STARTING THE YEAR WITH JUST ONE MORE THING

There's no denying how popular 'Columbo' still is, even after going off the air - for a second time! - sixteen years ago this month.  There are several Facebook pages dedicated to the show and to Peter Falk, and I belong to several of them.  But my favorite is Columbo-TV, which is based "across the pond" in the UK.  I've made a few friends from that group and they've been instrumental with the inspirations for several Inner Toob blog posts over the last few years.  And these friends from Columbo-TV didn't waste any time in bringing up something else for me to write up:

Catrin Jones:
Been watching 'Gavin and Stacey'. In the episode of Gwen's surprise party. I’m sure Bryn called Gavin "Columbo" on his way in. I have no way of proving this as I don't have the record telly thing!  

Well, I knew where to go for that info, but on my phone, the transcripts page is a hassle to copy and paste from and my phone doesn't have a search/find function to shorten the research.  And being inherently lazy, I wasn't going to get out of bed to fire up the laptop to get the exact quote.

But by today, Catrin went to the same site (Springfield! Springfield! Movie and TV Scripts) and retrieved the salient dialogue exchange.....

What are you doin'? All right, Bryn.
Hey, it's Woody from Toy Story! Don't get smart with me, Columbo.
What if Gwen and Stacey went by and saw you two? Eh? What? Get inside.  

Unfortunately, that's basically how you get the script at Springfield! Springfield!  No character names are given and you really can't tell where the cut off point is for one speaker to the next.

Luckily I have Amazon Prime and was able to bring up the specific episode ('Gavin & Stacey' - S2E05.)

So here's how it should have played out:

Bryn:
What are you doin'? 
Smitty;
All right, Bryn.
Gavin:
Hey, it's Woody from "Toy Story"! 
Bryn:
Don't get smart with me, Columbo.What if Gwen and Stacey went by and saw you two?
Smitty:
Eh?
Gavin:
What?
Bryn:
Get inside.    

It’s O’Bvious to see why Gavin called Bryn “Woody”.  (It was a Western square dance theme for Gwen’s surprise birthday party.)  But frankly, it’s a stretch as to how Bryn could compare Gavin to Lt Frank Columbo.  Gavin is wearing a bone-white windbreaker, not a rumpled, dirty tan raincoat.  Actually, he looked more like Kelly Robinson of ‘I Spy’.  (But outside of the Box, James Corden and Ruth Wilson – who wrote the script – probably didn’t see that as no longer being a recognizable touchstone like ‘Columbo’ always will be.)

Within the Box, it’s just like a flubbed reference that Bryn would make.

And for Toobworld Central, this is not a Zonk (Toob terminology for discrepancy) even though Gavin & Stacey live in the same alternate dimension as does Columbo.  I’ve gone over this before many times but it’s a new year and might as well refresh my positions for any new readers I might have.

‘Columbo’ is a TV show within this metafictional world in which TV shows take place.  We know that it is thanks to the many references to it in other TV shows and we know that the televersion of Peter Falk plays the role because of a reference by Laura Holt in an episode of ‘Remington Steele’ and by Peter Falk’s own appearance in an episode of ‘The Larry Sanders Show’.

In the ‘Columbo’ episode “Publish Or Perish”, Columbo expressed his interest in writing a book based on his case files.  I think he eventually did so although we didn’t get to see that happen (like his eye operation which was referred to in the 25th anniversary episode “A Trace Of Murder”.) 

So I think it did happen at some point after “Publish Or Perish” and the option was probably picked up almost immediately for a TV show based on it.  And it would prove to be a very popular TV series since so many other TV characters cite Columbo’s name in a similar fashion as the old phrase “No shit, Sherlock”.

My thanks to Catrin for giving me another reason to talk about Lieutenant Columbo and his place in the TV Universe.  (As if I needed a reason!) 

And thanks also to Michael Rotman and Richard Blythe who snagged the frame grabs.

BCnU!