
Chapin's Taxi Song. And then of course he already mentioned
the Rockaman performance.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Oh oh, sublime Rockaman performance is great. It's laughably bad,
but it's amazing. Like it's I don't know, like he's
such a singular talent as an actor, like Peter Folk,
Like really, I don't know how to put this, and
this might ruffle some feathers, but like Peter Folk was
in a lot of movies, but he's known for one role.
(29:05):
This is it. This is what he's known for. And
so in a lot of ways, having him opposite William Shatner,
another actor who ostensibly is known for one role, like
it makes sense that you have the two of them
going back and forth. But I think you're gonna probably
tell me this is the only time Shatner's on the show, right.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
No, thank goodness, he comes back, Thank god, he comes
back in the new series, and it's probably one of
the best episodes of the new series because he's in it.
And he's got this great cheesy mustache in that one too.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Oh that must have been when they were filming Loaded
Weapon one.
Speaker 9 (29:36):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, it's amazing. So yeah, I think that he is
perfect in this and I love well because one of
my other favorite episodes is Stitching Crime, where you've got
me moy and then you come over here you get Shatner,
and both of them are playing to their strengths.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Oh my god, yes, being that cold.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Surgeon and just thinks he's so much smarter than everybody else.
And here you got Shatner's charismatic actor and just yeah,
everybody like, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Well my trailer, Yeah of course you will. She's such
an tird.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Maybe the reason why falk was okay with this is
the whole idea of word Fowlower actually isn't getting paid
that much because half of his salary goes to the producer.
Her arguing for him to stick around, stay on the
show and get more money is just lining her pockets
and I kind of love that.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, I was, so that was why I was assuming
fulk was because at the end of the day, like
they do, will out. But this is such a weird
episode for Falk to be involved with. It seems like
the kind of thing that would be on another show,
sending up this show. But it's always so smart to
have Shatner playing an actor. Can I know you mentioned it,
(30:51):
like with Nimoy playing to his strengths, but like Shatner
could have literally played anything else because we've had all
these other actors on the show not playing and now
we have him playing an actor. Like this might be
one of the best episodes of the show because I
think everybody is really like leaning into the strength of
their inherent strength. And Columbo's never been better and the
(31:13):
villain's never been better because the villain is just villainous.
William Shatner, It's.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Just and it's like such a greatest hits when it
comes to this. I'm surprised there's no Dennis Dugan. No,
I'm surprised there's no Bob Dishy or Bruno Kirby in
this because otherwise get that amazing shot. You know that
we use technology in this one, the video tape recorder,
(31:39):
which has clearly labeled across it in letters that are
probably an inch high video tape.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Recorder right just in case for the people in the
cheap seats.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So we're using technology. We've got all. My wife is
going to be so thrilled about this. We've got so
many things we've got. Timothy Carey is back in here.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
For like a for a hot second, Brah.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Hats like it's so good though. When he does show up,
We've got so many good things happening in this episode.
It's like the greatest hits for me, with like just
all of these moments coming together for this. It's so
much fun. I'd loved like the whole thing of he
destroyed the coat in the mask, but he didn't destroy
the gun and what happened with that, And of.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Course there's some threads on the there's some threads on
the ground. I will say maybe my only singular knock
against this episode, and I think you know what I'm
going to say. The conclusion is borderline moronic. You touch
the bullets, motherfucker. For real, of course you touch the bullets.
(32:45):
Fuck man. I felt like that was such a cop out.
There were so many. I don't know, is it just me,
am I wrong? I don't know what was that? What
was the one where it's oh, there was like a
marble in the trunk of the car or comb you
know what I'm talking about. We're Columbus flicked it into
the trunk of the car while he wasn't looking.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, that's the umbrella from the Dagger of the Mind episode,
and you're conflating that with the contact in.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
The back of That's what it was. The contact, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
The car where like they it wasn't even the same
contact or something.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
It's just complete entrapment on Columbo's part.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I love the moments when Columbo's wandering around the set
and just fucks up the entire take and everything where
he looks like Godzilla outside in the windows and everything,
busting up the lights.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
They really love the outfits that they give Shatner too.
