Negative Reaction

Season 4 of Columbo continues with a favorite of Mike's, Negative Reaction wherein Dick Van Dyke plays photographer Paul Galesko who think he's committed the perfect murder of his wife (Antoniette Bower) and patsy (Don Gordon). Unfortunately for him, Columbo is on the case. This episode features great roles for Vito Scotti, John Ashton, Joyce Van Patten, Larry Storch, and Michael Strong.

This episode of The Shabby Detective also features an interview with author David Koenig about his new book, Unshot Columbo: Cracking the Cases That Never Got Filmed.  Get it today at https://amzn.to/3Sh9VCj

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-shabby-detective-yet-another-columbo-podcast--5084441/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:23):
We are back and We're talking aboutNegative Reaction is the second episode of the
fourth season. It came out originallyOctober sixth, nineteen seventy four, directed
by Alf Jellen, written by PeterS. Fisher, who was the showrunner
at this time, story editor,and starring the one and only. Oh

(00:43):
my god, it's so funny whenhe comes in and trips over that ottoman.
It is Dick Vandyk as Paul Galasco. He is a very snootie world
famous photographer. I guess photographers couldmake a lot of money back then,
or I guess when you're charging twentyfour ninety nine for a book, you're
gonna be making money. Hand overfist, my friend. So yes,

(01:04):
it is the one and only DickVan Dyke playing against type in a big
way, playing Paul Gillasco major dickhead. One of my favorite episodes, I
think it is. I had sucha fun time going back and rewatching this
one. But Chris, I'm socurious, what are your impressions of negative
reaction? So, Dick Vandyke isninety eight years old, by the way,

(01:29):
which is good for him. Idon't have a lot of experience with
Dick van Dyke. Given my age, I feel like the things that I
know Dick Van Dyke for are MaryPoppins, which I never really saw as
a kid, but I saw Nightat the Museum, so that's what I

(01:52):
know him from because he plays oneof the guards of the museum at the
beginning of the movie, along withanother classic star of stage and screen,
Mickey Rooney, so it's the twoof them kind of hassling Ben Stiller.
So I don't have a lot ofexperience with Dick van Dyke. However,
this is a Colombo episode, somy experience with Dick Van Dyke maybe isn't
as important all that to say Iliked the episode, I will say I

(02:15):
don't know if the episode needed tobe an hour and a half long,
but I feel and maybe this isjust me remembering wistfully the day's pass of
this show. I feel like I'vesaid that more frequently than not recently,
where it's like, this could haveused ten minutes cut out of it.

(02:35):
We don't need Peter Falk bulking itup all the time, but they're gonna
let him do it because that's thisshow. But I feel like I do
have to point out that again,I enjoyed this episode, but there are
some things in this episode that arejust why are we doing this here?
Why are we doing this here?Show? Of all the places and things

(02:57):
to do it. I'm curious whereyou're coming at this from as one of
your favorite episodes, because I canassume the reasons, but I want to
know exactly, because there's some stuffin this episode that yet's It's like,
why are we It feels like we'vedone this before? Even it so feels
like we've done this before, especiallythe episode where the guy hired the dude

(03:19):
who it was published a parish.The whole idea of the crazy bomb guy
so reminds me of Alvin Deshler theDon Gordon role, to see Don Gordon
playing that meek and mild character,even though he's not that meek and not
that mild, especially like when itcomes out that he had talked with the
camera salesman and just bought a twentydollars camera, but then asked for the

(03:44):
receipt to be made out for onehundred bucks and gave the guy an extra
ten so he could collect more moneyfrom Galasco. I thought it was nice.
I'm like, yeah, that's theDon Gordon, I know, but
otherwise he's just like, oh yeah, sure, mister Glisko, whatever you
want. I'll do whatever you want. Man, you're up. You aren't
going down for this crime, buddyuntil Columbo comes on the case. And

(04:06):
I totally agree with you. Thereare a lot of moments in this episode
where I'm like, Okay, thisreally didn't need to be here. The
whole Larry Storch scene doesn't have tobe there. But I fun with it.
I love it though, and youcan tell that Folk is having a
hard time even keeping a straight face. He's just eating it up, and
nobody plays flustered by Larry Storch.Kin. Yeah, God, we're here

(04:30):
already, aren't we. I feellike the Larry Storch and Joyce Van Patten
of it all. It's definitely thetwo of them where that's twenty minutes that
you could have just snipped right outof the end. So look, John
Ashton, on the other hand,I'm not asking you to cut John Ashton
out of the episode. He's alreadybalding, he's got that hair, he's
smoking that cigarette. He looks young, he looks good. He works well

(04:55):
opposite Peter Falk, but yeah,some of the stuff in this episode whe
with Joyce friend Paton's character and thehomeless shelter was just, oh, you
look like a homeless guy? Doeshe? Though? Does Colombo look like
a homeless guy? Really? Ithink it's funny that she thinks that.
Obviously that's the bit, But Idon't believe for a second anyone's gonna be
misremembering Columbo for a homeless person.Doesn't look that. It doesn't look that

(05:19):
bedraggled. I guess maybe to anun he does. I really like that.
And of course our old friend VictorScotty coming back in this one playing
the drunk getting what three two scenesat least, and here we hear about
him in a third scene where he'stalking with the police. But yeah,
I really I like that stuff thisone. Normally I would be like,

(05:43):
what the hell like that whole computerprint out thing that we were talking about
recently and how long that went onfor no good reason? But this just
feels like it gives falkmore to chewon. But I can totally see where
you're coming from. I could seenot liking those scenes, but I'm just
eating up with a spoon. Ilike the scene where he's in the camera's
store. I like that scene afair amount because again, it's just like

(06:08):
Colombo plays dumb so well and heknows how to get information out of people
in a way that's just I don'tknow, it feels effortless with him,
and in that scene, I lovehow he can play at times flustered but
at the same time constantly digging,just digging for information, and I love

(06:30):
how he digs the I love theway the characters written in this episode in
terms of the way Colombo as acharacter is written in this episode, because
that's the other thing we have totake into account. Most of these episodes
aren't being written by the same peopleweek to week, so it's someone taking
Colombo, a character that's set instone quote unquote, and then amplifying him

(06:50):
through their lens of what they wantto do and not losing sight of the
way the characters kind of base interpretationneeds to be a dress. I think
this episode does a really good jobat keeping true to the Colombo character,
which has been lost in some ofthe episodes we've seen recently, where it's
like what why is he? It'snot why he's he in this, but

