Columbo

Martin Landau and Falk in the episode "Double Shock," where Landau played a dual role as twins, 1973

After two pilot episodes, the show originally aired on NBC from 1971 to 1978 as one of the rotating programs of The NBC Mystery Movie. Columbo then aired less regularly on ABC beginning in 1989 under the umbrella of The ABC Mystery Movie.^[9] The last episode was broadcast in 2003 as part of ABC Thursday Night at the Movies.^[10]

Richard Kiley and Falk in Season 3 Episode 8, "A Friend in Deed", 1974

In almost every episode, the audience sees the crime unfold at the beginning and knows the identity of the culprit, typically an affluent member of society. Once Columbo enters the story (he rarely appears in the first act), viewers watch him solve the case by sifting through the contradictions between the truth and the version presented to him by the killer(s). This style of mystery is sometimes referred to as a "howcatchem", in contrast to the traditional whodunit. In structural analysis terms, the majority of the narrative is therefore dénouement, a feature normally reserved for the very end of a story. Episodes tend to be driven by their characters, the audience observing the criminal's reactions to Columbo's increasingly intrusive presence. The explanation for the crime and its method having played out as part of the narrative, most of the stories simply end with the criminal's reaction at being found out.

When Columbo first appears in an episode, his genius is hidden by his frumpy, friendly, and disarming demeanor, luring the killer into a false sense of security. In some cases, the killer's arrogance and dismissive attitude allow Columbo to manipulate his suspects into self-incrimination. While the details, and eventually the motivations, of the murderers' actions are shown to the viewer, Columbo's true thoughts and intentions are almost never revealed until close to the end of the episode (he occasionally begins to whistle the tune "This Old Man" as the pieces begin to fall into place). Columbo generally maintains a friendly relationship with the murderer until the end. The point at which the detective first begins to suspect the murderer is generally not revealed, although it is often fairly early on. There are two sides to Columbo's character: the disarming and unkempt detective and the hidden genius sleuth. The genius sometimes starkly manifests itself through his eyes, as when Jack Cassidy's magician, The Great Santini, manages to escape from police handcuffs that Columbo coyly presents him during Santini's show ("Now You See Him..."). Such moments always bode bad tidings for the killer. In some instances, such as Ruth Gordon's avenging elderly mystery writer in "Try and Catch Me", Janet Leigh's terminally ill and deluded actress in "Forgotten Lady", Donald Pleasence's elegant vintner in "Any Old Port in a Storm", and Johnny Cash's enserfed singer in "Swan Song", the killer is more sympathetic than the victim.^[11]

Each case is generally concluded in a similar style, with Columbo dropping any pretense of uncertainty and sharing details of his conclusion of the killer's guilt. Following the killer's reaction, the episode generally ends with the killer confessing or quietly submitting to arrest. There are few attempts to deceive the viewer or provide a twist in the tale. One convoluted exception is "Last Salute to the Commodore", where Robert Vaughn is seen elaborately disposing of a body, but is proved later to have been covering for his alcoholic wife, whom he mistakenly thought to be the murderer.^[12] Sometimes, Columbo sets up the murderer with a trick designed to elicit a confession. An example occurs in "Dagger of the Mind", in which Columbo flips an evidentiary pearl into the victim's umbrella, bringing about incriminating activity from Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman. Oddly, the Hallmark Channel's replay of the episode (2020) edits out the revealing scene, thus completely altering the meaning of the ending of the episode.

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List of Columbo episodes

List of Columbo episodes

The following is an episode list for the crime fiction television series Columbo. After two pilot episodes, the show originally aired on NBC from 1971 to 1978 as one of the rotating programs of The NBC Mystery Movie. Columbo then aired less frequently on ABC beginning in 1989. The last installment was broadcast in 2003.

Martin Landau

Martin Landau

Martin James Landau was an American actor, acting coach, producer, and editorial cartoonist. His career began in the 1950s, with early film appearances including a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). His career breakthrough came with leading roles in the television series Mission: Impossible (1966–1969) and Space: 1999 (1975–1977).

NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are located at Comcast Building in New York City. The company also has offices in Los Angeles at 10 Universal City Plaza and Chicago at the NBC Tower. NBC is the oldest of the traditional "Big Three" American television networks, having been formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network," in reference to its stylized peacock logo, introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early color broadcasting.

American Broadcasting Company

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network's secondary offices, and headquarters of its news division, are in New York City, at its broadcast center at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The NBC Mystery Movie

The NBC Mystery Movie

The NBC Mystery Movie is an American television anthology series produced by Universal Pictures, that NBC broadcast from 1971 to 1977. Devoted to a rotating series of mystery episodes, it was sometimes split into two subsets broadcast on different nights of the week: The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie and The NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie.

Richard Kiley

Richard Kiley

Richard Paul Kiley was an American stage, film and television actor and singer. He is best known for his distinguished theatrical career in which he twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor In A Musical. Kiley created the role of Don Quixote in the original 1965 production of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha and was the first to sing and record "The Impossible Dream", the hit song from the show. In the 1953 hit musical Kismet, he played the Caliph in the original Broadway cast and, as such, was one of the quartet who sang "And This Is My Beloved". Additionally, he won three Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards during his 50-year career and his "sonorous baritone" was also featured in the narration of a number of documentaries and other films. At the time of his death, Kiley was described as "one of theater's most distinguished and versatile actors" and as "an indispensable actor, the kind of performer who could be called on to play kings and commoners and a diversity of characters in between."