He's wearing a lot of white, a lot of floral,
a lot of flowers and pockets or on collars. He's
a lot of pontificating in this episode from Shatner. He's
just genuine. He's just pontificating a lot.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Jesus Christ when they first meet after Fall comes in
and knocks over all the light stands and stuff them
going back and forth, and it takes forever this dialogue
between the two of them, and you even have his
friend coming up and no, we are watching the game.
Bert rams in his mark and Shadows get out of here.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
You're trying to.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Provide an alibi for me, yelling at him and stuff
and those.
Speaker 9 (34:16):
Do you think she was murdered, don't you?
Speaker 8 (34:19):
I beg your pardoner, sir. You heard me, yes, sir,
I did? I mean yes?
Speaker 7 (34:28):
I do think it was a premeditated killing, Sir. I
mean I think the robbery was staged the cover of
the murder.
Speaker 8 (34:35):
How did you know, sir?
Speaker 9 (34:37):
Why else would you be here?
Speaker 8 (34:39):
It couldn't be just a routine check, sir.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
I don't send a police detective stumbling around asking silly,
fake inno some questions on a routine check.
Speaker 9 (34:54):
I know that from my show.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
For silly, fake innocent questions.
Speaker 6 (34:57):
Like what, sir, like, mister Dailey wasn't at home last night,
He wasn't there this morning, they told me at the office,
so they didn't know when he'd be in. And I
was wondering if anybody here had any idea where he
would be a man on the route to your character
just asks for mister Bailey, thank you.
Speaker 7 (35:19):
Your absolutely amazing Surrey. You're right, and here I thought
you were in shock.
Speaker 9 (35:27):
You didn't.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
We thought I was confused, perhap scared, and I'm probably
playing for time.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Amazing Columbus, just playing into it. Just yeah, watch this
guy hang himself. I love it.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
And that's so. That was the other question I had
for you is when does Colombo know it's word Fowler,
Like the moment he steps on the sea.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I think it's some momny steps on the set. Yeah,
I honestly do. He changes his story in his attitude
like two or three, three times, just in that dialogue scene.
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
It's the Lucern though, it's the Lucern and the Fowler
of it.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
I'm going through and timing it right now, and I
think that dialogue takes seven minutes with just solid dialogue
between the two of them. It's great.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
And it's again like that's some well written dialogue. Why
Peter Fiebelman and lou Shaw like they do a great job.
Like I like this script. I like this episode's dialogue
back and forth, this feels like Colombo and that is
not always the case.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Even the dialogue between Fowler and the producer. I love
that stuff too, where it's oh, you didn't used to
feel this way, and remember when we used to make
love and all this stuff, and like all these little
like giving them a real rich backstory, and then seeing
just how much Shatner doesn't like her, even though he's
putting on this big happy face, but you hear it
(36:51):
in the dialogue that he's trying to cut into her
every single time. It's great. I was talking about how
this is the greatest hits. Also being filmed on the
Universal backlot, with the tram car coming through all the time,
and Colombo stopping at Amity and seeing the shark and saying, oh,
is that the shark that they used in the picture.
(37:11):
And I'm like, there's your Steven Spielberg reference.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
That's great, And according to the Internet, that is the
original shark.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
From John's No that's Bruce, okay, But I thought they
blew it up.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Smile you said, of a bitch. I love the Universal backlot.
I love it. That's where they shot Fletch Lives.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's perfect, right, It's a perfect location.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Cheap and easy, baby. We just don't out have to
dress anything. Just the sets, just the sets.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
And they spend so much time that Lieutenant Lucern set
with him explaining the whole thing of the if your
arms are up and you're not running away, and make
this mark on this on my coat, please be easy.
I don't want to have to. Don't ruin my coat.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
He's not shabby enough.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Put this chalk mark on my back.
Speaker 9 (37:57):
Please.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Uh yeah. I just like I said, I don't feel
like there's really a dull moment in here. He's constantly
digging finding the shoes. That whole thing where Timothy Carey
is like, yeah, he was your size. Like I'm trying
to basically say short.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
A short dude. He's a short guy like you and
a shabby guy like you.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
There's no dead moments in this And that was the
thing was some of these episodes, even the seventy minute ones.