(07:13):
why is this a Why is thisa case that Columbo's being brought in for?
Is probably the better way of lookingat these, because Columbo's just a
cop at the end of the day'sdetective. But it's the cases that he's
brought in on that allow him toshow his expertise of deduction. It really
does give him a chance to flexand like you said, just keep true

(07:34):
to that Columbo nous of this.And yeah, those scenes where it's a
little long in the tooth, Ithink that's just him taking it out for
a walk and just doing this thingwith that. I'm okay. There are
times where, yes, it isvery annoying where you're just like, okay,
let's get back to the story.But I felt like those moments added
to it quite a bit. Yeah, maybe not so much with Scotti in

(07:58):
the talk about the time in betweenthe shots, but I feel like all
of these scenes really add up.And we complained last time about just the
lack of clues, whereas this episodefeels like it is just a bevy a
treasure trove of all of these differentclues. Because we've got Galscoe thinking that
he is so much smarter than everybodyelse involved. Thinks that he's got everything

(08:22):
on lock comes up with excuses likethat, and that's one of the things
I really like is just whenever Colombocomes at him with something, because Colombo
is one more thinging so much inthis episode, I counted at least four
times that he does a one morething, and every time he comes back
he's said, oh, what aboutthis, And Glesca's like, obviously,

(08:45):
like why did it take so longbetween this time and this time? Oh,
this is what must have happened,or this is must be what this
other person was thinking, and justcoming up with those excuses, And I
love that every time he does that, of course, is like all right,
and then he writes down and saysout loud what the excuse was,
I'm like, oh man, thatjust makes it sound so phony because it

(09:09):
is. Yeah. In terms ofthe dastardliness of the villain man Dick van
Dyke, I think definitely he is. He murders his wife with a gun,
Yeah, he shoots her cold,yes, yeah, and it's nuts.
Would you say it's shocking for thisshow? A little bit though.

(09:31):
Some incredible film scholar on IMDb talksabout how the luger that he shoots her
with is obviously not loaded, becauseusually it's very good practice to have live
ammunition and a weapon when you're filmingsomething. I've heard, Yeah, I've
heard, and in upcoming court cases, we may figure out how that's not

(09:52):
the case. Weird, Yeah,I can't. Can you imagine going on
IMDb and posting that on the episodeof Colombo so bent out of shape but
not practicing good gun for him,no good trigger for him. Okay,
let me calm down. Its tickVan Dyke, for fuck's sake. But
I like the idea that he justmurders his wife in cold blood, just
shoots her point like in the head, skills her like it's I don't know,

(10:16):
he's he's so matter of fact aboutit, and she's look, god,
I'm not gonna say that. Thisis a well that the show goes
to. But these shrews of partners, Yeah, it's god damn it.
Show. Does she have to bethis gorgonite of a human being, this
monster that it's I feel bad forhim and that he has to kill her

(10:41):
to get rid of her and hecan't just divorce her. But at the
same time, like, why notjust divorcer dude? You're gonna go to
jail. And I don't know ifhis secretary is into him or not,
if he just is. This tensionis what it feels like. It feels
like this is intense, but Idon't know if she's aware of the plan.

(11:01):
They're like them going off to thePhilippines together. It feels like that's
when he's going to make his moveand be like, Oh, I'm so
broken up by the death of mywife. If only I had someone here
to comfort me and fuck me right, if only I had some ass willing
and available ass God, And canyou imagine the mustache ride you begin from

(11:22):
Dick van Dyke with this facial hairthat he's got. Could lord His facial
hair in this episode is off thechain man that that beer look. So
this was what in the seventies,forty years ago, fifty years ago now?
So yeah, So Dick Van Dykeis in his mid forties. They

(11:43):
gave him the facial air to makehim look older, right, they have
to because he's going gray and fortyOh yeah, he's been gray for a
long see. Okay, Like Isaid, I just have very little exposure
to Dick Van Dyke as an actor. That's very far outside of my time
range as a human being being alive. Like I said, by the time

(12:03):
I was born, Dick Van Dykewas in his fucking sixties. Obviously,
the reruns of the Dick Van DykeShow were all over the place when I
was growing up. He had beenin a bunch of movies, of course
Mary Poppins, like you mentioned,he became a TV detective himself, and
he was in Diagnosis Murder, sothat was an okay one. We don't

(12:24):
tend to watch that. We're nota Diagnosis Murder house here in Westland.
But he seemed to be all overthe place, especially because right around this
time in the seventies, he wasactually a spokesperson for Cameras or Kodak,
I think, which was ironic thathe's the photographer in this The Kodak plocket

(12:46):
Instematic Camera starts that less than twentyeight dollars the complete outfits a little more.
Just tell him to remember which pocketthey put it in the Kodak plocket
Instematic camera. And then also hewas in a ton of PSAs, like
the whole Stop Drop and Roll.Like I learned Stop Drop and Roll from

(13:07):
Dick van Dyke and his commercials.I'm rolling because I want to show you
what to do if you close evercatch on fire, because the fire will
just burn your clothes, it'll burnyou. So don't run, don't stand
up at all, just fall downand roll. That way it'll squash out
the fire and save your skin.So remember you pose ever catch on fire,

(13:28):
Roll, roll, roll your body. It's also weird that he had
his own show. He ends upgetting his own show that runs for eight
years. Good lord. Yeah,and then just all the movies that he
was in. I want to sayhe might have been in a movie called
Cold Turkey about quitting smoking. Icould be wrong about that, but yeah,
he was in a lot of becausethis is also the era going into

(13:54):
the seventies of more of the liveaction Disney stuff, and I seem to
remember him doing a lot of thatas well. So yeah, he was
definitely a big presence, though notbig enough where this was just like such
a shocker to me to see himplay a bad guy, but I know
it was for a lot of people. That was the other thing I was

(14:15):
wondering, is how big of ashock is it that this actor is playing
a villain? And again, likea pretty dastardly villain. I'm surprised in
a lot of ways that this guygets his hands as dirty as he does,
because the other villain that was doingthis did not get his hands as
dirty. The idea was, I'mpaying someone else to get their hands dirty,

(14:35):
and this guy is just, Oh, he's just the patsy. He's
just the fall guy. He doesn'teven know he's the fall guy. And
I'm not saying in the other episodehe knew, but in the other episode
he was the one who committed thecrime. Dick van Dyke is the one
who commits the crime here, sohe's that much worse because he's the one
he's wanting to do it. He'swanting to murder his wife, he wants
to be the one to do it. It's like, oh, man,

(14:56):
he's a real piece of shit,and I think Dick van Dyke plays it
really well. But yeah, again, like I just wanted to have some
context because my assumption was was shockingto see Dick Vandyke being this much of
an asshole as a character. ButI love it. I love that he's
the mouse that Colombo gets to playwith for an hour and a half because

