September 21, 2025 • 27 mins
The Shabby Detective returns to Season Six with “Old Fashioned Murder,” where genteel larceny meets genteel homicide. Joyce Van Patten takes center stage as Ruth Lytton, a spinster running her family’s failing museum. When her ambitious brother threatens to sell off the artifacts, Ruth turns to murder and possibly taking revenge for things that happened off-screen twenty years prior.
This episode went over-budget and over-schedule thanks to some behind-the-scenes meddling from Peter Falk's pals, leaving a messy and uninspired episode where it's tough to care about anything apart from Lt. Columbo's bizarre hairstyle.
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This episode went over-budget and over-schedule thanks to some behind-the-scenes meddling from Peter Falk's pals, leaving a messy and uninspired episode where it's tough to care about anything apart from Lt. Columbo's bizarre hairstyle.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-shabby-detective-yet-another-columbo-podcast--5084441/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another podcast dedicated to Colombo.
I am your host, Bike White. Joining me, of course,
is mister Chris Tashu.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Mike, I've got an idea for you. It's some kind
of old fashioned murder.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, we are talking about old fashioned murder. Directed by
Robert Douglas, story by Lawrence Vale, teleplay by Peter Fableman.
But yeah, there's a whole lot of other stuff going
on in here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
This is the most complicated episode of Colombo we've ever talked.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
About, both in front of and behind the scenes. Yes, sir,
this one released November twenty eighth, nineteen seventy six. The
previous episode was October tenth, nineteen seventy six. Things go
off the rails quite a bit after this, because the
next episode doesn't air till May twenty second, seventy seven.
This is one of those nice little seventy two minutors,
(01:19):
But my god, does it feel like a ninety or
maybe even a two hour joint here? Because this is
a fucking painful episode for me. I'm curious what your
thoughts are on this, because I've seen it a lot
of times. I can never really remember it, even as
I'm getting into it. I'm just like, what's going on
(01:40):
in this episode, Chris, what are your thoughts on old
fashioned murder?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Holy shit, what a complicated episode, folks. I mean it
draws itself into like three cocentric like spiraling circles of
just insanity. Because there's there's a little bit of that
episode that we talked about where it's like the starlet
murdered her husband to bury him under the fountain. There's
a little bit of that which is totally unnecessary in
(02:06):
this episode, like wholly unnecessary. And then you have the
modern day stuff that has a twinge of like the
family back and forth drama of one family members holding
something over the other family members head, which we've seen
a whole lot in this show. And then again we
also have the opulent setting of these are all kind
of rich assholes who own a museum, like an antiquities museum.
(02:29):
That's what they're like, A I don't know, like they
kuys seem like grave robbers, like you know what I mean,
Like they seem like rich antiquity dealers, which you know,
as anyone who's a fan of Indiana Jones knowse like
where do the antiquity dealers get their stuff from like
brave robbers, so you know these people are not great.
But I mean that's always been the thing with Columbo
is like we're not necessarily meant to feel bad for
anybody involved in the murder or the murder ring. I mean,
(02:52):
sometimes we're supposed to be empathetic for the victims, but
sometimes the victims are just shittheads too, like we' we
have I've seen that before, not so much in this episode,
but I feel like this episode just too complicated, like
just too complicated for its own good. It tries to
do too many things and it goes too many directions.
And then with Columbo you have all those like get
(03:15):
to the end of the maze fake outs where it's
a dead end, Like there's plenty of those in this episode,
maybe a little too many. So I'm I think I'm
echoing you already, but I want to know more, Mike,
because this is your show, like old fashioned murder. This
this episode I feel like has a reputation.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well I don't really know what kind of reputation it has.
I mean, we just talked to three months ago about
one of the worst Columbo episodes ever with the whole
last loute to the Commodore. But I think this has
kind of been the vine and the reason why I
think so. It's a few things. So last month when
we talked, when we were discussing Fade into Murder, and
(03:55):
we were supposed to at one point discuss Mikey and Nikki,
the Elaine May Well, Elaine May is really to blame
for a lot of this episode. So what originally happened
was there was a screenplay by Peter Fisher, who I
believe has written several Columbos, and it was kind of
(04:16):
an uncle with two nephews and he's pitting the nephews
against each other. One's going to take a fall kind
of thing. Similar story insofar as the way that we've
got the brother versus the guard. Yeah, there's slight echoes
of what he wrote. But Fulk was not happy with
(04:38):
the screenplay, and he ended up calling up Elaine May
and Peter Fableman. Fableman who is also the actor that's
in here that is one of the first people murdered.
He's a security guard. They came in and rewrote this
whole thing, and apparently they were writing and rewriting, and
(04:59):
rewrite and it took forever for this episode to get made.
Like one of the producers like left for vacation, trying
to get away from all this shit. He comes back
and they're still filming this episode.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Oh can you imagine?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Man No, And they had to tell Falk that he
was not getting final cut on this. He wanted to
be in the editing room. They're just like, this is
going way the fuck over budget. This is taking way
too long. We can't have this. So there was a
big power play going on. So that also plays into
the whole thing where it's this long term before we
(05:37):
get to the next one. I mean, all that shit
that we were talking about last month with Shatner basically
playing Peter Falk, that's right in this stuff, and this
is why they were having such problems with Faulk with
things like this. I'm really gonna have to look into
more of Elane may stuff because so far, I mean,
(05:57):
I tried to watch Ishtar, watch Mikey and Nikki, I've
not been impressed. And then if her fingerprints are all
over this, this is bad. But I have to say
more than the writing which is bad, the acting is
a small in this episode. I've never seen worse acting
(06:20):
on a Colombo show than I have here, and I've
got I think three main offenders when it comes to this.