I'm like, okay, this is just some padding. We've talked
a lot about some of the padding that he does
in some of these episodes, Like it's like Peter Falk
knows to get out of the way in this one
and just let Shatner do his thing, and then he
(38:41):
plays around with him, which I find to be great.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
We haven't had an episode in a while where the
Columbo is batting his prey around like a little rat,
but that's what it feels like here. And Ward Fowler's
doing his best to keep up with it, but he can't.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Lieutenant Lucerne is always one step ahead of Ward Fowler.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
I know, shocking, right, It's just.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
The most schizophrenic episode of all of that. Yeah, I
just love it.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I don't understand. I just it's it's just confounding to me.
Other than the fact and I'm assuming my assumption here,
my head canon is he just thinks that he can
get away with it and that he's going to be
able to like look ed kemper right. He was trying
to help the cops solve the murders that he had committed.
(39:28):
That's a thing they always talk about. We'll keep an
eye on the crime scene just to see if the
killer comes back. Like I'm wondering if that's where they
drew the inspiration from. It's this kind of like the
helpful killer, because why would I logically help you catch
me if I did? It makes no sense, right, other
than you possibly being like deeply mentally unwell because you
(39:49):
thought murdering someone was okay to begin with.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We've seen helpful killers before, which I really like. Even
Jack Cassidy had murdered by the book, it was just like, oh, lieutenant,
didn't you think about this? And he's leading them, trying
to lead him down the wrong path. But there are
killers that do say, oh, let me help you with that.
Even Robert Colpan the one where he was like at
the same one that you just mentioned, the whole thing
(40:12):
where he runs the detective agency. There are times where
he's like, oh, yeah, lieutenant, I'll help you out. But
again he leads him in the wrong direction or tries
to hire him and be like, oh, yeah, I can
pay you way better. You just have to drop this
case kind of thing. But here Shatner is oh, yeah,
I'll help you, and then he fucking does.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
And again, like to what end? That's always been the question,
like to what end? But like you said, maybe it's
the idea that Lucerne just can't feel like an idiot.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I think it is. When they talk about oh, it's
like Holmes and watsays, no, it's Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes,
and it's.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Like, there's no lesser here, Like.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
What's that phrase that the kids use, game for game
or whatever, like games recognize his game? Yeah, And he's
just like okay, yeah, all right, this guy knows it.
There are moments in this, like towards the end when
he's laying out everything. Lucern is laying out everything. Hey,
Columbu's just sitting there with his hand on his chin,
just listening to all this and occasionally prompting him for
(41:12):
more stuff.
Speaker 9 (41:13):
Where did you look?
Speaker 8 (41:15):
Yes, sir, I'll give you three guesses.
Speaker 9 (41:21):
Studio wardrobe department.
Speaker 7 (41:22):
You got it in one third. That's absolutely amazing. You're right,
the parker and the ski mask. That's where they both
came from.
Speaker 9 (41:32):
I'm a gun.
Speaker 7 (41:33):
Oh come on, so you're putting me on you Loaded
guns don't come from the wardrobe.
Speaker 8 (41:38):
Department, of course, are stupid of me?
Speaker 7 (41:42):
No, that's the prop department, not the wardrobe department. How
does a smart man like Lieutenant Lincern make a mistake
like that?
Speaker 9 (41:51):
Because you're not talking to Lieutenant Liscern at the moment,
are you, Lieutenant? You're talking to Ward Fowler.
Speaker 8 (41:57):
What's the difference here?
Speaker 6 (41:59):
The difference is Ward Fowler is under suspicion of murder,
and a man under that kind of threatus.
Speaker 9 (42:06):
My mistake. You just have to get a rattle.
Speaker 7 (42:08):
Well, whoever said anything about Ward Fowler being under suspicion
of murder?
Speaker 9 (42:12):
Lieutenant lincerned.
Speaker 8 (42:15):
He did? Well? How did he come to that conclusion?
