Why the world still loves Columbo | Hacker News Reader

Why the world still loves Columbo

bbc.com

86 pointsCaptainZapp57 comments

From across the pond... Yes Minister and the follow up series Yes Prime Minister are the most rewtchable TV shows I've ever seen. When it was originally on air, it's said that the prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, loved it. And it's still absolutely relevant and witty today.

> When it was originally on air, it's said that the prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, loved it. And it's still absolutely relevant and witty today.

Thatcher loved because it suited her ideology:

> Adam Curtis, in his three-part TV documentary The Trap, criticised the series as "ideological propaganda for a political movement",[16] and claimed that Yes Minister is indicative of a larger movement of criticism of government and bureaucracy, centred upon public choice economics. Jay himself supported this:

>> The fallacy that public choice economics took on was the fallacy that government is working entirely for the benefit of the citizen; and this was reflected by showing that in any [episode] in the programme, in Yes Minister, we showed that almost everything that the government has to decide is a conflict between two lots of private interest – that of the politicians and that of the civil servants trying to advance their own careers and improve their own lives. And that's why public choice economics, which explains why all this was going on, was at the root of almost every episode of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.[17]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister#Politics

> There is a division of opinions by political scientists. Some of them cite the series for their accurate and sophisticated portrayal of the relationships between civil servants and politicians,[40] and are quoted in some textbooks on British politics.[6] However, other political scientists considered it a reflection of the public choice model, which encouraged a "conservative agenda of balanced budgets and reduced government spending".[41] The Washington Post considered its "ideas were at the center of the Thatcher and Ronald Reagan administrations in Britain and the United States, which favored cutting government and shifting its functions to the private sector".[42]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister#Reception

> Thatcher loved because it suited her ideology

She liked it because she could laugh at herself. It might have given a voice to her ideology sometimes, and rightly so because it was prominent at the time, but none of the characters giving voice to anything are sympathetic. They’re portrayed as tragically ridiculous players vying for power and positive public image who’ll drop their “principles” at the drop of a hat if it suits them. If pundits are worried about this or that argument given by a character on the show they’re just revealing their own insecurities about their political opinions.

>They’re portrayed as tragically ridiculous players vying for power and positive public image who’ll drop their “principles” at the drop of a hat if it suits them

And that cynical portrayal of politics is itself part of the exact ideology that Thatcher tried to promote, so I don't really see why you think that contradicts OPs point. It's like the joke that Reagan used to repeat "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help". It wasn't an actual self-demeaning joke, the intention was to demean governance itself at every moment possible.

> And that cynical portrayal of politics is itself part of the exact ideology that Thatcher tried to promote

Putting aside the fact that if that were true Thatcher would still be lampooning herself, the show isn’t purely cynical about government. In the show the rank and file in the public service are full of competent, well meaning, and principled people. The show is cynical about those who rise to the top and the system that tramples the well meaning, however, that is a very bipartisan sentiment in every country with free speech rights.

What a tragedy. Lese-Majeste towards civil servants and politicians. Of all the things to be less cynical about, we must be less cynical about the motivations of those that seek temporal power!

>we must be less cynical about the motivations of those that seek temporal power

is there anyone not seeking temporal power? Are private sector shareholders on a quest for spiritual enlightenment or something? Is the board of Facebook filled with Zen Buddhists?

The notion that competing for petty status and power is somehow unique to administration and government is one of the consequences of shows like Yes, Minister. And actually yes, we should be less cynical of civil servants and politicians. A pathological disregard of them has, for example, significantly worsened one of the worst public health crisis in decades.

Jay and Lynne had the remit to make a show about Whitehall. Skewering private enterprise was/is very much doable (Scott Adams has been doing that daily, for decades), but that doesn’t negate the premise of YM.

And actually yes, we should be less cynical of civil servants and politicians

Donald Trump appreciates the support.

A pathological disregard of them has, for example, significantly worsened one of the worst public health crisis in decades.

Please let us all know which ones to pay attention to-I’d like to heed only the ones that can make testable predictions, and agree to quit if they get enough of those wrong.

The point is that the two shows ("almost every episode") were purposefully meant as propaganda, as Jay himself explains in the quote. That's not just cynicism.

It's not propaganda, either, unless propaganda is held to mean "entertainment that makes a point I'd prefer not be made".

YM was created & distributed by the BBC, a government apparatus staffed by the same civil servants and politicians that the show is ostensibly propagandizing against. How effective could it possibly be, and still make it on the air?

Consider that you're contradicting the very creator of the two shows.