Peter Falk

Peter Falk

Peter Michael Falk was an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the long-running NBC series Columbo, for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award (1973). In 1996, TV Guide ranked Falk No. 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list. He received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

Peter Falk as Lt. Columbo, 1973

The first Columbo pilot, "Prescription: Murder", guest starring Gene Barry, Nina Foch, and William Windom, was filmed at the Stahl House.

The character of Columbo was created by the writing team of Richard Levinson and William Link, who said that Columbo was partially inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment character Porfiry Petrovich,^[13] as well as G. K. Chesterton's humble cleric-detective Father Brown. Other sources claim Columbo's character is also influenced by Inspector Fichet from the French suspense-thriller film Les Diaboliques (1955).^[14]

The character first appeared in a 1960 episode of the television-anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show, titled "Enough Rope". This was adapted by Levinson and Link from their short story "May I Come In", which had been published as "Dear Corpus Delicti" in an issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. The short story featured a police lieutenant then named Fisher.^[15] The first actor to portray Columbo, character actor Bert Freed, was a stocky character actor with a thatch of gray hair.^[16]

Freed's Columbo wore a rumpled suit and smoked a cigar; he otherwise had few of the other now-familiar Columbo mannerisms. The character is still recognizably Columbo and uses some of the same methods of misdirecting and distracting his suspects. During the course of the show, the increasingly frightened murderer brings pressure from the district attorney's office to have Columbo taken off the case, but the detective fights back with his own contacts.

Although Freed received third billing, he wound up with almost as much screen time as the killer and appeared immediately after the first commercial. This delayed entry of the character into the narrative of the screen play became a defining characteristic of the structure of the Columbo series. This teleplay is available for viewing in the archives of the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.

Levinson and Link then adapted the TV drama into the stage play Prescription: Murder. This was first performed at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco on January 2, 1962, with Oscar-winning character actor Thomas Mitchell in the role of Columbo. Mitchell was 70 years old at the time. The stage production starred Joseph Cotten as the murderer and Agnes Moorehead as the victim. Mitchell died of cancer while the play was touring in out-of-town tryouts; Columbo was his last role.

The NBC Mystery Movie program worked on a rotating basis – one per month from each of its shows. Top left: Dennis Weaver in McCloud. Top right: Richard Boone in Hec Ramsey. Bottom left: Peter Falk in Columbo. Bottom right: Rock Hudson in McMillan & Wife

In 1968, the same play was made into a two-hour television movie that aired on NBC. The writers suggested Lee J. Cobb and Bing Crosby for the role of Columbo, but Cobb was unavailable and Crosby turned it down because he felt it would take too much time away from the golf links. Director Richard Irving convinced Levinson and Link that Falk, who excitedly said he "would kill to play that cop", could pull it off even though he was much younger than the writers had in mind.^[17]

Originally a one-off TV-Movie-of-the-Week, Prescription: Murder has Falk's Columbo pitted against a psychiatrist (Gene Barry). In this movie, the psychiatrist gives the new audience a perfect description of Columbo's character. Due to the success of this film, NBC requested that a pilot for a potential series be made to see if the character could be sustained on a regular basis, leading to the 1971 90-minute television production, Ransom for a Dead Man, with Lee Grant playing the killer. The popularity of the second film prompted the creation of a regular series on NBC, that premiered in September 1971 as part of The NBC Mystery Movie wheel series rotation: McCloud, McMillan & Wife, and other whodunits.

According to TV Guide, the original plan was that a new Columbo episode would air every week. However, Falk refused to commit to such a busy schedule given his steady work in motion pictures. The network arranged for the Columbo segments to air once a month on Wednesday nights. The high quality of Columbo, McMillan & Wife, and McCloud was due in large part to the extra time spent on each episode. The term wheel show had been previously coined to describe this format, but no previous or subsequent wheel show achieved the longevity or success of The NBC Mystery Movie.

Columbo was an immediate hit in the Nielsen ratings and Falk won an Emmy Award for his role in the show's first season. In its second year the Mystery Movie series was moved to Sunday nights, where it then remained during its seven-season run. The show became the anchor of NBC's Sunday night lineup. Columbo aired regularly from 1971 to 1978. After NBC canceled it in 1978, Columbo was revived on ABC between 1989 and 2003 in several new seasons and a few made-for-TV movie "specials".^[18]

Columbo's wardrobe was provided by Falk; they were his clothes, including the high-topped shoes and the shabby raincoat, which made its first appearance in Prescription: Murder. Falk often ad libbed his character's idiosyncrasies (fumbling through his pockets for a piece of evidence and discovering a grocery list, asking to borrow a pencil, becoming distracted by something irrelevant in the room at a dramatic point in a conversation with a suspect, etc.), inserting these into his performance as a way to keep his fellow actors off-balance. He felt it helped to make their confused and impatient reactions to Columbo's antics more genuine.^[19] According to Levinson, the catchphrase "one more thing" was conceived when he and Link were writing the play: "we had a scene that was too short, and we had already had Columbo make his exit. We were too lazy to retype the scene, so we had him come back and say, 'Oh, just one more thing.' It was never planned."^[17] The catchphrase became the basis for a well-known sales technique known as the "Columbo Close". In this, after the sales person has completed their sales pitch without success and the customer is about to walk away, the sales person uses Columbo's line to present the customer with the most enticing part of their offer.^[20]