Speaker 9 (42:19):
Sir? She had to face the same fact you did.
Speaker 8 (42:22):
What fact is that, sir?
Speaker 9 (42:25):
There are only four people who could have murdered de Claire.
Speaker 7 (42:27):
You mean the four people who knew where Claire Daily
was going to be that night.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Exactly, and only one of those is instantly associated with makeup,
wardrobe and props.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
And Lucern's just laying out the entire case, and for
the most part he's laying it out correctly and not
saving himself.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Giving himself rope more and more rope.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
This is how you start the sixth season of this show.
And what's fucked is that there's only two more episodes
this season. Good night, folks.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
If memory serves, Old Fashioned Murder is not that great.
It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'm
going to give it a second shot, of course, and
try to figure out what's going on with this episode?
Joyce fan Paton is back. She was the one that
played the nun at the soup kitchen who is trying
to get Lieutenant Colombo a better coat. I think that
(43:18):
must have been the one with Dick Van Dyke, because
Vito Scot no Vitoskota in this one either, but when
he's the drunk and I think he witnessed the crime
or something. So she's back now as a killer. And yeah,
I barely remember anything about it, just from the title
old Fashioned Murder. I was thinking it was the Ruth
Gordon episode, but that's not right. But I will tell
(43:39):
you that Sky High Murder Case is one of my
favorites as well. So six season for early being three episodes,
two really good ones in my.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Opinion, sixty six percent success rate. It's not bad.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, it's a d right, I'm passing.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
You are passing. What's your stage name? This is a
great episode. It is too bad there are only two
episodes this season because I know that we are careening
into season seven, which is the beginning of that's the
beginning of the show being completely different.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Right, Season seven's is still the NBC year, is still
universal yep.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
So it's the season past that one.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, it's when you get into eight.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
We're robbed of what four episodes, at least two or three. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I think a lot of that is because of the
original subject. That way he brought up fucking Mikey and Nicky.
I think that kept him away a lot of the time,
and he sunk a lot of his own money in there.
Falk put a lot of money into that movie and
was trying to help out a friend. I guess he
really liked the Laye May obviously he really likes Gassavetti's.
But yeah, I think that was just a real shame
(44:49):
that happened. But again, maybe it's a classic and I
just don't see it. Maybe I'll come to it again
in twenty years and be like, oh, masterpiece. But for
now we're skipping out. I'm not going to talk about
Mikey and Nikki, but we will continue talking about season
six next month when we come back to discuss Old
Fashioned Murderer.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I can't wait. I'm excited. If this season has two
good episodes, maybe this next one won't be as bad
as you remember. Maybe it'll be three good.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Episodes, and man, after last salute to the commodore. We
need some good episodes, Chris, when you are not showing
the scenery, what are you doing these days?
Speaker 3 (45:26):
I'm over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com working on audio diversions
that you can check out and listen to, and you should.
Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is the podcast network that Mike and
I co founded, Oh my god, five years ago.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah, you're right. Oh check out the shirt Man.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Yeah, weirding Way we are part where we were Dune
fans before they remade those goddamn move If anyone is
looking for anything worthwhile to listen to in terms of
audio diversions, weird Way Media is probably the best place
to do it. You can find this show, Mike's show,
The Projection Booth, my show, The Culture Cast, Father Malone Show,
Midnight Viewing, a whole host to shows. So that's where
you can find the stuff that I work on.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
What about you, Mike, same thing other than the one
thing he didn't mention, which is the show that we
do for our respective patreons. That's patreon dot com slash
Projection Booth and patreon dot com slash Culture Cast, and
that's called Ranking on Bond where every month we talk
about a different James Bond film in order. For the
most part, we've had some diversions here and there, but
pretty much for the Bonds we go in order. We
(46:23):
are just about to talk about GoldenEye. So looking forward
to another era of Bond and yeah, been enjoying listening
to the audio commententary for that. We really do it up, folks,
try to ingest as much material as we possibly can
in order to provide some good quality insights on things.
That's what we do here weirding Way Media, as.
Speaker 12 (46:44):
We try to anyways, add two
Speaker 8 (47:07):
P
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