One is I believe it's doctor Tim Scheffer, the guy
who plays the brother to the security guard who gets killed.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
He had no luck, he always said it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I always laughed. I told him he was lucky he
was still alive.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
What time did you pick up your messages this morning, sir.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I don't know exactly, about an hour ago.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's seven thirty. Well, I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And the other one is he's not even Dennis Dugan,
but he fucking looks like Dennis Duke.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
In fake Dennis Dugan, baked Dennis.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Dugant erzat's Dennis Dugan. This guy John Miller, he is terrable.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Lieutenant. We called the Litton house. I spoke to him
Miss Ruth Litton. She said her brother fired Milton Schaeffer
yesterday morning at about eleven thirty. Talk to the brother.
She won't wake him up, sir. She says he was
taking an inventory last night and was probably up until
three or four in the morning.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
And apparently a lot of these performances were being directed
behind the camera off stage by Jeanie Berlin, who plays
the little sister or sorry, the daughter in this one.
And I'm trying to remember who the third one is,
but there's another actor in here. I've got the move
the episode playing, so when that comes up, I will
(07:49):
for sure give a yell. But their performances, especially John Miller,
they're terrible. I've never seen acting of this caliber on
this show. It is the clunkiest, Like you could grab
just a dude off the street and throw him in
front of the camera, and I think they do a
better job than these two guys. And I think the one,
(08:10):
the one that plays the brother Columbus they're playing the
phone call in front of he was not definitely not
an actor. That is not his specialty. So it was, oh,
it's just so bad. Were you picking up on that
as well or as am I just completely off base?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
No no, no, no no, Like again, like the thing
with the episode, it just doesn't even we both know
what the best part of this episode is. It's Peter
Falk's haircut. Oh cuss, yes, it's like the best part
of this episode. It is bizarre. His interaction with the
like clearly gay coated hairstylist. Yeah, yeah, is amazing. Oh
he's a stylist. Look, come on the way he's dressed.
(08:48):
He's styling people here, he's not dressing it. Everything about
the falk Isms of this episode I think are the
parts that I may be enjoyed. But then like the
actual like plot and everything is so just like who cares?
It's like who cares? It's like just it's so complicated
for no reason, Like, look, there's hair in his shirt.
(09:11):
He must have been getting a hair cut, like what
like what?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
And then you get like just so circumstantial, like just
like this episode feels like it has more circumstantial evidence
being used than any other episode that I've seen in
this show so far.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Do they even dig into like the phone call and stuff,
because that just seems so fake. So like there's a
whole thing in this episode around the time of death,
and what was it, like he says on the recording,
like when he called or yeah yeah, which is weird,
(09:45):
Like obviously these days you can actually look at your
phone and see when the call comes in. I guess
there just was nothing, and I know there wasn't because
I grew up during this time. There would have been
nothing to tell you when that answering machine, and again
we've got technology, so answering machine here when that recorded
the message, but I don't think he, even like Colombo,
(10:06):
should know from hearing that message that this is fake.
That's the first time we see Columbu, and it takes
forever for us to see Colombo. It we're seventeen minutes in.
I think we've had at least one commercial break. We
stay with Joyce Van Patten's character, who I just personally
don't like at all. She's not somebody that I love
(10:28):
to hate. She's not even somebody that I really empathize with.
She's just kind of pathetic. She's just this dried up
old maid. And I know that I'm using a very
offensive term when I say that, but she is playing
a dried up old maid. And I think the other
part of this whole thing that sucks is all of
(10:48):
the things that motivate all of these characters took place
forty years ago, and we don't see any of that.
It's all tell, don't show. When it comes to all
the backstory between Ruth and her sister Phyllis and a
character we never see, which is the father of Janie,
(11:10):
and all of this horseshit's going on, and I'm just
in there going wait, who did what to who? Like
where's the guy? Oh? Oh he died? All right, all right? Well,
is Janie actually Ruth's daughter? Like can that happen? And
then of course I'm reminded of like sorry to go
on a tangent, but there's a great thing where like
(11:34):
it's this dad introducing a son to this woman and
she's like, oh, is he mine? And it's so reminded
me of that, Like I don't think you can have
an illegitimate daughter, but yet it feels like it feels
like there's supposed to be a big reveal at the
end of this thing where it's like, oh, no, Janie
(11:56):
actually was mine and somehow like my sister adopted her
or something, and like I'm just waiting for that. And
even when I was reading dewinsy x book, it's like,
you know, potentially her daughter, and I was like, no,
you can't do that, Like I was thinking that that
was gonna happen. But according to this episode, no Celeste
(12:18):
was pregnant. Sorry Celeste Holm the Phillips character. Her character
was pregnant three months before they got married or something.