A few years before his death, Falk expressed interest in returning to the role. In 2007, he claimed he had chosen a script for one last Columbo episode, "Columbo: Hear No Evil". The script was renamed "Columbo's Last Case". ABC declined the project. In response, producers for the series announced that they were attempting to shop the project to foreign production companies.^[21][22] Falk was diagnosed with dementia in late 2007. During a 2009 trial over his care, physician Stephen Read stated that Falk's condition had deteriorated so badly that he could no longer remember playing a character named Columbo, nor could he identify Columbo. Falk died on June 23, 2011, aged 83.^[23][24][25]

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Columbo (character)

Columbo (character)

Columbo or Lieutenant Columbo is the main character in the American detective crime drama television series Columbo created by Richard Levinson and William Link. The character is a shrewd but inelegant blue-collar homicide detective whose trademarks include his shambling manner, rumpled beige raincoat, cigar and off-putting, relentless investigative approach.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His 1864 novella, Notes from Underground, is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature. Numerous literary critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as many of his works are considered highly influential masterpieces.

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoevsky's full-length novels following his return from ten years of exile in Siberia. Crime and Punishment is considered the first great novel of his mature period of writing. The novel is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.

G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, a literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, Time observed: "Whenever possible, Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out."

Father Brown

Father Brown

Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective. He features in 53 short stories by English author G. K. Chesterton, published between 1910 and 1936. Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intuition and keen understanding of human nature. Chesterton loosely based him on the Rt Rev. Msgr John O'Connor (1870–1952), a parish priest in Bradford, who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922.

Les Diaboliques (film)

Les Diaboliques (film)

Les Diaboliques is a 1955 French psychological horror thriller film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel. It is based on the novel She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (AHMM) is a bi-monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime and detective fiction. AHMM is named for Alfred Hitchcock, the famed director of suspense films and television.

Bert Freed

Bert Freed

Bert Freed was an American character actor, voice-over actor, and the first actor to portray Detective Columbo.

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role while working within the film industry. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Supporting Actress winner.

Joseph Cotten

Joseph Cotten

Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair. He then gained worldwide fame in three Orson Welles films: Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and Journey into Fear (1943), for which Cotten was also credited with the screenplay.

Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. In a career spanning five decades, her credits included work in radio, stage, film, and television. Moorehead was the recipient of such accolades as a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards.

Dennis Weaver

Dennis Weaver

William Dennis Weaver was an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, best known for his work in television and films from the early 1950s until just before his death in 2006. Weaver's two most famous roles were as Marshal Matt Dillon's trusty partner Chester Goode/Proudfoot on the CBS western Gunsmoke and as Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud on the NBC police drama McCloud. He starred in the 1971 television film Duel, the first film of director Steven Spielberg. He is also remembered for his role as the twitchy motel attendant in Orson Welles's film Touch of Evil (1958).

Guest stars

The series featured many guest stars as murderers and in other roles.

Some actors appeared more than once, playing a different character each time; among those actors are Jack Cassidy, Robert Culp, Tyne Daly, George Hamilton, Martin Landau, Patrick McGoohan and William Shatner.

Famous actors who appeared on the show included:

• Eddie Albert as Maj. Gen. Martin Hollister (Episode: Dead Weight)
• Don Ameche as Frank Simpson (Episode: Suitable for Framing)
• Lew Ayres as Dr. Howard Nicholson (Episode: Mind Over Mayhem)
• Gene Barry as Dr. Ray Fleming (Episode: Prescription: Murder)
• Kristin Bauer van Straten as Suzie Endicott (Episode: Undercover)
• Anne Baxter as Nora Chandler (Episode: Requiem for a Falling Star)
• Ed Begley Jr. as Officer Stein (Episode: How to Dial a Murder), Irving Krutch (Episode: Undercover)
• Theodore Bikel as Oliver Brandt (Episode: The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case)
• Honor Blackman as Lillian Stanhope (Episode: Dagger of the Mind)
• Sorrell Booke as Bertie Hastings (Episode: The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case)
• Roscoe Lee Browne as Dr. Steadman (Episode: Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo)
• Johnny Cash as Tommy Brown (Episode: Swan Song)
• John Cassavetes as Alex Benedict (Episode: Étude in Black)
• Jack Cassidy as Ken Franklin (Episode: Murder by the Book), Riley Greenleaf (Episode: Publish or Perish), and The Great Santini (Episode: Now You See Him...)
• Kim Cattrall as Joanne Nicholls (Episode: How to Dial a Murder)
• Ron Cey as himself (Episode: Uneasy Lies the Crown)
• Susan Clark as Beth Chadwick (Episode: Lady in Waiting)
• Dabney Coleman as Sergeant Murray (Episode: Double Shock), Hugh Creighton (Episode: Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star)
• Billy Connolly as Findlay Crawford (Episode: Murder With Too Many Notes)
• Jackie Cooper as Nelson Hayward (Episode: Candidate for Crime)
• Robert Culp as Carl Brimmer (Episode: Death Lends a Hand), Paul Hanlon (Episode: The Most Crucial Game), Dr. Bart Keppel (Episode: Double Exposure), and Jordan Rowe (Episode: Columbo Goes to College)
• Jamie Lee Curtis as an unnamed waitress (Episode: Bye-bye Sky High IQ)
• Tyne Daly as Dolores McCain (Episode: A Bird in the Hand...), Dorothea McNally (Episode: Undercover)
• Shera Danese Peter Falk's 2nd wife featured in small and supporting roles in 6 episodes (Episode: Fade in to Murder, Murder Under Glass, Murder A Self Portrait, Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star, Undercover and A Trace of Murder)
• Blythe Danner as Janice Benedict (Episode: Étude in Black)
• Faye Dunaway as Lauren Staton (Episode: It's All in the Game)
• Samantha Eggar as Vivian Brandt (Episode: The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case)
• Héctor Elizondo as Hassan Salah (Episode: A Case of Immunity)
• Maurice Evans as Raymond (Episode: Forgotten Lady)
• José Ferrer as Dr. Marshall Cahill (Episode: Mind Over Mayhem)
• Mel Ferrer as Jerry Parks (Episode: Requiem for a Falling Star)
• Ruth Gordon as Abigail Mitchell (Episode: Try and Catch Me)
• Harold Gould as Agent Carlson (Episode: Ransom for a Dead Man)
• Lee Grant as Leslie Williams (Episode: Ransom for a Dead Man)
• James Gregory as David Buckner (Episode: Short Fuse), Coach Rizzo (Episode: The Most Crucial Game)
• George Hamilton as Dr. Mark Collier (Episode: A Deadly State of Mind), Wade Anders (Episode: Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health)
• Valerie Harper as Eve Babcock (Episode: The Most Crucial Game)
• Laurence Harvey as Emmett Clayton (Episode: The Most Dangerous Match)
• Edith Head as herself (Episode: Requiem for a Falling Star)
• Kim Hunter as Edna Matthews (Episode: Suitable for Framing)
• Wilfrid Hyde-White as Tanner (Episode: Dagger of the Mind), Jonathan Kittering (Episode: Last Salute to the Commodore)
• Dean Jagger as Walter Cunnell (Episode: The Most Crucial Game)
• Louis Jourdan as Paul Gerard (Episode: Murder Under Glass)
• Sally Kellerman as Liz Houston (Episode: Ashes to Ashes)
• Richard Kiley as Deputy Commissioner Mark Halperin (Episode: A Friend in Deed)
• Walter Koenig as Sgt. Johnson (Episode: Fade in to Murder)
• Martin Landau as twins Dexter/Norman Paris (Episode: Double Shock)
• Janet Leigh as Grace Wheeler (Episode: Forgotten Lady)
• Robert Loggia as Harry Blandford (Episode: Now You See Him...)
• Myrna Loy as Lizzy Fielding (Episode: Étude in Black)
• Ida Lupino as Doris Buckner (Episode: Short Fuse), Edna Brown (Episode: Swan Song)
• Rue McClanahan as Verity Chandler (Episode: Ashes to Ashes)
• Roddy McDowall as Roger Stanford (Episode: Short Fuse)
• Patrick McGoohan as Colonel Lyle C. Rumford (Episode: By Dawn's Early Light), Nelson Brenner (Episode: Identity Crisis, and directed), Oscar Finch (Episode: Agenda for Murder, and directed), Eric Prince (Episode: Ashes to Ashes, and directed)
• Patrick MacNee as Captain Gibbon (Episode: Troubled Waters)
• Ian McShane as Leland St. John (Episode: Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo)
• Ross Martin as Dale Kingston (Episode: Suitable for Framing)
• Vera Miles as Viveca Scott (Episode: Lovely But Lethal)
• Ray Milland as Jarvis Goodland (Episode: The Greenhouse Jungle), Arthur Kennicutt (Episode: Death Lends a Hand)
• Sal Mineo as Rachman Habib (Episode: A Case of Immunity)
• Ricardo Montalbán as Luís Montoya (Episode: A Matter of Honor)
• Pat Morita as The House Boy (Episode: Étude in Black)
• Julie Newmar as Lisa Chambers (Episode: Double Shock)
• Leslie Nielsen as Peter Hamilton (Episode: Lady in Waiting), Geronimo (Episode: Identity Crisis)
• Leonard Nimoy as Dr. Barry Mayfield (Episode: A Stitch in Crime)
• Nehemiah Persoff as Jesse Jerome (Episode: Now You See Him...)
• Donald Pleasence as Adrian Carsini (Episode: Any Old Port in a Storm)
• Suzanne Pleshette as Helen Stewart (Episode: Dead Weight)
• Vincent Price as David Lang (Episode: Lovely but Lethal)
• Clive Revill as Joe Devlin (Episode: The Conspirators)
• Matthew Rhys as Justin Price (Episode: Columbo Likes the Nightlife)
• Little Richard as himself (Episode: Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star)
• Gena Rowlands as Elizabeth Van Wick (Episode: Playback)
• Katey Sagal as a secretary (Episode: Candidate for Crime)
• Dick Sargent as himself (Episode: Uneasy Lies the Crown)
• Steve Schirripa as Freddie (Episode: Columbo Likes the Nightlife)
• William Shatner as Ward Fowler (Episode: Fade in to Murder), Fielding Chase (Episode: Butterfly in Shades of Grey)
• Martin Sheen as Karl Lessing (Episode: Lovely but Lethal)
• Mickey Spillane as Alan Mallory (Episode: Publish or Perish)
• Rod Steiger as Vincenzo Fortelli (Episode: Strange Bedfellows)
• Dean Stockwell as Eric Wagner (Episode: The Most Crucial Game), Lloyd Harrington (Episode: Troubled Waters)
• Larry Storch as Mr. Weekly (Episode: Negative Reaction)
• Vic Tayback as Sam Franklin (Episode: Suitable for Framing)
• Rip Torn as Leon Lamarr (Episode: Death Hits the Jackpot)
• Forrest Tucker as Beau Williamson (Episode: Blueprint for Murder)
• Brenda Vaccaro as Jess McCurdy (Episode: Murder in Malibu)
• Dick Van Dyke as Paul Galesko (Episode: Negative Reaction)
• Robert Vaughn as Hayden Danziger (Episode: Troubled Waters), Charles Clay (Episode: Last Salute to the Commodore)
• Nancy Walker as herself (Episode: Uneasy Lies the Crown)
• Jessica Walter as Margaret Nicholson (Episode: Mind Over Mayhem)
• Leslie Ann Warren as Nadia Donner (Episode: A Deadly State of Mind)
• George Wendt as Graham McVeigh (Episode: Strange Bedfellows)
• Oskar Werner as Harold Van Wick (Episode: Playback)
• Mary Wickes as a landlady (Episode: Suitable for Framing)
• Nicol Williamson as Dr. Eric Mason (Episode: How To Dial A Murder)
• William Windom as Everett Logan (Episode: Short Fuse)
• Burt Young as Mo Weinberg (Episode: Undercover)