(15:16):
That's the thing too, is thatthe worse the villain, the better it
is to see them get their comeuppance. And to see Colombo have this mounting
pile of evidence and just one thingafter another. And we haven't even talked
about the end of this, andI want to save that for a little
bit from now, but just tohave all of these little pieces constantly going

(15:39):
it just makes it even sweeter tome when he finally gets his just desserts.
There's a lot of things that gointo getting to the ending. We
have to get to the point whereColumbo understands cameras. We have to get
to the point where Columbo understands filmcomposition. We have to get to the
point where Columbo understands how that backand forth between him and Deshlaar, how

(16:00):
that went back and forth because ofthe timing of it all. And then
there's a couple other like small piecesof evidence. He sees his pants don't
have the powder burn and or hedoes have the powder burn on his pants,
but there's not one on the otherguy. So it's how to do
well, I kick the gun andall this horseshit. But what I like
is, to your point, theseveral bigger components build on to one another

(16:26):
to create a whole piece of informationthat is used to catch him. And
I think, for me, eventhough there are parts of this episode that
don't necessarily outright work, the waythat he has caught is the I'm not
the best part of the episode,but the way that he has caught I
think is up there for some ofthe best ways in terms of utilizing everything

(16:48):
we've seen holistically to make one singular. This is it. It's this thing,
and I'm using all the disparate,seemingly disparate things together to make something
makes sense. I like that almostmore than most of the ways people have
been caught up until this point inthe show. The end of this episode
is basically a drawing room sequence.This is as close to Miss Marble and

(17:14):
here q Parrot as we get,which I think is fantastic. And yeah,
you get all those little things likewhy did you write fifty thousand dollars
rather than the address, Like itwould be so much more difficult to remember
the address than the fifty thousand dollars. Now, that could be a major
clue for any other episode, butfor this one, it's basically just another
nail in the coffin, and noteven a nail, a thumb tack in

(17:38):
the coffin, because he just keepsgetting those. And I love that this
one does have substance. It isnot one of these, oh the shoes
were tied wrong and it's oh,for fuck's sake, there was a marble
in the trunk. Yeah, it'slike what, but this is what was
like a little bigger. It's justsnowballs through this whole thing. And that's

(17:59):
one of the things I'm because evenwith this longer time, you get so
much more of the clues and somuch more of the build up. And
I think that it also helps tomake this episode a little bit more impactful
because it does take longer that you'rejust like getting more of this rhythm of
how things keep building and sinking Glescowith his whole bullshit story and look,

(18:25):
as much as the Larry Storch sceneis again like it's in the last ten
minutes of the episode too, it'sthe last it's the final ten minutes before,
it's the second to last ten minutesbefore the actual final ten minutes,
So we spend ten minutes with himand Colombo getting to the point where he's
will you sign an affidavit saying likeyou were in the car with this guy,

(18:45):
you're his alibi. It comes lateenough that I don't think I get
that. It ends up being thebiggest piece of information in terms of you've
perjured yourself here, pal. Butyeah, it's interesting. Not a lot
of episodes have been revealing clues upuntil last ten minutes. There's kind of
other things going on that the episodeis busying itself with, and this episode,

(19:08):
like you, it has to getto that point to finally have all
of the information. And this isthe button that this is the button that
they're putting on it. That's thething is he hasn't perjured himself. Dick
van Dyke laid out, the storyhas everything so perfect, but then when
Colombo does that dunderheaded quote unquote thingof reversing the negative and suddenly the clock

(19:34):
moves from two o'clock to ten o'clock. Oh no, your your story doesn't
now match up. It has tomatch up just that way that he has
built everything so perfectly. Dick vanDyke has built this entire house and then
Colombo's just hit fucking up and justbeing like, no, it's ten o'clock

(19:56):
instead, and it's just what youof course, it's two o'clock. March
is over there, opens up thatcamera. See there's the negative. Holy
fucking shit. Yeah, God isas good? Oh my God. And
then when Columbus saw this, yousaw that, right? Were you a

(20:17):
witness to what he just did?Were you a witness to what he just
did? Were you a witness towhat he just did? I'm just like,
oh, is this like a referenceto like Peter in the Gospels or
something like three times he gets caughtby these guys. Yes, they will
all swear that they just saw himgo over to that camera. Open it
up. You didn't pick that cameraand that camera and that guy. I

(20:38):
just love man. This is oneof those what remo you got him moments
for Columbus. This is up therefor me with the pulling the gloves out
of the pockets moment, and thefact that the way that they set the
scene up initially is they come inwith Colombo and he's sitting there redoing the
ransom letter, and you think thatit's going to be that, and you

(21:00):
think that is going to be howhe gets him. They fake you out
within the scene itself, which Ithink for me is the most important part
about this episode is this episode keepsyou guessing on how Columbo's going to do
it. Columbo's going to catch him, that's always aknown like. By the
end of the episode, this person'snot getting away, so how we get

(21:21):
there is just so important. Andthe fact that this episode is unwilling to
rest on its laurels, even inthe last three minutes, I think is
so impressive because it's committed to thebit as it were, It's actually committed
to writing this kind of story theway this kind of story should be written,
which is just when you think you'vegot it all figured out, there's

(21:41):
even one more thing going on here, And this episode does that in a
way that really Colombo hasn't, andwhen it does, it's the best episodes
of the show. I love thepacing of that last scene and yeah,
you're right, that whole thing wherehe's got the note and he's look at
all these little bits, look atall these little bits of paper, and

(22:03):
just that he had made Van Dykecome up with the excuse for why the
newspapers were there, but not therest of the scraps and everything. If
the woman came in, everything wouldbe gone, and why did you just
look? Yeah, I just lovethat. It's this doesn't really make sense.
And then yeah, just to keepbuilding until it gets that whole.

(22:29):
And now he literally has it undera curtain, which I really appreciate what
he takes this the sheet off ofthat blown up photo. Oh it's so
nice. And yeah, just toget him so angry. And not only
do we have a clock in thatphoto and clocks and time and all this,
Oh you call that four forty orfive forty five, but yeah,

(22:52):
this call was at five five o'clock. You're supposed to be there at five
o'clock. I would have been thereearly if it was my wife kind of
thing. But then you also havethe metaphorical ticking clock of the trip to
the Philippines, so we have toget everything done before they leave the country,
a little Johnny Cash moment. SoI thought that was nice too,

(23:15):
that you've got both of those comingtogether. We have to solve this case
by this time, otherwise this guy'sgoing to get away clean, going to
go to another country, will probablynever come back. Yeah, that's well,
that's the other thing that wins.Once he's gone, he will be

(23:36):
gone. And that's because it's gettingIt's made very clear that they have a
tenuous grasp on him at the moment, because again, they have to have
him admit to doing it. Isreally what happened. This is clear that
he has to admit it. Andlook, this is the other thing that
I appreciate about this episode, andwe've talked about this on other episodes.