So yeah, it's it just doesn't make any sense. And
who gives a shit? Who gives a shit about all
this stuff? I don't care? And like Tim O'Connor, is
Edward Lytton the guy who actually gets ganked in this,
Joyce van Patten's brother and by that turn, also Celeste
(12:42):
Holmes brother in this. Sorry keep using the actresses names
instead of the character names. He's nothing. He's absolutely nothing,
and he doesn't play into that old story whatsoever. At
least it doesn't feel like that to me.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
No, he does not.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And when it comes to this news story, I'm like,
what's this problem?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The only person wants to say he wants to sell
the shut.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Down in the museum.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, right, that's it, which I mean, I mean again,
like we've seen this before. That's my issue. It's like
we've seen this before, and not only have we seen
this before, but we've seen this before done better elsewhere,
like straight up, straight up.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
At one point, they arrest Janie and Colombo has this
whole scene in the jail with her, YadA YadA, and
I'm like, well, I wouldn't think Joyce van Patten's character
would allow her to get arrested that she would come
to her rescue, but no, she kind of is pointing
to Jamie as being the thief slash murderer by planting
(13:39):
that etruscan belt buckle or whatever on her, And I'm like, well,
what the hell. You're not being very protective at all
of this girl. And the only reason she confesses at
the end is to protect the girl's feelings. But I'm like, lady,
you're going to keep her in jail. What the fuck
is going on?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
She was going to go to jail, jail for good.
I think I really detest this. The other twist of
this episode, which is, oh, because they didn't use an
item the right way, they must not know what it
is so it means nothing to them, like oh wow, yeah,
what a lake?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This is a belt buckle as an ash tray. And
even Colombo's big reveal of five inches by three inches
or whatever and he's listening to the tape of the inventory,
I'm like, yeah, that's not as big of a reveal
as you think it is.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Right right, Like you, what do you expect, Colombo?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's not a gotcha.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
If you have an episode like this, And the episode
ultimately is the kind of back and forth with the
female character and then Colombo. I think that works. I
just don't think it works here well godly, because Joyce
van Patten is not is not engaged. But I actually
(14:58):
think for me, per simly, the person who feels the
least engaged is Peter Falk and this and so I
wouldn't say so much of this episode falls on him,
but there are parts of this that obviously do fall
very much on his shoulders, his very shabby shoulders.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I don't get why he is sneezing when he comes
in and interviews her for the first time. I'm like, Okay,
is there something in the room that is causing him
to sneeze? You know, is there some sort of clue
that's going to come up later around like allergies or something,
Because this show is so careful when it comes to
how they treat these things.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Normally, yes, normally normally is so careful.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I mean, it's not like he's sleepwalking through it, but
it's just there are moments of just absolute silliness, like
the whole thing of oh, if you have been mentioned
murder around my sister, she'll faint that away and she goes, oh,
this is Lieutenant Columbo. Of the homicide department and then boom,
her sister goes down. I'm like, is that supposed to
(16:03):
be very funny, because it's it's not. It's not funny, And.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Again, like you're okay with this person going to jail,
Like I just I That's why I said what I
said at the top of this episode. We're like, I
don't feel bad for anybody, and I'm not sure I'm
supposed to.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I'm not emotionally invested in anyone, and that includes Lieutenant Colombo.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Other than his haircut. For me, like the funniest, more
most interesting part of this episode is Colombo being forced
to have a weird haircut for most of the episode
and him having to like continue to acknowledge that, like
that's the best part of this episode, far and away.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And that seems to go away after a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Right, Yeah, exactly, it's not. It's not even part of
the episode consistently. It stops about what like two scenes
after I think it kind of gets like his hair
kind of just goes back to normal as it were.
I don't know if I would disagree that this is
one of the worst episodes, because I think this might
be at least it's only seventy two minutes, because you know,
we could add ninety and we have had ninety with
(17:05):
bad episodes, maybe not worse than this, but bad in
their own way and or a different way.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's a pity, you know. And another thing why I'm
bringing up this whole thing with Joyce Van Patten is
she was also in Mikey and Nikki, So it's like
they're this kind of coffee clatch of these folks, kind
of in the orbit of Elaine May And I'm like, no,
this is not good. Guys, like you really got to
(17:34):
do better here, like I am expecting. By the way,
guess who jokes. Van pat was married to from nineteen
seventy three to nineteen eighty seven, Dennis.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Dukean Dennis Dugan. Why are we dragging the good name
of Dennis Dugan? Is it because he hasn't brought us
enough quality films like The Benchwarmers, National Security, Don't Mess
with the Zohan. Are none of those cinema classics enough
for you? Mike?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Isn't that about that guy who's running for mayor in
New York City?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Don't mess with the Soon Jesus, I'm pretty sure Don't
Mess With Zohan is a problematic film now for different reasons.
I believe Sohan in the movie is like ex Israeli
military just beating people up in New York, which you
know whatever. I mean, hey, you know what, as long
as it's Adam Sandler doing it, you know Dennis Dugan what. Yeah,
(18:23):
I actually think I would have preferred Dennis Dugan in
this episode to fake Dennis Dugan Homunculus Dugan.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
He's actually got a scroll in his mouth if you
open it wide enough. He's a cool I mean, this
whole thing of like secret family histories and stuff like
I can see what you're talking about when it comes
to that actress one, just because of all the things
that happened in the past that we're not privy to.
But this also reminds me a little bit of suitable
(18:51):
for framing with this whole idea of like throwing the
niece under the bus. But the niece is not nearly
as charming as as we had with the suitable for
framing with the ant. You know, it's like, I just
I don't care about these people, and I don't It
feels like we're dropped into this world and it's a
weird world of like art museums and stuff. So I
(19:14):
mean the art museum itself just as a big old set.
It doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
It's set bound. This is so sad.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And the times he is outside, I mean he runs
into the line of other policemen. What that doesn't make sense.