Directors and writers

The first season première "Murder by the Book" was written by Steven Bochco and directed by Steven Spielberg. Jonathan Demme directed the seventh-season episode "Murder Under Glass". Jonathan Latimer was also a writer. Actor Ben Gazzara, a friend of Falk's, directed the episodes "A Friend in Deed" (1974) and "Troubled Waters" (1975).

Falk himself directed the last episode of the first season, "Blueprint for Murder," and wrote the episode entitled "It's All in the Game" in season 10. Actor Nicholas Colasanto, best known for playing Coach on Cheers, directed two episodes, "Swan Song" with Johnny Cash, and "Étude in Black".

Patrick McGoohan directed five episodes (including three of the four in which he played the murderer) and wrote and produced two. Vincent McEveety was a frequent director, and homage was paid to him by a humorous mention of a character with his surname in the episode "Undercover" (which he directed).

Two episodes, "No Time to Die" and "Undercover", were based on the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain,^[26] and thus do not strictly follow the standard Columbo/inverted detective story format.

Score composers

Columbo episodes contain a variety of music that contributes to the uniqueness of each. The score becomes of particular importance during turning points of the plots. "The Mystery Movie Theme" by Henry Mancini, written for The NBC Mystery Movie series, was used extensively in the whole of 38 episodes, from 1971 to 1977. Unlike the other elements of the Mystery Movie wheel, Columbo never had an official theme as such, although some composers, such as Dick DeBenedictis and Gil Mellé, did write their own signature pieces. Several composers created original music for the series, which was often used along with "The Mystery Movie Theme":

Series Music department included:

• Quincy Jones—composer: "Mystery Movie" theme / "Wednesday Mystery Movie" theme (8 episodes, 1972–1973)
• Henry Mancini – composer: "Mystery Movie" theme / "Sunday Mystery Movie" theme (38 episodes, 1971–1977)
• Hal Mooney – music supervisor (27 episodes, 1972–1976)
• Mike Post – composer: "Mystery Movie" theme (9 episodes, 1989–1990)

Patrick Williams received two Emmys nominations for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series in 1978 (for "Try and Catch Me") and 1989 (for "Murder, Smoke and Shadows"). Billy Goldenberg was nominated in the same category in 1972 for "Lady in Waiting".

Columbo also featured an unofficial signature tune, the British children's song "This Old Man". It was introduced in the episode "Any Old Port in a Storm" in 1973 and the detective can be heard humming or whistling it often in subsequent films. Falk said it was a melody he personally enjoyed and one day it became a part of his character.^[27] The tune was also used in various score arrangements throughout the three decades of the series, including opening and closing credits. A version of it, titled "Columbo", was created by Patrick Williams.^[28]

The 1971 episode "Murder by the Book", directed by Steven Spielberg, was ranked No. 16 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time^[29] and in 1999, the magazine ranked Lt. Columbo No. 7 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.^[30][31] In 2012, the program was ranked the third-best cop or legal show on Best in TV: The Greatest TV Shows of Our Time.^[32] In 2013, TV Guide included it in its list of The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time^[33] and ranked it 33rd on its list of the 60 Best Series.^[34] Also in 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it 57th on its list of 101 Best Written TV Series.^[35]

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Jack Cassidy

Jack Cassidy

John Joseph Edward Cassidy, was an American actor, singer and theater director known for his work in the theater, television and films. He received multiple Tony Award nominations and a win, as well as a Grammy Award, for his work on the Broadway production of the musical She Loves Me. He also received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He was the father of teen idols David Cassidy and Shaun Cassidy.

George Hamilton (actor)

George Hamilton (actor)

George Stevens Hamilton is an American actor. His notable films include Home from the Hill (1960), By Love Possessed (1961), Light in the Piazza (1962), Your Cheatin' Heart (1964), Once Is Not Enough (1975), Love at First Bite (1979), Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981), The Godfather Part III (1990), Doc Hollywood (1991), 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997), Hollywood Ending (2002), and The Congressman (2016). For his debut performance in Crime and Punishment U.S.A. (1959), Hamilton won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for a BAFTA Award. He has received one additional BAFTA nomination and two Golden Globe nominations.

Eddie Albert

Eddie Albert

Edward Albert Heimberger was an American actor and activist. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; the first nomination came in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and the second in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid. Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma!, and the sadistic prison warden in 1974's The Longest Yard. He starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch. He also had a recurring role as Carlton Travis on Falcon Crest, opposite Jane Wyman.