(23:56):
There have been some of these words, this shit's pretty impeachable. Oh wait,
this guy's not going to jail.Columbo's gonna get slapped on the wrist.
You're trying to do it again,man, stop it. You can't
get people in this circumstantial ass evidencethis time ain't nothing circumstantial. The only
person who could have known which camerait was is the person who was taking
those pictures, and there will beI don't know how there would be any

(24:21):
way in a court of law hecould get around that. I'm assuming that
this guy takes a plea deal.Is why what happens. He admitted he
did it and goes to jail ontwenty years, gets out on ten for
bad behaviors. So he's out ofjail by the swing in mid eighties anyways,
and we just had to kill hiswife. I think about that often

(24:41):
when we watch the show, becausesometimes the show is just like, there's
no way these people are actually introuble. This episode, Dick van Dyke
signs his own death warrant and doesit with such a plom Oh, you
fucking idiot, Like, the onemistake you can't afford to make is the
mistake that you made, which isfucking up in front of Columbo, because

(25:02):
he is waiting for you to fuckup the only way that he can get
you to fuck up, which isthis. This whole episode has been building
to this one moment of only theperson who took the picture could have The
only person who took the picture isthe person who was there, and that
has to be Dick Van Dyke orsomebody else. And he outs himself and
yeah, it's really well done.I had a false memory about this episode

(25:26):
for a long time. I alwaysthought that the main cop that Columbo dealt
with was Jerry van Dyke, thebrother of Dick Van Dyke. I don't
know why I thought that, Butthen going back and seeing Michael Strong in
this role as the other detective,I'm like, oh, okay, yeah,
he looks a lot like Jerry VanDyke did at this time, so

(25:47):
I thought that would have been,uh, oh, I can be in
your episode, but you gotta throwmy brother a bone kind of thing.
But I really like Michael Strong.I've only seen him that I remember in
a few things, but he's inone of my favorites, point blank,
the Lee Mervin film. So itwas really nice to see him in here,
and I think that he he doesa good job of being present but

(26:11):
not overwhelming the narrative. He's notBob Deshie. He's just like, Okay,
I'm just this other dude. Buthe's got enough charisma that you can
always tell when he's on screen.We also mentioned earlier on that John Ashen
is in this episode. He's he'sin it. He's not given much to
do. Unfortunately, I think MichaelStrong has given more to do than he

(26:33):
is, and he shows up morethroughout the episode. This episode I think
is strong front to back again.The little additional Peter Falk isms. I
just have to deal with that movingforward, not like it's a bad thing,
but like it does. Just comeon, I get it, I
get it, you're in charge,we get it, like you're the one.

(26:53):
You're the one telling people where andhow to sign and on what line
to sign on. We get it, he or fault, But I don't
know if I need to see youand Larry Storch sit a car for ten
minutes and he huck it up.Yeah. I did have a chance to
talk with John Ashton about because me, if somebody's on Colombo and I'm talking
you with them, I will askthem how their experience was. He said

(27:15):
he had a great experience on thisand that Peter Falk was a very generous
actor and would actually run lines withhim. Wasn't just like him and his
trailer alone or back someplace just doinghis lines. Falk would run those lines
with him so he could actually geta real feel for it, which I
thought was pretty great. I getthe distinct feeling. Peter Fulk was an
actor's actor, but he was nota director's actor. There are actors that

(27:40):
other actors love, and then thereare actors that directors love, and then
there are actors that actors hate,and then there are actors that directors hate.
I think Peter Falk was an actorthat directors hated but actors liked.
And I think that's because he stuckup for actors and actors' rights, which
if you're in the position that PeterFalk was in, that's not it.

(28:00):
And that's not as easy of athing to do as it would seem because
the visibility of Peter Falk makes itless tenable to do, because why would
you endanger your career for other people'scareer or just the need to have an
industry actually treating people with respect,And Peter Falk thought it was important.
And look, it's like anything else. If you open the door, why

(28:22):
not let your couple of your friendsin through the door too. That's what
Peter Falk was doing. Clearly,Hulk Cogan was doing it with Brute as
the barber Beefcake his entire career.So some people gotta make money. Everybody's
got to eat. Vito Scotti's gotto be Peter Falk's friend. Sure feels
like it at this point. ButI read that Fred Draper's even in this
episode at one point. I didn'tsee him in here, but I'm just

(28:45):
like, okay, that makes sensebecause he seems to show up in so
many of these Peter Falk I thinkagain, like the stories about him being
prickly. I totally get it,but I also want to make clear like
sometimes the person telling the story isjust important as the the stories being told
about, and directors and producers notresonating with Peter Folk and what he does,

(29:06):
and that's not surprising, is whatI'm getting at. There wasn't a
whole lot of dirt behind this one. I read The Usual Suspects, Mark
dewidzy X book, David Kanig's book, some of the other ones that are
on the bookshelf now, which isso nice that we're getting more of these
Columbo books. Keenig was looking aboutsome of the actors that were up for
the role or had been talked aboutfor the role of Galascoe, and then

(29:30):
whence they got to Dick Van Dyke, it just was a done deal.
Luckily, mister Kanig has written anotherbook which is Unshot Colombo, Cracking the
Cases that Never got filmed, andwe'll actually have an interview with him after
we're done talking about negative reaction.So I hope that people will stick around

(29:51):
and hear that because it's another amazingbook, and to hear from each of
these seasons which scripts got picked versuswhich ones didn't and how far along some
of these scripts got to it's prettyremarkable. And a season like this where
you got six episodes, there area lot of contenders in the running for
being filmed for this one. Yeah, six episodes. It's just that that's

(30:15):
a lot of people vying for anopportunity at that table. And yeah,
because some of those episodes in thelast season were like, why were they
doing this again? Why waste thattime? That precious time that you're given
on a retread? And so farthis season, I don't feel like either
one of these have been real retreadsof They've had elements from other ones,

(30:37):
but it hasn't been like a hardand fast, total retread. When we
come back next month and we talkabout by Dawn's Early Light. This is
also the beginning of the Patrick McGowanera, and McGowan plays a huge part
in Colombo going forward, which iscompletely fucking insane to me. Patrick McGowan

(31:00):
has had nothing to do with theshow up until this point though, correct,
correct, Yeah, Okay, forthose of you that don't know why
I'm reacting this way, Patrick McGowanis someone whose show The Prisoner Jess and
I covered many moons Ago on theone season show and Mike the Prisoner Good
Show until that last episode. Holyfuck, ain't it good? Lord?