That's just not good. I mean, it just feels like
the laughs in this episode are cheap laughs.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I think everything about this episode feels cheap, including the
set dressing. Like the set dressing looks cheap, like everything
I don't know. This episode is just too many cooks
in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Like I said, I barely remember this episode, and it's
even when I was watching it, I was like, well,
I don't remember what happens as far as like the
twists and turns and anything. But there's really not that
many twists and turns. It just feels like such a
simple mystery, and it feels like he should have solved
it as soon as he heard that phone call and
(20:07):
not been messing around with any of this other stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
For me, it's just really uninteresting because we've seen things
like this before. When they did him, there at least
the people were invested here. It's just it's the lack
of engagement from everybody is really high, and I just
don't understand, and I'm like thoroughly disappointed by it, because again,
(20:32):
like when you have this few episodes in a season,
on top of everything else, there's three episodes this season,
this is one of three Jesus H. Christ And on
top of everything else, like you've already alluded to, they
in real time had to wait seven months for the
next episode of Colombo.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Oh, I should probably say when I said that this
was based on I think a story by Lawrence Vale earlier.
Lawrence Vale was the pseudonym that Peter Fisher was using.
That's a reference to Once in a Lifetime by Kaufman
and Hart. So to want to make sure I didn't
lead people astray, thinking that that was, you know, something
(21:11):
that was in there. Oh, and the other I think
I mentioned the how this feels like other episodes. The
whole thing of forcing the confession felt like the one
with the robot with the whole brain trust. Yeah, and
the sun and trying to protect the sun and then
Columbo fucking steps on the woman's dress and rips it.
I'm like, that's right out of a case of immunity.
(21:32):
What are you doing? You're just like recycling gags in
this Now.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm shocked at the level of laziness that this episode
has because it's this is not a lazy show, not
normally anyways.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I think the worst thing about this episode is that
it is so forgettable, because we're going to be, you know,
a few more years north from here, and we're going
to talk about the best episodes in the worst episodes,
and we're both probably going to forget this one.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's bad, but it's not as bad as it could be.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I'm not offended like I was offended by last Salute
to the Commodore, but it still just stinks.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Again. There are some minor positives, like it's not ninety minutes,
and there's also you know, the I don't know, you
get to see Peter Faulkes Colombo, which is better than nothing,
but at the same time, like he's also kind of
to blame for this episode being like this. So I
didn't know going into this episode how big of a
bummer this episode was going to be. But yeah, this
episode is I think thoroughly a disappointment of an episode.
(22:32):
It didn't have to be this complicated to get to
the point that it gets to, Like introducing a family
dynamic that goes nowhere with characters that are off screen
the whole time, not interesting. It is like you said,
like tell that like show, don't tell like just you
can do it on this kind of show. But this
show doesn't have like flashbacks or like previously ons or
a year earlier, so you have to set it all
(22:53):
up in real time in the present. And when you
do something like this, this is what happens. Sometimes it
doesn't really work very well, and this is a good
example of that. Doing it this way it doesn't work
very well.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I just want to warn you when it comes to
the rest of these NBC years, I don't think we're
ever going to come to the heights that we did
with Fade into Murder and obviously some of the previous
heights that we had with so many better episodes, they're
all going to be a veerying quality. I really like
(23:26):
the next one, the Bye Bye Sky High IQ murder case,
which is not going to be fun to say a
few times during the episode.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah no shit.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
But there are moments in the seventh season where we
get some pretty solid episodes definitely be discussing those as
we go along. For me, the whole series ends with
the Wet Fart For me with the last episode from
seventy eight. But maybe you'll love it. Maybe I'm completely
wrong and you'll absolutely love it. But I am excited
(23:57):
to come back and talk about the or Bikeele and
Sorel Brook and a whole bunch of other good character
actors talking about basically mensa but not really mensa. And
as a MENSA member, I want to say that we
do not hang out in a big old house like
a fraternity and play games and stuffast at least not
(24:18):
my chapter.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Fake mensa uber Mensa uber mensh.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yes, So until we come back next month to discuss that, Chris,
what are you working on these days?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Honestly working on myself, Mike, thanks for asking, taking out
a little bit of a momentary pause from my own
personal audio endeavors, just to kind of retool things and
kind of reassess my enjoyment of certain things. And I
want to re enjoy doing this, and you know, I
think that's important, especially when you've been doing this as
long as we have, because it's decade plus for each
(24:48):
of us at this point which is just fucking crazy. Yeah,
all those decade plus of audio can be found over
at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where you're more than likely finding
this show other shows, And if you're not finding those shows,
you should be because they're great. So yeah, Patreon is
also a way you can get engaged with me patreon
dot com, slash culturecast, patreon dot com, slash Projection booth
(25:11):
if you want to help us out financially and get
access to a podcast you have no access to otherwise.
So what about you, Mike?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Well, you know, Chris, I'm very excited as of today
when this episode comes out. Time Magazine has announced the
one hundred best podcasts of all time, and nothing that
we've done is on that list.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
But then it's not our list that we didn't never
want to be on a list that would have us
as members. Anyways, Well, fucking what Mark Maren did he
vote for? Was it that? It was? I gotta say,
Nigel Thornberry, But Mike or Malcolm Gladwell, like, I don't
give you Nigel Thornberry might as well be I take
Tim Curry over fucking Malcolm Gladwell. How's that?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Tim Curry?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Of course you would Nigel Thornberry. That's yeah, that's that's
the character. Yeah, yeah, fucking the top one hundred. You're
at the top of the one hundred list. There there
need to be no list. Projection Booth and everything else.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Well, thank you so much, Chris, and yes, Projection Booth
podcast is available at Projection Booth Podcasts dot com, but
it is especially available at Wirdingwaymedia dot com where you
can find all the great audio diversions that we put
together all the time. And yeah, all the other episodes
of this. We are cruising through these Colombo episodes, sixth
(26:22):
season already, seventh season coming up, and then we're going
to be getting into dark times the ABC years. But
we're going to plow through this. God damn it, I'm
stealing myself right now. I'm super excited
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Anything that now
Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another podcast dedicated to Colombo.