Don Ameche

Don Ameche

Don Ameche was an American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. After playing in college shows, stocks, and vaudevilles, he became a major radio star in the early 1930s, which led to the offer of a movie contract from 20th Century Fox in 1935.

Lew Ayres

Lew Ayres

Lewis Frederick Ayres III was an American actor whose film and television career spanned 65 years. He is best known for starring as German soldier Paul Bäumer in the film All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and for playing Dr. Kildare in nine films. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Johnny Belinda (1948).

Gene Barry

Gene Barry

Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor and singer. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City (1952) and The War of The Worlds (1953) and for his portrayal of the title characters in the TV series Bat Masterson and Burke's Law, among many roles.

Kristin Bauer van Straten

Kristin Bauer van Straten

Kristin Bauer van Straten is an American film and television actress, notable for her roles as vampire Pamela Swynford De Beaufort on the HBO television series True Blood, Jerry's girlfriend Gillian on Seinfeld, and as Maleficent in the ABC series Once Upon a Time.

Anne Baxter

Anne Baxter

Anne Baxter was an American actress, star of Hollywood films, Broadway productions, and television series. She won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, and was nominated for an Emmy.

Ed Begley Jr.

Ed Begley Jr.

Edward James Begley Jr. is an American actor and environmental activist. Begley has appeared in hundreds of films, television shows, and stage performances. He played Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the television series St. Elsewhere (1982–1988). The role earned him six consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award nomination. He also co-hosted, along with wife Rachelle Carson, the green living reality show titled Living with Ed (2007–2010).

Honor Blackman

Honor Blackman

Honor Blackman was an English actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers (1962–1964), Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964), Julia Daggett in Shalako (1968), and Hera in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). She is also known for her role as Laura West in the ITV sitcom The Upper Hand (1990–1996).

Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. Cash was an American country singer-songwriter. Most of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his career. He was known for his deep, calm bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his Tennessee Three backing band characterized by train-like chugging guitar rhythms, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and a trademark all-black stage wardrobe, which earned him the nickname the "Man in Black".

John Cassavetes

John Cassavetes

John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor and filmmaker. He began as a television and film actor before helping to pioneer modern American independent cinema as a director and writer, often financing and distributing his films with his own income. AllMovie called him "an iconoclastic maverick", while The New Yorker suggested in 2013 that he "may be the most influential American director of the last half century."

Columbo received numerous awards and nominations from 1971 to 2005, including 13 Emmys, two Golden Globe Awards, two Edgar Awards and a TV Land Award nomination in 2005 for Peter Falk.^[36]

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TV Land Award

TV Land Award

The TV Land Awards was an American television awards ceremony that generally commemorated shows now off the air, rather than in current production as with the Emmys. Created by Executive Producer Michael Levitt, the awards were hosted and broadcast by the TV Land network from 2003–2012 and then returned to the air in 2015 and 2016. No TV Land awards show was scheduled for the spring of 2017.

Peter Falk

Peter Falk

Peter Michael Falk was an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the long-running NBC series Columbo, for which he won four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award (1973). In 1996, TV Guide ranked Falk No. 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list. He received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

23rd Primetime Emmy Awards

23rd Primetime Emmy Awards

The 23rd Emmy Awards, later known as the 23rd Primetime Emmy Awards, were handed out on May 9, 1971. The ceremony was hosted by Johnny Carson. Winners are listed in bold and series' networks are in parentheses.

Lee Grant

Lee Grant

Lee Grant is an American actress, documentarian, and director. For her film debut in 1951 as a young shoplifter in William Wyler's Detective Story, Grant earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and won the Best Actress Award at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. Grant won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Warren Beatty's older lover in Shampoo (1975).

24th Primetime Emmy Awards

24th Primetime Emmy Awards

The 24th Emmy Awards, later known as the 24th Primetime Emmy Awards, were handed out on May 6, 1972. The ceremony was hosted by Johnny Carson. Winners are listed in bold and series' networks are in parentheses.

Jackson Gillis

Jackson Gillis

Jackson Clark Gillis was an American radio and television scriptwriter whose career spanned more than 40 years and encompassed a wide range of genres.

Steven Bochco

Steven Bochco

Steven Ronald Bochco was an American television writer and producer. He developed a number of television series, including Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, Doogie Howser, M.D., Cop Rock, and NYPD Blue.

Richard Levinson

Richard Levinson

Richard Leighton Levinson was an American screenwriter and producer who often worked in collaboration with William Link.

William Link

William Link

William Theodore Link was an American film and television screenwriter and producer who often worked in collaboration with Richard Levinson.

Billy Goldenberg

Billy Goldenberg

William Leon Goldenberg was an American composer and songwriter, best known for his work on television and film.

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

This is a list of winners and nominees of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Beginning with the 18th Primetime Emmy Awards, leading actors in drama have competed alone. However, these dramatic performances included actors from miniseries, telefilms, and guest performers competing against main cast competitors. Such instances are marked below:# – Indicates a performance in a Miniseries or Television film, before the category's creation § – Indicates a performance as a guest performer, before the category's creation

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series

The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series is an award presented annually by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). It was first awarded at the 7th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, held in 1955 and it is given in honor of a writer or writers who produced an outstanding story or screenplay for an episode of a television drama series during the primetime network season. Undergoing several name changes, the award received its current title at the 48th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1996.

