You get twice the Martin Landau for the price of one admission, as he plays murderous twin brothers in “Double Shock.” One’s a devil-may-care host of a TV cooking show, the other’s a staid banker with a crippling gambling addiction. It’s up to Columbo to figure out how they’re tag teaming their killings. Along the way, he also has to deal with a cantankerous housekeeper and an awfully weird Julie Newmar. Abed Gheith (Rick and Morty, Channel 101) joins Jon and RJ to talk about the episode and many, many other digressions.
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Fucking hell.
… in regard to what?
Some mornings are just fucking hell mornings.
My favorite bit in this episode is where Columbo is talking to the maid about her TV set and he says, “I swear on my mother’s eyes.” That’s just so perfect. This episode is golden both the show and the podcast!
Regarding the ten minute Orson Welles digression: Did you guys notice the visual references to Lady from Shanghai at the end of “Make Me a Perfect Murder?” I think the amusement park at the end was a call-out to Lady From Shanghai, the Orson Welles film. It looks like the Welles’-used amusement park, located outside San Francisco, Playland-at-the-Beach (demolished in 1972). In one shot you can see the word “Playland” and they talk about how they are filming down at the beach. They don’t go obvious and use the funhouse, but invent a new backdrop, the carousel.
Can’t wait for the Culp Blowout. Death Lends a Hand is the definitive Columbo for me: Culp as murderer, someone lives in Malibu, references to Columbo’s wife, classic film actor slumming it on television (Ray Milland), and Columbo doing a no-way-would-this-stand-up-in-court gag at the end to trick the murderer.
“Fraser rules my taint” made me spit out my tea.
I’m also looking forward to the Culp blowout.
On the other hand, there are a lot of ’80s and ’90s episodes that haven’t been touched yet. If you don’t start scattering in a few more of them, you’ll be in the situation you predicted for your colleagues at The Columbo Podcast: a long, agonizing slog through that era.
This episode was a lot of fun to listen to; sounds as if you guys enjoyed “Double Shock” as much as I did.
We’ve just about reached parity on the remaining episodes (26 70s episodes and 21 90s episodes remain in our queue), so as long as we don’t bunch up a load more 1970s episodes, we should be okay. We have already entered the unenviable position of needing to rotate in a 90s ep every other episode though, so maybe it’s already too late 🙂
I remember the TV shows in this episode, and what it reminded me of was the running gag in “The Thrill of it All” with Doris Day and James Garner, where every show on television has the same cast, same plot and even the same blocking, except one week it’s set in the old West, another week it’s Nazi Germany, the next it’s ancient Rome, etc. At one point, the six-year-old kid in the movie starts describing what’s going to happen next, even though it’s not a rerun.
Just want to proudly point out that I suggested Time Travelling Columbo back in my guest episode too 🙂
Good podcast about a good episode. On the topic of Orson Wells connections: You don’t mention that the murder victim in this episode was played by Paul Stewart, whose first film role was Raymond, the butler, in Citizen Kane. He knew where all the bodies were buried, and he had what I think was the funniest line in the movie:
Raymond: He said a lot of things that didn’t mean anything.
Thompson: Sentimental fellow, aren’t you?
Raymond: Mmm, yes and no.
The other reason it may have been Norman who killed the uncle and not Dexter is Columbo established Dexter had all his hand mixers (at the end of the TV cooking scene) so it must have been Dexter who used his!