(31:23):
Anything Patrick McGowin kinda sends a chillup my spine. Somebody walked over my
grave because Patrick McGowan's kind of anunfun dude. Not he was so unfun.
He didn't think that James Bond wasa character he wanted to play because
the character had too much sexual intercults. Eh, why British sensibilities have been

(31:48):
dinged upon? What the fuck?Dudes? Patrick McGowan being in things that
I like, maybe not a goodthing, is what I'm saying. Yeah,
Patrick McGowin and Peter, I can'tthink of a stranger friendship, especially
just to think of those two walkingdown the street together. To hear that
this is going to be a thingthat persists and continues and it's not just

(32:09):
a one office I'm excited, butwith a fair amount of trepidation until we
come back and talk about that.Chris, what are you up to these
days? Just working on podcasts overat weirdingwaymedia dot com, where everything I
work on can be found other thanranking on Bond, which is on our
respective patreons at the ten dollars levelin higher once a month. If that's

(32:30):
the thing you're interested in, whichit might be, you can check it
out there. What about you,Mike? Pretty much the same thing all
the way down the line. Wedefinitely talk about that sexuality of James Bond
and just how he's banging anything thatmoves a lot of times. He's worse
than Captain Kirk. McGowan wants noneof that. How dare you up front

(32:51):
to my British sensibilities that characters arehaving sexual intercourse without actor Jimmy hatt as
well, Mike. That's what theycalled it back, yeah, by old
John Thomas. God, can youimagine Patrick McGowan hearing that Penis song from
Monty Python's Meaning of Life? Justlike, oh my god, what is

(33:14):
my ears hearing? Such a fuckingasshole? He just it's so weird because
Patrick McGowin is just that this isthe last moment before he becomes an integral
part to the future history of thisshow is Yeah, for better or for
worse. There are times where Ireally like McGowin and other times where I

(33:34):
could really do without him, Butin the next one I like his character
quite a bit, So I'm curiousto get your reaction when we come back
to talk about by Don's Early Light. Until then, stick around for that
interview with David Kanig and we willcatch you next month. How did this

(34:00):
one come together? How did youeven decide to put this book together?
It came to me while working onshooting Colombo. Is that was I had
access to a large number of scriptsthat didn't get filmed, several of which
I refer to but don't go intoany depth on in shooting Colombo. And

(34:22):
one of the themes of the productionof the show Colombo was Peter falk using
the excuse and his producers as wellof oh, I'm only doing two or
three or four or eight whatever asmall number of shows this year because we
don't have enough good script You know, if we had more good scripts,
we've made more shows. That's whenwe only do a handfully each year,

(34:45):
and I'm getting access to some ofthese unused scripts and I'm like, these
are really good? How come youdidn't make these? And so that's when
it occurred to me, is Iwonder if there are is it just these
dozen that I stumbled on or arethere more? And why really didn't they

(35:06):
get made because some of these Iwas able to find close to twenty scripts,
and most of them are really goodor could have been good with a
little massaging. There were several clunkers, but most of them could have been
made into great episodes of Colombo.Typically, how many people would work on
a script for Colombo. It wouldtypically start with the person who pitched the

(35:30):
story, and if they got togo ahead, most of the time they'd
get to develop it themselves into afull teleplay that would run eighty to one
hundred pages. And then, ifeverything went perfectly and movely than just the
story editor or who Colombo called theexecutive story consultant, that person would smooth

(35:54):
it, and then the executive producerif it was a write producer, of
which may until Peter Falk became theexecutive producer, most of the producer executive
producers before him were writing producers.They came from a writing background, and
they'd give it or once over.So that's in a perfect world, that's

(36:15):
how many would work on it.Sometimes it oh, that didn't work,
we'll try it with you writing,and it could be eight people working on
it at some point, and whenit came to these. I know that
you said several were treatments, andsome of those would go what twenty five
thirty pages, and then you evenfound full fledged scripts. It surprised me

(36:37):
because in interviewing some of the folkswho worked on Colombo in the early years,
while working on shooting Colombo, alot of people would writers would say,
oh yeah, this story I wasgiven was only two or three pages,
and then I turned it into thisfull script. So I had assumed

(36:57):
that most of the original story startedlike the Larry Cohen a first batch of
of stories that started during the endof season two, that there were just
two or three pages. And thenI started finding some of these, and
it's no very few that there werea couple that were just a couple of
pages, but a lot of theLarry Cohen and and other later stories were

(37:20):
twenty some pages. They really developed. The fellow who wrote the screenplay for
Anne old Port in a Storm madefamous that, oh yeah, I was
given these two or three pages andit was very little and just the bones
of the thing, and then Icreated this masterpiece. And it's no very

(37:42):
Owen's original his original story and twentyfive pages and everything's there. He really
gets and many of the people whowere just get a story credit. The
original story for Blueprint for Murder,which Levinson and lak did, is almost
the whole story. It's simply theydon't get credit as writing it. But

(38:05):
really most of those ideas in thatepisode, short of the specific dialogue,
it's all there. Yeah, LarryCohen just felt like a machine. You
quote so many just of the titlesother than the titles. How much were
there for some of those other ones, because you name off like ten you
said that he wrote different things,Well, it was more than ten.

(38:28):
It was between twelve and twenty ofwhich I was able to view about a
half dozen of them, not countingthe ones that actually were used. There
were about four or five of histhat actually didn't fire episodes. And he
I mean, and he did thisin a couple of months. How someone
could be that creative? And hisstories are really interesting. Some of them

(38:50):
are not necessarily usable, but they'reall pretty fully developed. I have unique
clues, unique setups, and reallyinteresting unique settings and murderers. That's something
that didn't happen from the go.It was in the beginning. There is
stereotypical prescription murderer, ransom for adead man's like, okay, let's get

(39:15):
like the generic glorior or psychiatrist.And he started giving them more interesting jobs
and settings and take them to theracetrack and other type things that weren't envisioned
at the very start. And ofcourse for me, the most satisfying thing
was to hear the description or readthe description of the Brian de Palma script

(39:38):
and just to finally know more aboutthat, because I had read rumors and
little snippets of things for years,but you finally just blew the lid off
of that and walked us through somuch of that story. What and the
story around the story, and justhow the Palma was part of it and
then wasn't, and then how Scorceseialmost was it Just a phenomenal tale,