I am your host, Bike White. Joining me, of course,
is mister Chris Tashu.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Mike, I've got an idea for you. It's some kind
of old fashioned murder.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, we are talking about old fashioned murder. Directed by
Robert Douglas, story by Lawrence Vale, teleplay by Peter Fableman.
But yeah, there's a whole lot of other stuff going
on in here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
This is the most complicated episode of Colombo we've ever talked.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
About, both in front of and behind the scenes. Yes, sir,
this one released November twenty eighth, nineteen seventy six. The
previous episode was October tenth, nineteen seventy six. Things go
off the rails quite a bit after this, because the
next episode doesn't air till May twenty second, seventy seven.
This is one of those nice little seventy two minutors,
(01:19):
But my god, does it feel like a ninety or
maybe even a two hour joint here? Because this is
a fucking painful episode for me. I'm curious what your
thoughts are on this, because I've seen it a lot
of times. I can never really remember it, even as
I'm getting into it. I'm just like, what's going on
(01:40):
in this episode, Chris, what are your thoughts on old
fashioned murder?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Holy shit, what a complicated episode, folks. I mean it
draws itself into like three cocentric like spiraling circles of
just insanity. Because there's there's a little bit of that
episode that we talked about where it's like the starlet
murdered her husband to bury him under the fountain. There's
a little bit of that which is totally unnecessary in
(02:06):
this episode, like wholly unnecessary. And then you have the
modern day stuff that has a twinge of like the
family back and forth drama of one family members holding
something over the other family members head, which we've seen
a whole lot in this show. And then again we
also have the opulent setting of these are all kind
of rich assholes who own a museum, like an antiquities museum.
(02:29):
That's what they're like, A I don't know, like they
kuys seem like grave robbers, like you know what I mean,
Like they seem like rich antiquity dealers, which you know,
as anyone who's a fan of Indiana Jones knowse like
where do the antiquity dealers get their stuff from like
brave robbers, so you know these people are not great.
But I mean that's always been the thing with Columbo
is like we're not necessarily meant to feel bad for
anybody involved in the murder or the murder ring. I mean,
(02:52):
sometimes we're supposed to be empathetic for the victims, but
sometimes the victims are just shittheads too, like we' we
have I've seen that before, not so much in this episode,
but I feel like this episode just too complicated, like
just too complicated for its own good. It tries to
do too many things and it goes too many directions.
And then with Columbo you have all those like get
(03:15):
to the end of the maze fake outs where it's
a dead end, Like there's plenty of those in this episode,
maybe a little too many. So I'm I think I'm
echoing you already, but I want to know more, Mike,
because this is your show, like old fashioned murder. This
this episode I feel like has a reputation.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well I don't really know what kind of reputation it has.
I mean, we just talked to three months ago about
one of the worst Columbo episodes ever with the whole
last loute to the Commodore. But I think this has
kind of been the vine and the reason why I
think so. It's a few things. So last month when
we talked, when we were discussing Fade into Murder, and
(03:55):
we were supposed to at one point discuss Mikey and Nikki,
the Elaine May Well, Elaine May is really to blame
for a lot of this episode. So what originally happened
was there was a screenplay by Peter Fisher, who I
believe has written several Columbos, and it was kind of
(04:16):
an uncle with two nephews and he's pitting the nephews
against each other. One's going to take a fall kind
of thing. Similar story insofar as the way that we've
got the brother versus the guard. Yeah, there's slight echoes
of what he wrote. But Fulk was not happy with
(04:38):
the screenplay, and he ended up calling up Elaine May
and Peter Fableman. Fableman who is also the actor that's
in here that is one of the first people murdered.
He's a security guard. They came in and rewrote this
whole thing, and apparently they were writing and rewriting, and
(04:59):
rewrite and it took forever for this episode to get made.
Like one of the producers like left for vacation, trying
to get away from all this shit. He comes back
and they're still filming this episode.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Oh can you imagine?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Man No, And they had to tell Falk that he
was not getting final cut on this. He wanted to
be in the editing room. They're just like, this is
going way the fuck over budget. This is taking way
too long. We can't have this. So there was a
big power play going on. So that also plays into
the whole thing where it's this long term before we
(05:37):
get to the next one. I mean, all that shit
that we were talking about last month with Shatner basically
playing Peter Falk, that's right in this stuff, and this
is why they were having such problems with Faulk with
things like this. I'm really gonna have to look into
more of Elane may stuff because so far, I mean,
(05:57):
I tried to watch Ishtar, watch Mikey and Nikki, I've
not been impressed. And then if her fingerprints are all
over this, this is bad. But I have to say
more than the writing which is bad, the acting is
a small in this episode. I've never seen worse acting
(06:20):
on a Colombo show than I have here, and I've
got I think three main offenders when it comes to this.