You're entirely missing what the parent is talking about. Your point that "none of the characters giving voice to anything are sympathetic" is irrelevant. On the other hand:

> They’re portrayed as tragically ridiculous players vying for power and positive public image who’ll drop their “principles” at the drop of a hat if it suits them

This is exactly what the parent pointed out.

To make this even more clear, I made excerpts from the quote by Jay (creator of Yes Minister):

> this was reflected by showing that in any [episode] in the programme, in Yes Minister, we showed that almost everything that the government has to decide is a conflict between two lots of private interest [...]

> And that's why public choice economics, which explains why all this was going on, was at the root of almost every episode of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.

So both series ("almost every episode") were clearly conceived and executed as propaganda, whether you like it or not.

Perhaps the whole thing was just propaganda. I'm not entirely sure what the goal of this propaganda was. Many episodes parodied real events. I think that the show was wonderfully written. It did a better job of showing how government works than the 6 o'clock news, and yet it was constantly funny and thought provoking. The acting was superb.

> I'm not entirely sure what the goal of this propaganda was.

See Jay's quote. The goal was popularizing the ideas behind "public choice" theory, more specifically the idea that individuals that form the government are necessarily self-interested, without working for the public good.

> It did a better job of showing how government works than the 6 o'clock news, and yet it was constantly funny and thought provoking. The acting was superb.

That makes it effective propaganda.

In case it's not clear, I'm not of the opinion that no one should watch Yes Minister, rather my position is that the specific propagandistic nature should be made clear upfront.

Do you consider Armando Ianucci’s shows to be following the same ideological agenda as Thatcher too. He ridicules politicians just as much, but I think he’d find the comparison surprising.

You seem to have misunderstood me: I'm not talking about any specific politician or ideology, I'm talking purely about the quote by the creator of the two shows.

The critics of the Public Choice model, (who all seem to be socialist academics, a cohort known for its puissance at both government & industry...) would have done better to have their own TV show, written by someone who could cleverly show why the Heath/Wilson/Callaghan-style governments were the best the UK was going to get, and why the viewer should appreciate that.

> Yes Minister and the follow up series Yes Prime Minister are the most rewtchable TV shows I've ever seen.

It had a brilliant and ideologically diverse writing team meaning no side was singled out. The principal actors were comedy geniuses. Plus, the writers eventually revealed they had political insiders feeding them material [1]. Apparently similar things to the Arab embassy security room bar scene actually happened!

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister

I second that. The Yes Minister series is brilliant.

It was massively popular in Ukraine and Russia in the 1990s.

I still remember the overcoat, the dog, and Culombo's wife, which has always been mentioned, but never shown.

I guess that's all I have to say for now starts to leave.

Opens the door back again

Now, just one more thing...

I read recently that the “just one more thing” originated when the writers discovered they’d forgotten to have Colombo ask a question during the scene and tacked it onto the end to avoid having the rewrite the scene.

Oh my god, I never connected the through-line from Columbo (which I often watched re-runs with my family as a kid) to Steve Jobs keynotes.

I seem to remember that that one more thing often turned out to be the thing that unravelled into solving the crime.

That was his "schtick."

He'd come back and say "You see, I guess maybe I missed it, but I just can't figure out how..."

Whoever he was talking to, was about to get new jewelry.

He'd also have a couple of uniforms handy, with stainless steel bracelets.

He was doing it before Steve Jobs.

Just as often, he would already know how the crime happened, and the "one more thing" was just to unnerve the suspect.

The wife got a spin-off series Mrs. Columbo.

In case you find yourself among Columbo corners of the Internet, Mrs. Columbo is emphatically considered non-canonical.

Some of the better episodes and their guest murderers:

"Swan Song" features Johnny Cash as a gospel singer with an unconventional murder weapon,

"Any Old Port In A Storm" has Donald Pleasence as a wine aficionado,

"Double Shock" has Martin Landau playing a pair of twins and Columbo harassed by their uncle's fastidious housekeeper,

"Columbo Goes To College" is one of the best of the 90s-era revival episodes, and features a couple of cocky frat-boys murdering their criminology professor.

I kinda miss the older syndication friendly shows.

Everything today is trying too hard to have a season or a multi season epic story arc and the shows today are often so damn grim.

I completely agree. I’ve completely gravitated lately towards irreverent, silly, almost B-movies. Yesterday I watched Men at Work and it was amazing. That’s something I would have never watched a decade ago.

That is a great movie! Have you watched Tremors?

I haven’t. I’m going to watch it tonight, thanks for the recommendation!

Colombo always had a such hilarious proletariat vs bourgeois "Marxist" class struggle element hidden just below the surface of a major Hollywood series whose pilot was directed by a promising new young kid named Steven Spielberg.