(40:01):
What a standout piece. Now,what did you personally think about that?
About the actual screenplay? Would doyou think it would have worked? I
love how they're talking about Paul Williamsbeing the murderer, this very Truman capodiesque
murderer, which I think would havebeen interesting. I think that was before

(40:22):
Murder by Death, so you couldhave had that fulk capodi thing with that
one, but yeah, to haveall of those things and to have everything
being shot from that small height,it just feels so much like he's getting
ready for Phantom of the Paradise,or the ideas from that script make it
into Fantom of the Paradise. Butyeah, I love that whole thing,

(40:45):
especially the three students that joined Colombo, which was very interesting because that seems
to be a theme through so manyof these scripts. Is Colombo having a
helper of different sorts. Yeah,that's true, and it did make me
wonder. Don't spell it out inthe show in the book, but I
know Hawk did not want regulars.He wouldn't mind having somebody once or twice

(41:09):
maybe, but he didn't want thesestrong characters that tagged along with him the
whole time that could either deal theshow a little bit or force his character
into a repetitive dynamic. If hewould have Wilson there every show, it
would have suddenly turned into a buddyseries, which he was not looking for.

(41:32):
That, which is interesting because he'sso generous as an actor, at
least in my opinion, that youget hal Avery coming back so many different
times, or just some of theseother Vido Scotti of course coming back multiple
times. But yes, they're playingdifferent characters. They're not always playing that
same person. He certainly didn't havea problem with bringing folks back, but

(42:00):
the same characters that you've seen.That's what he didn't like. Of course,
In that the Palma script, thething that I liked the most was
that he got Burt again because Imissed Bert so much after those first few
episodes. Yeah, he had beengone for a few years. I get
the impression reading that the Palma didn'tknow the show super well and that said

(42:20):
scene it a couple of episodes maybeand remembered, oh, yeah, I
remember Bert. I'm going to puthim in thinking he was because you think
you watch it in dead Weight andRansom for a dead Man and you think,
oh, this is going to bea regular character through the whole thing,
and then suddenly three months into theseries he disappears. So it makes
me wonder if that's what he thought. Oh, he's part of the regular

(42:43):
crew, So I'm going to puthim in. But because his cript is
it's amazing, and I think theycould have made it work, not exactly
as it was written. Need tobe strengthened in certain areas, or tweaked
a little more like the Ragna Klumbwoodcould have been a terrific episode. I
got a little Waldo Leidecker in thereas well, especially him being in the

(43:07):
bathtub when the murder is taking placeor quote unquote in the bathtub. Yeah,
yeah, and all sort of toucheslike that that had never been done
in a Colombo before. But itjust seems, Wow, what a fresh
way to look at it. Well, the thing I'd like too, in

(43:27):
those early days of Colombo, havingSpielberg there in one of the first episodes,
you get that very dynamic camera work, and you have not necessarily it's
not threatening Peter Falk as far asthe director as the star versus him as
the star, but it really givesyou some good flavor. So having a
strong director like a diploma, Ithink would have been a real boon to

(43:49):
the show. Oh, I thinkit would have been huge, because I
think that's in some ways the showwould suffer later when the directors, we
won't say theres but they didn't quitehave the cachet to where Bock would trust
them and say, Okay, Itrust you to do and I'll do whatever

(44:10):
you want. Because if he didplace that trust in you. He was
going to give you whatever you want. And if what you wanted was a
little misguided at times, as Patrickmub you in me could be, it
would take you in places that someof us disagree you should have gone in.
But if you could have had moreSpielberg, maybe a Scersesey or folks

(44:34):
like that who would have commanded hisrespect and he would have gone along with
them. What interesting places we couldhave been taken. Oh yeah, they
could have been almost a little bootcamp because he already had Demi coming in.
There could have been like the postgraduatework from the Roger Corman School.
Oh that's that would have been great. Yeah. And the thing too that
I appreciate about your book is thatas you're describing these scripts, at the

(44:58):
end of the description, you willbreak it down as far as what the
weaknesses and strengths were, and thenalso what ideas would make their way into
other scripts or what ideas might havebeen recycled into those treatments or scripts.
Yeah, because some of them were, especially with Clute, because Peter Fox
loved his clues. But even ifhe had a problem with the with your

(45:21):
script, whether like in the thePalma. One. His main problem was
that the killer was too colorable.He was afraid he would overshadow his own
character. Who that's the main weaknessof that script. If it has one
huge weakness, it's that Colombo isunderwritten in that his part is not very

(45:44):
colorful. More than usual. Hedidn't have a whole lot to do besides
the detective word, and this TrumanCapoti character is just over the top.
He might get rid of a scriptfor a reason like that, or because
the story was weak, but ifhe saw a strong clue in there,
he would put it in what theycall his clue book, and he'd saved

(46:07):
it for later. And he wouldfrequently get scripts that were pitched to them
in which maybe he did like thestory, and he'd go, I got
a couple of clues. I wantyou to work. I don't know how
gonna how you're gonna do it,but here's the clue. The work fees
into your script somehow we just coveredlast month exercise and fatality, and that

(46:29):
just I think you said in yourbook that there were your first book,
that there were a lot of recycledclues in there, and it felt like
it there were some the most interestingthing about that was how Larry Cohen successfully
pitched that story. Is in hispitch to Colombo, he made a big

(46:50):
deal about his shoe lace's clue.He went over the top. Then the
front page of his pitch was,this is a clue that has never been
done. That all the millions ofviewers at home can participate in the clue
as they're saying it, as theycan take off their own shoes and tie

(47:13):
them backwards. And never before inthe history of television have people been able
to solve the mystery themselves in theirown home with their own shoes. So
that that always I enjoyed that.It's like Larry Cohen as William Castle.
Yes he was. That's especially ifyou're Larry Cohen and you're pitching fifteen stories

(47:37):
at once, you've got to makesome of them some of them stand out,
and so quite a few of histreatments do have a little salesmanship built
into there. Did you find anyfavorites? Were there any where? You're
just like, oh, man,I really wish they would have made this.
There were a handful that I lovedand that I think if done properly,

(48:00):
because it's a especially in my lateryears, Colombo showed if done improperly,
they could ruin anything, how gooda clue or a story. If
it was played wrong or written poorly, it wasn't gonna work. But the
DiPalma script that I adored that waswonderful. There was one that came two

(48:23):
seasons almost came two seasons later calledRoar of the Crowd by Howard Bird,
which was set in a circus,which they tried over and over to make
and they just couldn't get a goodpop at the end. But he played
a high wire performer in a circus, and it's just got so many wonderful