One is I believe it's doctor Tim Scheffer, the guy
who plays the brother to the security guard who gets killed.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
He had no luck, he always said it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I always laughed. I told him he was lucky he
was still alive.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
What time did you pick up your messages this morning, sir.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I don't know exactly, about an hour ago.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's seven thirty. Well, I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And the other one is he's not even Dennis Dugan,
but he fucking looks like Dennis Duke.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
In fake Dennis Dugan, baked Dennis.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Dugant erzat's Dennis Dugan. This guy John Miller, he is terrable.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Lieutenant. We called the Litton house. I spoke to him
Miss Ruth Litton. She said her brother fired Milton Schaeffer
yesterday morning at about eleven thirty. Talk to the brother.
She won't wake him up, sir. She says he was
taking an inventory last night and was probably up until
three or four in the morning.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
And apparently a lot of these performances were being directed
behind the camera off stage by Jeanie Berlin, who plays
the little sister or sorry, the daughter in this one.
And I'm trying to remember who the third one is,
but there's another actor in here. I've got the move
the episode playing, so when that comes up, I will
(07:49):
for sure give a yell. But their performances, especially John Miller,
they're terrible. I've never seen acting of this caliber on
this show. It is the clunkiest, Like you could grab
just a dude off the street and throw him in
front of the camera, and I think they do a
better job than these two guys. And I think the one,
(08:10):
the one that plays the brother Columbus they're playing the
phone call in front of he was not definitely not
an actor. That is not his specialty. So it was, oh,
it's just so bad. Were you picking up on that
as well or as am I just completely off base?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
No no, no, no no, Like again, like the thing
with the episode, it just doesn't even we both know
what the best part of this episode is. It's Peter
Falk's haircut. Oh cuss, yes, it's like the best part
of this episode. It is bizarre. His interaction with the
like clearly gay coated hairstylist. Yeah, yeah, is amazing. Oh
he's a stylist. Look, come on the way he's dressed.
(08:48):
He's styling people here, he's not dressing it. Everything about
the falk Isms of this episode I think are the
parts that I may be enjoyed. But then like the
actual like plot and everything is so just like who cares?
It's like who cares? It's like just it's so complicated
for no reason, Like, look, there's hair in his shirt.
(09:11):
He must have been getting a hair cut, like what
like what?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
And then you get like just so circumstantial, like just
like this episode feels like it has more circumstantial evidence
being used than any other episode that I've seen in
this show so far.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Do they even dig into like the phone call and stuff,
because that just seems so fake. So like there's a
whole thing in this episode around the time of death,
and what was it, like he says on the recording,
like when he called or yeah yeah, which is weird,
(09:45):
Like obviously these days you can actually look at your
phone and see when the call comes in. I guess
there just was nothing, and I know there wasn't because
I grew up during this time. There would have been
nothing to tell you when that answering machine, and again
we've got technology, so answering machine here when that recorded
the message, but I don't think he, even like Colombo,
(10:06):
should know from hearing that message that this is fake.
That's the first time we see Columbu, and it takes
forever for us to see Colombo. It we're seventeen minutes in.
I think we've had at least one commercial break. We
stay with Joyce Van Patten's character, who I just personally
don't like at all. She's not somebody that I love
(10:28):
to hate. She's not even somebody that I really empathize with.
She's just kind of pathetic. She's just this dried up
old maid. And I know that I'm using a very
offensive term when I say that, but she is playing
a dried up old maid. And I think the other
part of this whole thing that sucks is all of
(10:48):
the things that motivate all of these characters took place
forty years ago, and we don't see any of that.
It's all tell, don't show. When it comes to all
the backstory between Ruth and her sister Phyllis and a
character we never see, which is the father of Janie,
(11:10):
and all of this horseshit's going on, and I'm just
in there going wait, who did what to who? Like
where's the guy? Oh? Oh he died? All right, all right? Well,
is Janie actually Ruth's daughter? Like can that happen? And
then of course I'm reminded of like sorry to go
on a tangent, but there's a great thing where like
(11:34):
it's this dad introducing a son to this woman and
she's like, oh, is he mine? And it's so reminded
me of that, Like I don't think you can have
an illegitimate daughter, but yet it feels like it feels
like there's supposed to be a big reveal at the
end of this thing where it's like, oh, no, Janie
(11:56):
actually was mine and somehow like my sister adopted her
or something, and like I'm just waiting for that. And
even when I was reading dewinsy x book, it's like,
you know, potentially her daughter, and I was like, no,
you can't do that, Like I was thinking that that
was gonna happen. But according to this episode, no Celeste
(12:18):
was pregnant. Sorry Celeste Holm the Phillips character. Her character
was pregnant three months before they got married or something.
So yeah, it's it just doesn't make any sense. And
who gives a shit? Who gives a shit about all
this stuff? I don't care? And like Tim O'Connor, is
Edward Lytton the guy who actually gets ganked in this,
Joyce van Patten's brother and by that turn, also Celeste
(12:42):
Holmes brother in this. Sorry keep using the actresses names
instead of the character names. He's nothing. He's absolutely nothing,
and he doesn't play into that old story whatsoever. At
least it doesn't feel like that to me.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
No, he does not.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And when it comes to this news story, I'm like,
what's this problem?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The only person wants to say he wants to sell
the shut.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Down in the museum.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, right, that's it, which I mean, I mean again,
like we've seen this before. That's my issue. It's like
we've seen this before, and not only have we seen
this before, but we've seen this before done better elsewhere,
like straight up, straight up.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
At one point, they arrest Janie and Colombo has this
whole scene in the jail with her, YadA YadA, and
I'm like, well, I wouldn't think Joyce van Patten's character
would allow her to get arrested that she would come
to her rescue, but no, she kind of is pointing
to Jamie as being the thief slash murderer by planting
(13:39):
that etruscan belt buckle or whatever on her, And I'm like, well,
what the hell. You're not being very protective at all
of this girl. And the only reason she confesses at
the end is to protect the girl's feelings. But I'm like, lady,
you're going to keep her in jail. What the fuck
is going on?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
She was going to go to jail, jail for good.