The criminals were always rich, powerful, famous. Columbo was an unimpressive civil servant dressed in a shabby overcoat and driving an equally unimpressive old Peugeot. Every episode contained some bit of banter in which he or the villain called out explicitly the huge gulf in class between them, generally including some mention of Mrs. Columbo, who was never seen in the real series but was always held up by Columbo as cultured, intellectual, and wise in all the ways he professed to be ignorant (yes, they did eventually spin off a series about her, but it was terrible in as many ways as Columbo was great).

At the end of every episode, the honorable masses would triumph over the evil bourgeois as Columbo caught and humiliated yet another arrogant villain just before viewers were advised what brand of products to buy to look better than their neighbors.

Fun fact: In the first few seasons, Colombo had continuing problems with his car, which was always an excuse for being late or showing up unexpectedly. But, like his wife, the car never showed up on screen. By the later seasons, they wanted to do scenes where you see him arrive at a golf course, or whatever, and the prop department had to create a car that looked like an old clunker, and they made it out of unidentifiable pieces of various different real automobiles of different manufacturers, all so that no car company would complain that their cars were being maligned as unreliable.

This is a wonderful story but I'm sorry to have to report that the car Columbo drove wasn't built by the props department, it was a 1959 Peugeot 403[0].

[0]https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/jim-motavalli/columbos-car-it-...

Also, Columbo's Peugeot 403 Cabriolet shows up in each of the first-season episodes (according to imcdb.org the "Internet Movie Cars Database" that I just discovered the existence of):

• 1. "Murder by the Book" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_147439-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-1...

• 2. "Death Lends a Hand" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_88435-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-19...

• 3. "Dead Weight" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_66108-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-19...

• 4. "Suitable for Framing" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_94005-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-19...

• 5. "Lady in Waiting" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_71913-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-19...

• 6. "Short Fuse" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_36906-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-19...

• 7. "Blueprint for Murder" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_75558-Peugeot-403-Cabriolet-19...

But there were two TV movies (the second one made as a "pilot") before it became a TV series, and in the first one Columbo is briefly shown with a different car, a Chevrolet C-Series:

"Prescription: Murder" https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_876671-Chevrolet-C-Series-1967...

(He doesn't seem to complain about his car in either of them though, so by the time he's complained about it, the car has already been shown on screen, including multiple times in the first episode.)

Huh. I thought I'd heard the story in an interview with Peter Falk, or one of the producers. Oh, well.

Was Peugeot ever sold in th US?

Yep

https://www.periodpaper.com/products/1959-ad-peugeot-403-sta...

There were a few hundred Peugeot dealers in North America.

Huh? The car was a very recognizable Peugeot 403.

Columbo, CHIPS, MASH, all old shows that still appealed to me as a boy in the 90s.

Throw in Nash Bridges there too

Peter Falk really was a fallen angel. Wings of Desires https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-26rb7S38

Columbo!

What a coincidence! I think I got to watch a single Columbo episode when it aired originally and had become a fan. So, over the past few weeks, I've been watching the entire series.

It's a really down-to-earth and charming series with some real laugh-out-loud lines.

Here's one when Columbo is visited by a girl whose fiance has disappeared right before the wedding -

Columbo: [to Ric's fiance] You two didn't have a fight or anything, did yuh?

Joan Stacey: No, but...

Columbo: Maybe he got cold feet. That's been known to happen. Was he married before?

Joan Stacey: Three times.

Columbo: Three times. I guess his feet are warm enough by now.

That’s a nice nod to Wings of Desire in there.

Another popular detective series from that time was German detective series Derrick. Growing up in the 70s and 80s in South Africa, watching Derrick was one of my weekly highlights.

There was a German detective series whose translation was called "The Old Fox" - I used to like it in the 80s. I haven't been able to find it online much.

I think that’s “Der Alte”. https://www.fernsehserien.de/der-alte/episodenguide. Available on Amazon, iTunes, and magenta tv.de (all possibly only in Germany and/or Austria)

Ummm... because great shows stay great forever?

Columbo plots were oddly fixed on telephone technology in particular, in a way that might not have aged well if the acting weren't as good as it was.

I don’t understand why being set in a particular period would cause a program to not age well?

Does Sherlock Holmes not age well because now we have DNA to solve crimes more easily?

Just that things like answering machines or phone records for long-distance but not local calls are less familiar and relatable, so plot points that would have been obvious to the audience at the time can't be taken for granted.

I don’t get it - do you think people watch films set in medieval times and get confused that people are using horses rather than cars? People can understand that things used to be different. It’s not a barrier.

I did like Columbo, but I liked "The Rockford Files" better.

Cannon!

So many memories of watching this and Murder She Wrote with my mom.

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