(48:45):
unique scenes. And the other myother two favorites was there was one that
originally started called Ladies Set for Death, which was the original Lemonson and Lank
and Peter Fish or Pilot or MissusColombo, and the when they pulled out

(49:06):
of Missus Colombo, the script nevergot made, but Bill Link held onto
the script and when they needed scriptsfor the remode of Colombo, he said,
let's rewrite this. One's such agood one in which the murderer was
like a money haul, Let's makea deal game show host, and it's
just such a clever gotcha clue inwhich you know he's the murderer, but

(49:29):
you don't know how he did it. And until the very end, and
I'm reading the script going, howdid he pull that off? You think,
because it doesn't show how he successfullywas able to get away with it.
And then at the end Colombo andit's all every aren't you? And
then of course my absolute favorite,and it's the one if Columbo ever comes

(49:51):
back, they have to make this. And then it's the one that inspired
Columbo's last case called Here No Evil. It is simply one of the best
Columbo scripts I've ever read, byfar, the best unmade one I've ever
read. And it's just it's filledwith everything. It writes Colombo perfectly.
It's an interesting story, it's gotclues that are really different, it's got

(50:15):
some funny Thatt pieces, and ithas so many callback to the earlier days
of Colombo that anybody who loves Columbo, which just love this one all the
way through. Where are you findingall of these? Is there an archive
at a university or a library,or these people's personal papers. Some of

(50:37):
them are spread out at various libraries. There's a couple that are at the
Academy Library in Beverly Hills, theMargaret Herrick Library, where they have just
a huge repositorio of writers and actorsand directors have donated their personal papers to

(50:57):
their The Writer's Guild has a numberof a large script collection, including a
few unmade scripts of the Jackson Gillisone specifically and a couple other locations,
and a lot of king folks whoworked on the show and had these scripts
that they were never able to use, who sent me copies, which was

(51:19):
very Jennifer generous and I appreciate.Were there better records for the older things
or the newer things? There's alwaysthe split between the NBC days and the
ABC days. It's not necessarily recordsbecause none of them came from NBC or
Universal themself. Though it's not likeone place was keeping records. It was

(51:42):
just individual person by verson. Howmany records did this writer, how a
versions did they keep? I knowone writer I spoke with who worked on
a Colombo said during COVID, Ihad to clear out my heck and I
think I just threw out all myold Columbo scripts and like, when am
I ever going to need Columbos scripts? I'm like, oh, I need
you Columbo scripts. So it's justthe individual person that's been so ratifying to

(52:08):
me, because the two books Iwritten out on Colombo I don't think could
have been written ten years ago becausethere just wasn't access to the material that
I was blessed to receive. Butover the last ten to fifteen years,
as people have passed away or realizingthey're getting close to the end of their

(52:28):
time and have donated their personal collectionto these archives, is that when I
wrote my first books on other subjectsmany years ago, this type of material
was not around, and now alot of people do have if you look
hard enough, some of it's outthere. You're talking about how the one

(52:51):
script was almost Missus Colombo, itwas almost the finale, and then you've
got these scripts. I believe itwas theater Flicker who his script for Colombo
had also been pitched as a mcmillananwife, and I can't remember if it
was a third thing or not.These scripts move and change themselves, are
very mercurial, I imagine exactly hadTed Flicker, who was one of the

(53:15):
creators of Barney Miller, was rightbefore he helped create Barney Miller. His
project was a Colombo that originally startedas a mcdollanan wife. And since all
these folks worked together, a Universalhas an office building called it used to
be called the Producer Building. It'scalled the john Ford Building or something different
now, but it was a producersbuilding where all the producers had their own

(53:38):
offices. And so the guy PaulMason, who produced McMillan wife was just
right down the hall from the guywho did McLeod who was the guy who
did down the hall was the guywho did Banachek, and you know,
so they if they read it andthey didn't think it was right for them,
but it was not unusual for themto go and typically they tell the

(53:59):
right this I like this, butit's because his script is just bonkers as
well. Really, which has amurderer who's like a mister Rogers. It's
my character. So the producer ofmc millan wife like, wow, this
is really good. I don't knowif it's a melan White, but maybe
a Colombo. So he went downhe gave him some tips on if you're

(54:21):
gonna I've never written for Colombo,but I've held him out around because they
would always pass their scripts around,gee, can you take a read on
this and give me your thoughts,and he made from suggestions and Ted Flicker
took the MD milleni wife producers suggestionsand rewrote it as a Colombo and took
it to the guys a Colombo andthey're like, this is pretty good,
and they put it on the boardof possible episodes for that season, and

(54:46):
it just like it was a littletoo a little too different kind of hearing
the details of that one, Iwas trying to picture it and it was
so unusual too to have Colombo thewhen the murder actually happened, but an
amazing, unforgettable murder if nothing else. You get two pages in and you're

(55:07):
like, wow, you just killedthe guy on stage in front of us
by insta foaming him to death tous. Yeah, I suspect that was
one of the big reason that theywanted to hope to make that one work,
and it just never came to be. And in front of probably screaming
children as well, gaving showing yes. That would have been interesting to well

(55:30):
off because it was a kiddie showthat the performance was killed doing so it
would have been a lot of littlekids sitting around at the Hollywood Bowl.
I'm really glad that you talk aboutthe rules or the guidelines that they had
for the eighty nine show, especiallythe whole thing of these stories should be
pulled from the headlines, which isvery long order esque, but to have
that in Colombo, because I recognizedsome of the events, some of the

(55:53):
stories, but just since there wasthat kind of it was nineteen eighty nine
in the early ninety so I don'tnecessarily remember all of the headlines that were
happening. But like the Uri Gellaramazing Randy thing, I thought that was
wonderful. That was the thought ofthe producer then, Richard Allan Simon,
who was the last producer at NBCof Colombo. He did the end of

(56:17):
season six and all the season seven, and then he was the first producer
when they started back up again,so of the first season back and the
first show of the next season,even though that one was actually made during
before he got fired during the firstseason, but it took so long it
didn't air until the following season.But that was one of his ways to
he wanted to make the show notColombo. It's still the meat Colombo,

(56:44):
because he really loved the character whohe was like, Okay, how can
I make this more like other showsthat to me are more exciting, because
he didn't really like Colombo, thoughtit was a little boring formulaic and it
was too hard to just have thisverbal chess matt back and forth for two
hours. So he wanted a littlemore action, a little more danger,

