30 Days of Telly Meme - Day 05

[lost_spook]

Day 05 - A show you hate:

I have to waste a post on something I don't like? A meme is a harsh master. I suppose the top candidate would be Big Brother for starting off all the reality TV shows and not even being an actual talent context or something where there's a point to anything# other than, well, voyeurism that sends me back to watch

Comments

[jjpor]

iirc, Johnny Cash played a villainous Country singer (so, stretching his acting muscles) who decided to murder his wife and girlfriend-on-the-side simultaneously by drugging them while he was flying them in a plane from one place to another, then _parachuting_ out of the plane and letting it crash.

So, not one of the gritter, more realistic Columbos then... ;D

The main thing I remember about it was that Johnny Cash wasn't the greatest actor ever and that he kept calling Columbo "little buddy", which was presumably why the Lieutenant took the disliking to him he seems to display.

Because you can always tell whether Columbo sympathises with the criminal or not, and it rarely has to do with the cruelty/coldbloodedness of the crime, more usually being determined by how polite and friendly they are in dealing with Columbo... So that's another slightly worrying side of his character. So, Johnny Cash, he didn't like much. Donald Pleasance on the other hand (which is probably my favourite Columbo of them all), you sort of got the impression that if he could have let him off, he might have. You know, despite him having trapped his half-brother in an airtight wine cellar and leaving him to suffocate to death, just because the half-brother wanted the half of the family inheritance that he was legally entitled to...

Why yes, I've seen a lot of Columbos, most of them more than once...

And obviously, you can tell who the murderer is even before the murder happens by seeing who is the best-known actor in the guest cast. Which is why I kind of like the one with Leslie Nielsen and Patrick McGoohan in it, because they are both definitely the sort of people who might easily play a murderer in Columbo, and therefore I think you're supposed to guess which one is about to do the other in (McGoohan, of course; he was in about three different Columbos, playing three different murderers, quite possibly because he was best mates with Peter Falk in real life...the one where he plays the commandant of one of those slightly ludicrous American military schools is possibly my second favourite Columbo...)

A Columbo/Seven crossover would be very interesting I think...yes...because I think they have definite similarities. I can just imagine McCoy and Falk sort of head to head. And then it turns out Columbo is really the Celestial Toymaker or something... No, sorry, still thinking about the Ashes to Ashes finale...

[lost_spook]

It's scaring me just reading that. Don't tell me Columbo plots! Half-remembered childhood nightmares are coming back to me... And, um, guessing the murderer? I know Columbo's the one where we see the murder and know who did it all the way through!

I did say I couldn't watch it, didn't I?

[jjpor]

Apologies for any trauma caused! Don't have nightmares!

When I say guessing the murderer, I mean in like the opening couple of minutes - as soon as you see, say, William Shatner, you go "look, it's William Shatner! I bet he's the murderer!" etc...

[lost_spook]

No, no, I'm okay. And I did ask the question. It was funny, I still can't remember why or what happened, but I started getting panicky reading the plot synopsis there, so evidently something about it must have freaked me out at a young age. :lol:

Just don't tell me any Columbo plot details again. ;-)

Oh, okay - you mean you're trying to guess in that short time? I am so lazy... Heh.

[jjpor]

I feel exactly the same way about the old Incredible Hulk telly series, fwiw - and I don't think that's been repeated any time in the past 20 years or so, but I just remember the way his eyes used to turn green...and then he turned into the Hulk...terrifying!

Oh, and Worzel Gummidge too. In fact, I don't think I ever actually _watched_ Worzel Gummidge - just the sight of Pertwee in scarecrow outfit in the picture they used to show before the adverts was scary enough to make me turn over.

And yet, a couple of years later, I thought stuff like the rat-eating in The Two Doctors was great. I was a strange child, in many ways...

Well, it's not so much guessing as being beaten over the head with the obvious - "look, it's that bloke out of that film - I bet he's the murderer!" etc... ;D

[pedanther]