I think I really detest this. The other twist of
this episode, which is, oh, because they didn't use an
item the right way, they must not know what it
is so it means nothing to them, like oh wow, yeah,
what a lake?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This is a belt buckle as an ash tray. And
even Colombo's big reveal of five inches by three inches
or whatever and he's listening to the tape of the inventory,
I'm like, yeah, that's not as big of a reveal
as you think it is.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Right right, Like you, what do you expect, Colombo?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's not a gotcha.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
If you have an episode like this, And the episode
ultimately is the kind of back and forth with the
female character and then Colombo. I think that works. I
just don't think it works here well godly, because Joyce
van Patten is not is not engaged. But I actually
(14:58):
think for me, per simly, the person who feels the
least engaged is Peter Falk and this and so I
wouldn't say so much of this episode falls on him,
but there are parts of this that obviously do fall
very much on his shoulders, his very shabby shoulders.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
I don't get why he is sneezing when he comes
in and interviews her for the first time. I'm like, Okay,
is there something in the room that is causing him
to sneeze? You know, is there some sort of clue
that's going to come up later around like allergies or something,
Because this show is so careful when it comes to
how they treat these things.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Normally, yes, normally normally is so careful.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I mean, it's not like he's sleepwalking through it, but
it's just there are moments of just absolute silliness, like
the whole thing of oh, if you have been mentioned
murder around my sister, she'll faint that away and she goes, oh,
this is Lieutenant Columbo. Of the homicide department and then boom,
her sister goes down. I'm like, is that supposed to
(16:03):
be very funny, because it's it's not. It's not funny, And.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Again, like you're okay with this person going to jail,
Like I just I That's why I said what I
said at the top of this episode. We're like, I
don't feel bad for anybody, and I'm not sure I'm
supposed to.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I'm not emotionally invested in anyone, and that includes Lieutenant Colombo.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Other than his haircut. For me, like the funniest, more
most interesting part of this episode is Colombo being forced
to have a weird haircut for most of the episode
and him having to like continue to acknowledge that, like
that's the best part of this episode, far and away.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And that seems to go away after a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Right, Yeah, exactly, it's not. It's not even part of
the episode consistently. It stops about what like two scenes
after I think it kind of gets like his hair
kind of just goes back to normal as it were.
I don't know if I would disagree that this is
one of the worst episodes, because I think this might
be at least it's only seventy two minutes, because you know,
we could add ninety and we have had ninety with
(17:05):
bad episodes, maybe not worse than this, but bad in
their own way and or a different way.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's a pity, you know. And another thing why I'm
bringing up this whole thing with Joyce Van Patten is
she was also in Mikey and Nikki, So it's like
they're this kind of coffee clatch of these folks, kind
of in the orbit of Elaine May And I'm like, no,
this is not good. Guys, like you really got to
(17:34):
do better here, like I am expecting. By the way,
guess who jokes. Van pat was married to from nineteen
seventy three to nineteen eighty seven, Dennis.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Dukean Dennis Dugan. Why are we dragging the good name
of Dennis Dugan? Is it because he hasn't brought us
enough quality films like The Benchwarmers, National Security, Don't Mess
with the Zohan. Are none of those cinema classics enough
for you? Mike?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Isn't that about that guy who's running for mayor in
New York City?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Don't mess with the Soon Jesus, I'm pretty sure Don't
Mess With Zohan is a problematic film now for different reasons.
I believe Sohan in the movie is like ex Israeli
military just beating people up in New York, which you
know whatever. I mean, hey, you know what, as long
as it's Adam Sandler doing it, you know Dennis Dugan what. Yeah,
(18:23):
I actually think I would have preferred Dennis Dugan in
this episode to fake Dennis Dugan Homunculus Dugan.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
He's actually got a scroll in his mouth if you
open it wide enough. He's a cool I mean, this
whole thing of like secret family histories and stuff like
I can see what you're talking about when it comes
to that actress one, just because of all the things
that happened in the past that we're not privy to.
But this also reminds me a little bit of suitable
(18:51):
for framing with this whole idea of like throwing the
niece under the bus. But the niece is not nearly
as charming as as we had with the suitable for
framing with the ant. You know, it's like, I just
I don't care about these people, and I don't It
feels like we're dropped into this world and it's a
weird world of like art museums and stuff. So I
(19:14):
mean the art museum itself just as a big old set.
It doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
It's set bound. This is so sad.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And the times he is outside, I mean he runs
into the line of other policemen. What that doesn't make sense.
That's just not good. I mean, it just feels like
the laughs in this episode are cheap laughs.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I think everything about this episode feels cheap, including the
set dressing. Like the set dressing looks cheap, like everything
I don't know. This episode is just too many cooks
in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Like I said, I barely remember this episode, and it's
even when I was watching it, I was like, well,
I don't remember what happens as far as like the
twists and turns and anything. But there's really not that
many twists and turns. It just feels like such a
simple mystery, and it feels like he should have solved
it as soon as he heard that phone call and
(20:07):
not been messing around with any of this other stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
For me, it's just really uninteresting because we've seen things
like this before. When they did him, there at least
the people were invested here. It's just it's the lack
of engagement from everybody is really high, and I just
don't understand, and I'm like thoroughly disappointed by it, because again,
(20:32):
like when you have this few episodes in a season,
on top of everything else, there's three episodes this season,
this is one of three Jesus H. Christ And on
top of everything else, like you've already alluded to, they
in real time had to wait seven months for the
next episode of Colombo.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Oh, I should probably say when I said that this
was based on I think a story by Lawrence Vale earlier.