(57:06):
a little more things, as youmentioned, tied to headlines, and those
were his ideas. Also. Hefigured if he tied it to a recognizable
personality type, it would be amuch more marketable thing, and that his
bosses at NBC and later ABC Iwould like it. So if you look
back at everything he worked on forColombo, you know all those season seven

(57:30):
and season eight episode you can,if you study him close enough, you
can go, oh, yeah,that is that's based on that character is
based on Oliver North. Oh yeah, that's based on Agatha Christie. Oh
yeah, that's every single one ofthem. He's based it on a real
person. It was a heartbreak toread the book and to hear about all

(57:52):
of these great ideas, all ofthese great scripts, and you do a
great job of saying that it probablydidn't getting made for this reason or this
reason. But then you look atsome of the episodes that did get made
and you're just like, ah,yeah, I would have rather have had
that than like last salute to theCommodore agreed times one hundred. They didn't
bat one hundred or a thousand.Maybe they did bad one hundred, didn't

(58:15):
bad thouthans as far as which onethey picked out at times, But I
believe that the original script were thecolumbos that did get made. Most of
those, it wasn't the original script'sfaull the ones that have big weaknesses.
There's usually a good story and ifit would have been given a little more

(58:37):
time. In some cases or inmost cases, I think they just made
bad decisions in trying to make thingsfunny or no fee when they shouldn't have
been, or just the bad productiondecision that if things got spiraled out of
control during those last few years.Were there things that you were trying to

(58:59):
find that you could never find?You mentioned the one writer who might have
thrown his scripts away. Were thereother things that you knew of that you
couldn't get your hands on? Therewere I would have loved to have actually
read more of the I read abouthalf of Larry Cohen's submissions, and then
the other half there's no except forthe title and dates and such, there's

(59:21):
no record of those. So hehad some titles that like a Murder at
the Racetrack one which I'm like,oh, I would I'd liked this,
and a few others I would liketo And it was also my biggest The
biggest white whale that I wasn't ableto find was a story Stephen Botchko wrote
that they almost they tried to makeand they never did, and I could

(59:46):
never tried writing to his family andjust could not find that script. And
I don't even know the actual nameof it because in the production material in
which they refer to it a numberof times because they almost made it,
they always called it orient Express inthe Air, and it was always written

(01:00:08):
in such a way. It wasalways written where when they were producing Last
Loute to the Commodore, they alwaysreferred to it as the Marina story,
or when they were working on Worethe Crowd, they always referred to it
as the Circus story. So Iknow if it was just a nickname that
was the actual name of the episode, But that to me sounded like that's

(01:00:29):
when I really would like three,because this was at the same time that
they were working on Last Salute tothe Commodore, and I know they wanted
to do like a traditional who DoneIt type, multi suspect murder mystery,
so I'm sure that's what it waslike, just setting an airplane instead of
on a train, so that thatwould have been fun and hopefully one day

(01:00:52):
that'll turn him. So what's nextfor you? You're going to be writing
about Missus Colombo now, Nope,I'm not a massive Missus club. I
like my Missus Colombo unseen is mypreference. So I've got a few more
Colombo projects. Maybe no future Colombobooks as yet. But for the Blu

(01:01:14):
ray release the United States of Colombo. The first ones came out the NBC
years came out last year, andthey did a beautiful job with it.
But at the last minute, aftermyself and a number of other commentators had
done these incredible commentaries to audio commentariesto glow with to go with them,

(01:01:37):
at the last minute, the producerrealized they didn't get the rights to include
any commentaries on this. So eventhough they they went through seven months of
work they spent I don't want toknow how much money they spent to produce
these things and audio engineer them andsink them out, and they were just

(01:02:00):
they were amazing. All these audiocommentaries could not be used. So I
know some of the other folks whoworked on that have been trying to figure
out, Okay, all this informationand interviews we conducted, what can we
do with that? And I knowa couple of the guys are trying to
turn theirs into a book. Andme, because so many of the material

(01:02:22):
was recorded interviews and new insights,sad, I'm trying to figure out,
Okay, how can I whether it'san audiobook form or something that I can
bring out a lot of these newsstories and trivia, comments and insights and
interviews sac to the episodes rather thanin book form, I think they would

(01:02:45):
play better. So hopefully next yearsome of us can start releasing some of
those. They won't be the exactaudio commentary, but based on a lot
of the same information and hopefully onehundred times better. I told you,
I'm I listened to the book andwhat a coup getting Jason Coulp to be
the narrator. Oh my gosh.He for those folks who don't know a

(01:03:07):
Jason Colp. He's one of morethan one son of Robert Colp, who's
one of the iconic millains of Colombo. And Jason is not only an amazing
actor, is all right, buthe's one of the best known narrators of

(01:03:28):
audio books out there. He's doneI don't know, Lord of the Rings
or I can't think of all thehuge title that he's he's done, and
he was so kind to do UnshotColombo, and he's the best. I
could not have imagined somebody better.And his voice has that feel of his

(01:03:49):
father, which is perfect. Andhe even does a little you know when
he does Colombo and telling his stories, you know, a little Peter Fox
slips it. He's just so sogood. And I as much as I
love to have people read the book, oh my gosh, but listen to
the book is just a treat themout treat. Yeah. I love when

(01:04:10):
he dips into his Columbu voice.It's fantastic and just gives that little spice
in there. But it's never asoliloquy, but just a little bit,
just a little bit, and hedoes a pretty good truma capone there too.
Yes, yeah, definitely, yeah, that was a real treat being
able to hear him do all ofthose voices and just yeah, it really
lent itself to the audio form aswell. The descriptions of these scripts,

(01:04:32):
you really make them very compelling.Oh good, thank you. Yeah.
I hope folks enjoy it because it'sall the work of others. I'm just
sharing other people's information and memories andjudge like that. So happy to be
able to deliver it. So otherthan the audio commentaries and trying to figure
out what to do with those,what else are you working on these days?

(01:04:55):
Promoting whatever I've got to do.I've got to hopefully add the end
of the year or early next year, Shooting Columbu will be out in paperback,
so that'll be expanded by a littlebit. I don't know how much
more information I'll put in for thepaperback release, but will make that a
little longer. And then hopefully aroundChristmas time a booker wrote about ten years
ago about danny Ka that'll finally becoming to paperback as well, and I'll

(01:05:19):
expand That'll be expanded as well,So those will be my latest book projects.
Is there a place for people tokeep up with you and your work
online. Yep. They could certainlyfind me on social media Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, whatever, just for DavidKanik or Dave Kanik or I'm not
too hard to find, mister Kanick. Thank you so much, it is

(01:05:42):
always such a pleasure talking with you. Thanks mine. I hope we do
it again very soon. AD titlepapal Resi