A PAPER TRAIL CONNECTION BETWEEN "COLUMBO" & "BARNABY JONES"

 I belong to a Facebook page called "Columbo TV" and recently Steve Skayman posted this:

 Barnaby Jones the very first episode. So there's a shot of a newspaper in this and I thought I would see if they do the same type of mock up as they had on Columbo - i.e. repeated and irrelevant paragraphs etc.

They do. But I didn't expect them to use the SAME headlines and paragraphs. The first picture is from Barnaby Jones (aired Jan 1973) - a Quinn Martin Production filmed at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios. The second is from LOVELY BUT LETHAL (aired September 1973) and a totally different studio (Universal). Same headlines about Firemen Praised For Heroic Deeds and State Backs Tax Resale, same sentences starting with "Of no less importance"...

Anyway I thought it was worth mentioning.

It certainly is!  It gives us information in establishing the Toobworld timeline!

The basic tenet at Toobworld Central regarding the timeline is that the events of any TV show episode takes place around the same time as the original broadcast unless otherwise stated.  There are O'Bvious exemptions – historical dramas including Westerns, WWII shows, and all those costume dramas from the BBC.  And the futuristic sci-fi shows of course.

But there are times when Toobworld Central has to make decisions of its own when it comes to when certain shows actually took place if there is a problem with keeping it at the same time as the original broadcast.  And Steve has presented one with these two newspapers.

One would think that ‘Columbo’ wouldn’t have many problems with its timeline.  As long as the episodes that mentioned the Nelson Hayward case (“Candidate For Crime”) are situated after that episode, and as long as “Columbo Cries Wolf” is on the timeline after “Dagger of the Mind” because of its mention of Chief Inspector Durk, there isn’t much to worry about it.  Unlike many shows today, there is no over-riding arc storyline that has to be adhere to.

In fact, I think ‘Columbo’ would be catnip for writers of fan fiction.  If the episodes do take place when they were first broadcast, then there are months between them in which other murder cases could be inserted for Columbo to solve.  And then there’s that nine year stretch when it was off the air entirely!

So Steve’s discovery of these two similar newspapers brings into question when the ‘Columbo’ episode, “Lovely But Lethal,” actually took place.

Here in the Trueniverse, Earth Prime, it was broadcast September 23, 1973, kicking off the third season.  There had not been a new episode since March earlier that year (“Requiem For A Falling Star”) – so there’s another long hiatus in which so many murder investigations could have taken place.  (Plus a two-week vacation to keep Mrs. Columbo happy.)

The ‘Barnaby Jones’ episode from which the first picture was taken was “Requiem For A Son” and as the premiere of the Buddy Ebsen detective series, it was broadcast on January , 1973.  Steve was kind enough to grab me another picture which shows that it was also from The Daily Chronicle, as the later ‘Columbo’ paper was.

As you can see from these close-ups, however, that despite one focused on the suicide of Karen Armsby and the other on the murder of Karl Lessing, both newspapers dealt with two exact same stories – the firemen praised for their heroic deeds and the state approval of the Creek County tax resale. 

I realize we’re dealing with Toobworld, where Coincidence should have its own Greek demi-god, but how likely is it that the same two stories would show up in newspapers basically nine months apart?

So this is a Zonk that’s going to need some splainin.

We have to leave the ‘Barnaby Jones’ episode where it is in the Toobworld timeline – January 1973.  Too much depends on that as the events of “Requiem Of A Son” puts the rest of the series in motion, not just the next handful of episodes.  If we were to move it back to align with the ‘Columbo’ episode, we’d have to drag back the rest of the episodes for that first season.

But nothing says we have to leave “Lovely But Lethal” where it is in September.  There had been a ‘Columbo’ episode (“Requiem For A Falling Star” on the 21^st of January and we can consider bumping that one forward on the Timeline to have occurred earlier in the month.  It wouldn't interfere with any other 'Columbo' episode because there had been no new episode since November with the "Dagger of the Mind" episode in London.

So that broadcast date for "Requiem" was actually when the episode wrapped up with the Lieutenant’s solution of the case.  And then two days later, Karl Lessing is murdered and Columbo has to go once more into the breach.

Meanwhile Karen Armsby commits suicide… or did she….?

The news of Ms. Armsby’s death broke first and so that newspaper we saw in “Requiem For A Son” was the first edition of The Daily Chronicle that day.  But after it hit the streets, the editor got word of Lessing’s death and so another run of the day’s paper was put together for the afternoon.  The Creek County tax story and the salute to the firemen were basically kept on the same page, although re-positioned, while the story about Ms. Armsby was pushed back a page.

And so thanks to Steve Skayman, we have a theoretical crossover between ‘Columbo’ and ‘Barnaby Jones’.

As for these mistakes in the news stories as mentioned by Steve:

Those two stories above start out with the same paragraph, but change to something else by the second. 

With this story, the same paragraph is repeated.

Yes, yes, yes.  We all know why this happened during the production of the episodes.  Nobody ever expected these shows to be available on DVD in hi-def and with the ability for freeze-frame.  But here at Toobworld Central, we look for answers within the "reality" of Earth Prime-Time.

So why did both editions of the Daily Chronicle have such errors?

I've got an easy splainin - the linotype operator was drunk.

BCnU!