DVD

As of January 10, 2012, Universal Studios had released all 69 episodes of Columbo on DVD.^[37] The episodes are released in the same chronological order as they were originally broadcast. On October 16, 2012, Universal released Columbo—The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.^[38]

Because the Columbo episodes from 1989 to 2003 were aired very infrequently, different DVD sets have been released around the world. In many Region 2 and Region 4 countries, all episodes have now been released as 10 seasons, with the 10th comprising the last 14 episodes, from "Columbo Goes to College" (1990) to "Columbo Likes the Nightlife" (2003). In France and The Netherlands (also Region 2), the DVDs were grouped differently and released as 12 seasons.

In Region 1, all episodes from seasons 8 on are grouped differently; the episodes that originally aired on ABC were released under the title COLUMBO: The Mystery Movie Collection.

Blu-ray

The complete series was released on Blu-ray in Japan in 2011 as a ten-season set, taken from new HD masters and original 1.33:1 (4:3) aspect ratio (1989–2003 episodes are presented in 1.78:1 (16:9)).^[41] The set contains 35 discs and is presented in a faux-wooden cigar box. It features a brochure with episode details, and a script for the Japanese version of Prescription: Murder. Special features include the original 96-minute version of Étude In Black and the original NBC Mystery Movie title sequence. In addition, many episodes include isolated music and sound-effects tracks.^[42] Before this set's release, only the episodes up to Murder, a Self-Portrait were released on DVD in Japan.

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Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is the home video distribution division of American film studio Universal Pictures, owned by the NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast.

DVD region code

DVD region code

DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content, release date, and price, all according to the appropriate region.

Columbo (season 1)

Columbo (season 1)

Here is a list of episodes from the first season of the American television detective series Columbo.

Columbo (season 2)

Columbo (season 2)

Columbo is an American crime drama television series starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Season 2 aired on NBC from September 1972 to March 1973.

Columbo (season 3)

Columbo (season 3)

This is a list of episodes from the third season of Columbo.

Columbo (season 4)

Columbo (season 4)

This is a list of episodes from the fourth season of Columbo.

Columbo (season 5)

Columbo (season 5)

This is a list of episodes from the fifth season of Columbo.

Columbo (season 6)

Columbo (season 6)

This is a list of episodes from the sixth season of Columbo.

Columbo (season 7)

Columbo (season 7)

This is a list of episodes from the seventh season of Columbo.

Columbo (season 8)

Columbo (season 8)

This is a list of episodes from the eighth season of Columbo, nearly 11 years after the seventh season's end.

Columbo (season 9)

Columbo (season 9)

This is a list of episodes from the ninth season of Columbo.

Columbo (season 10)

Columbo (season 10)

The final 14 episodes of Columbo were produced sporadically as a series of specials, spanning 13 years from 1990 to 2003. These episodes have since been released on DVD in several regions as "season 10". Two of the episodes, "No Time to Die" and "Undercover", were based on 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain and thus do not follow the usual Columbo format.

Stage

Program cover for Prescription: Murder, presented in March 1962 at Detroit's Fisher Theatre during a national tour. Plans for a Broadway run were abandoned due to the illness of Thomas Mitchell.

The Columbo character first appeared on stage in 1962 in Prescription: Murder with Thomas Mitchell in the role of Columbo.

In 2010, Prescription: Murder was revived for a tour of the United Kingdom with Dirk Benedict and later John Guerrasio as Columbo.^[43]

Television

Falk appeared as Columbo in an Alias sketch produced for a 2003 TV special celebrating the 50th anniversary of ABC.

Falk appeared in character as Columbo in 1977 at The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of Frank Sinatra.

Books

Bernard Courtebras, "La femme du lieutenant", Nombre7, The life of Mrs Columbo's wife.

Columbo, as he appeared in volume 7 of Detective Conan

A Columbo series of books was published by MCA Publishing, written by authors Alfred Lawrence, Henry Clements and Lee Hays. This series of books, with the first title published in 1972, was mostly adapted from the TV series.^[44]

Columbo was also used as the protagonist for a series of novels published between 1994 and 1999 by Forge Books, an imprint of Tor Books. All of these books were written by William Harrington.

William Link, the co-creator of the series, wrote a collection of Columbo short stories, titled The Columbo Collection, which was published in May 2010 by Crippen & Landru, the specialty mystery publisher.^[45]

Sculpture

Peter Falk statue as Columbo with his dog in Budapest, Hungary

A statue of Lieutenant Columbo and his dog was unveiled in 2014 on Miksa Falk Street in Budapest, Hungary.^[46] According to Antal Rogán, then-district mayor of the city, Peter Falk may have been related to Hungarian writer and politician Miksa Falk, although there is no evidence yet to prove it.^[47]

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Fisher Building

Fisher Building

The Fisher Building is a landmark skyscraper located at 3011 West Grand Boulevard in the heart of the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. The ornate 30-story building, completed in 1928, is one of the major works of architect Albert Kahn, and is designed in an Art Deco style, faced with limestone, granite, and several types of marble. The Fisher family financed the building with proceeds from the sale of Fisher Body to General Motors. It was designed to house office and retail space.

Thomas Mitchell (actor)

Thomas Mitchell (actor)

Thomas John Mitchell was an American actor and writer. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, Doc Boone in Stagecoach, Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life, Pat Garrett in The Outlaw, and Mayor Jonas Henderson in High Noon. Mitchell was the first male actor to gain the Triple Crown of Acting by winning an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony Award.

Dirk Benedict

Dirk Benedict

Dirk Benedict is an American film, television and stage actor, and author. He is best known for playing the characters Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series and Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team television series. He is the author of Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy and And Then We Went Fishing.