Lawrence Vale was the pseudonym that Peter Fisher was using.
That's a reference to Once in a Lifetime by Kaufman
and Hart. So to want to make sure I didn't
lead people astray, thinking that that was, you know, something
(21:11):
that was in there. Oh, and the other I think
I mentioned the how this feels like other episodes. The
whole thing of forcing the confession felt like the one
with the robot with the whole brain trust. Yeah, and
the sun and trying to protect the sun and then
Columbo fucking steps on the woman's dress and rips it.
I'm like, that's right out of a case of immunity.
(21:32):
What are you doing? You're just like recycling gags in
this Now.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm shocked at the level of laziness that this episode
has because it's this is not a lazy show, not
normally anyways.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I think the worst thing about this episode is that
it is so forgettable, because we're going to be, you know,
a few more years north from here, and we're going
to talk about the best episodes in the worst episodes,
and we're both probably going to forget this one.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's bad, but it's not as bad as it could be.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I'm not offended like I was offended by last Salute
to the Commodore, but it still just stinks.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Again. There are some minor positives, like it's not ninety minutes,
and there's also you know, the I don't know, you
get to see Peter Faulkes Colombo, which is better than nothing,
but at the same time, like he's also kind of
to blame for this episode being like this. So I
didn't know going into this episode how big of a
bummer this episode was going to be. But yeah, this
episode is I think thoroughly a disappointment of an episode.
(22:32):
It didn't have to be this complicated to get to
the point that it gets to, Like introducing a family
dynamic that goes nowhere with characters that are off screen
the whole time, not interesting. It is like you said,
like tell that like show, don't tell like just you
can do it on this kind of show. But this
show doesn't have like flashbacks or like previously ons or
a year earlier, so you have to set it all
(22:53):
up in real time in the present. And when you
do something like this, this is what happens. Sometimes it
doesn't really work very well, and this is a good
example of that. Doing it this way it doesn't work
very well.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I just want to warn you when it comes to
the rest of these NBC years, I don't think we're
ever going to come to the heights that we did
with Fade into Murder and obviously some of the previous
heights that we had with so many better episodes, they're
all going to be a veerying quality. I really like
(23:26):
the next one, the Bye Bye Sky High IQ murder case,
which is not going to be fun to say a
few times during the episode.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah no shit.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
But there are moments in the seventh season where we
get some pretty solid episodes definitely be discussing those as
we go along. For me, the whole series ends with
the Wet Fart For me with the last episode from
seventy eight. But maybe you'll love it. Maybe I'm completely
wrong and you'll absolutely love it. But I am excited
(23:57):
to come back and talk about the or Bikeele and
Sorel Brook and a whole bunch of other good character
actors talking about basically mensa but not really mensa. And
as a MENSA member, I want to say that we
do not hang out in a big old house like
a fraternity and play games and stuffast at least not
(24:18):
my chapter.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Fake mensa uber Mensa uber mensh.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yes, So until we come back next month to discuss that, Chris,
what are you working on these days?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Honestly working on myself, Mike, thanks for asking, taking out
a little bit of a momentary pause from my own
personal audio endeavors, just to kind of retool things and
kind of reassess my enjoyment of certain things. And I
want to re enjoy doing this, and you know, I
think that's important, especially when you've been doing this as
long as we have, because it's decade plus for each
(24:48):
of us at this point which is just fucking crazy. Yeah,
all those decade plus of audio can be found over
at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where you're more than likely finding
this show other shows, And if you're not finding those shows,
you should be because they're great. So yeah, Patreon is
also a way you can get engaged with me patreon
dot com, slash culturecast, patreon dot com, slash Projection booth
(25:11):
if you want to help us out financially and get
access to a podcast you have no access to otherwise.
So what about you, Mike?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Well, you know, Chris, I'm very excited as of today
when this episode comes out. Time Magazine has announced the
one hundred best podcasts of all time, and nothing that
we've done is on that list.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
But then it's not our list that we didn't never
want to be on a list that would have us
as members. Anyways, Well, fucking what Mark Maren did he
vote for? Was it that? It was? I gotta say,
Nigel Thornberry, But Mike or Malcolm Gladwell, like, I don't
give you Nigel Thornberry might as well be I take
Tim Curry over fucking Malcolm Gladwell. How's that?
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Tim Curry?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Of course you would Nigel Thornberry. That's yeah, that's that's
the character. Yeah, yeah, fucking the top one hundred. You're
at the top of the one hundred list. There there
need to be no list. Projection Booth and everything else.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Well, thank you so much, Chris, and yes, Projection Booth
podcast is available at Projection Booth Podcasts dot com, but
it is especially available at Wirdingwaymedia dot com where you
can find all the great audio diversions that we put
together all the time. And yeah, all the other episodes
of this. We are cruising through these Colombo episodes, sixth
(26:22):
season already, seventh season coming up, and then we're going
to be getting into dark times the ABC years. But
we're going to plow through this. God damn it, I'm
stealing myself right now. I'm super excited
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Anything that now
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