John Guerrasio

John Guerrasio

John Guerrasio is an American, New York born stage, film and TV actor, based in London, England. He is known for having a broad New York accent. In his review of Love Birds, Bernie Byrnes of Loose-Lips.com wrote, "John Guerrasio is ideal casting….He delivers his role with expert timing and rules the stage."

Alias (TV series)

Alias (TV series)

Alias is an American action thriller and science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons from September 30, 2001, to May 22, 2006. It stars Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a double agent for the Central Intelligence Agency posing as an operative for SD-6, a worldwide criminal and espionage organization. Main co-stars throughout all five seasons included Michael Vartan as Michael Vaughn, Ron Rifkin as Arvin Sloane, and Victor Garber as Jack Bristow.

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast

The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast is a series of television specials hosted by entertainer Dean Martin and airing from 1974 to 1984. For a series of 54 specials and shows, Martin and his friends would "roast" a celebrity. The roasts were patterned after the roasts held at the New York Friars' Club.

Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. He is among the world's best-selling music artists with an estimated 150 million record sales.

Case Closed

Case Closed

Case Closed, also known as Detective Conan , is a Japanese detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday since January 1994, with its chapters collected in 102 tankōbon volumes as of September 2022. Due to legal problems with the name Detective Conan, the English language releases from Funimation and Viz Media were renamed to Case Closed. The story follows the high school detective Shinichi Kudo, whose body was transformed into that of an elementary school-age child while investigating a mysterious organization and generally solved a multitude of cases by impersonating his childhood best friend's father and various other characters.

Crippen & Landru

Crippen & Landru

Crippen & Landru Publishers is a small publisher of mystery fiction collections, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1994 by husband and wife Sandi and Douglas G. Greene in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and is named after murderers Dr. H. H. Crippen and Henri Landru. The Greenes's son Eric designed the logo. Jeffrey Marks succeeded Douglas G. Greene as publisher on January 1, 2018, while Dr. Greene remains active as Series Editor.

Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population of 1,752,286 over a land area of about 525 square kilometres. Budapest, which is both a city and county, forms the centre of the Budapest metropolitan area, which has an area of 7,626 square kilometres and a population of 3,303,786; it is a primate city, constituting 33% of the population of Hungary.

Hungary

Hungary

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning 93,030 square kilometres (35,920 sq mi) of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and Slovenia to the southwest, and Austria to the west. Hungary has a population of 9.7 million, mostly ethnic Hungarians and a significant Romani minority. Hungarian, the official language, is the world's most widely spoken Uralic language and among the few non-Indo-European languages widely spoken in Europe. Budapest is the country's capital and largest city; other major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs, and Győr.

Miksa Falk

Miksa Falk

Miksa Falk was a Hungarian politician, journalist, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the editor-in-chief of the German-language newspaper Pester Lloyd.

Mrs. Columbo, a spin-off TV series starring Kate Mulgrew, aired in 1979 and was canceled after only thirteen episodes. Lt. Columbo was never seen on Mrs. Columbo; each episode featured the resourceful Mrs. Columbo solving a murder mystery she encountered in her work as a newspaper reporter. Connections with the original Columbo series were made obvious: the glaring presence of Columbo's car in the driveway, the dog and Mrs. Columbo emptying ashtrays containing the famous green cigar butts—all featured in the show's opening sequence. References were also made to Kate's husband being a police lieutenant.

Columbo's first name is notably never mentioned in the series, but "Frank Columbo" or "Lt. Frank Columbo" can occasionally be seen on his police ID. This ambiguity surrounding Columbo's first name led to the creator of The Trivia Encyclopedia, Fred L. Worth, to include a false entry that listed "Phillip Columbo" as Columbo's full name as a copyright trap. When the board game Trivial Pursuit included "Phillip" as the answer to the question, "What was Columbo's first name?", Worth launched a 300 million dollar lawsuit against the creators of the game.^[48][49] The creators of the game argued that while they did use The Trivia Encyclopedia as one of their sources, facts are not copyrightable and there was nothing improper about using an encyclopedia in the production of a fact-based game. The district court judge agreed and the decision was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in September 1987. Worth petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case, but the Court declined, denying certiorari in March 1988.^[50]

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The Trivia Encyclopedia

The Trivia Encyclopedia

The Trivia Encyclopedia (ISBN 0-441-82412-9) was first released in the early 1970s. Written by Fred L. Worth, it was the author's own personal collection of trivia. It also contains "Worth's Law", his own personal creation, which states that something automatically works the minute the repairman arrives.

Fictitious entry

Fictitious entry

Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, and directories, added by the editors as a copyright trap to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and nihilartikel.

Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question they are asked from a card. Each correct answer allows the player's turn to continue; a correct answer on one of the six "category headquarters" spaces earns a plastic wedge which is slotted into the answerer's playing piece. The object of the game is to collect all six wedges from each "category headquarters" space, and then return to the center "hub" space to answer a question in a category selected by the other players.

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts:District of Alaska District of Arizona Central District of California Eastern District of California Northern District of California Southern District of California District of Hawaii District of Idaho District of Montana District of Nevada District of Oregon Eastern District of Washington Western District of Washington

Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of U.S. Constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." The court holds the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions.

Certiorari

Certiorari

In law, certiorari is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. Certiorari comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of the lower court be sent to the superior court for review. The term is Latin for "to be made certain", and comes from the opening line of such writs, which traditionally began with the Latin words "Certiorari volumus...".