How about in Identity Crisis when Colombo couldn't stop looking at the belly dancer in the restaurant? I thought that was cute.

Thanks for the topic Mark - the forum has been kind of dead lately.

Cringing moments for me have to do with Columbo's driving - for example:

In Make Me a Perfect Murder he has a fairly bad car accident

In the Bye Bye Sky High Murder we see him pull away from the house only to see a car fishtailing and doing a 180 to keep from hitting him

During Negative Reaction he almost gets into an accident with the DMV guy (Mr. Weekly) in the car. Of course Weekly decides to walk the last 7 or 8 blocks back to the office.

IN Ashes to Ashes when he first spots Verity Chandlers house, he slams on the brakes and we see a car going around him, horn blaring, at top speed (very very funny).

In Columbo Goes to College he drives his car into the wall in the underground parking garage.

I think he hits the back of a patrol car in one episode also.

I WOULD NOT ENJOY DRIVING WITH COLUMBO.

In Swan Song, where they are discussing Tommy Brown's affair with May Ann when she was 16. Then , later in the episode Tommy Brown appears to be hitting on another underage girl he is giving lessons to.

I just finished watching "Troubled Waters," again, and I really thought that the conversation between Colombo and his wife on the telephone was very cute. When he couldn't find her at the beginning of the cruise.

Also in "Exercise in Fatality" when Colombo is talking to his wife at 6:30 in the morning about what they are gonna feed their company. He tells her, "you can keep on talking, but I'm going to hang up." That was cute.

I forgot where it's from. Columbo is asking about a piece of modern art on the wall, but it's actually ventilation grill or something. Cute!

Stephen,

That scene in the art gallery was from "Playback". It starred Gena Rowlands.

I was going to mention that scene in "Playback" too because to me it shows the key difference between a good scene and a cringeworthy scene. If Columbo does something like that while interviewing a suspect, then we can smile and chalk up that moment of ignorance to the brilliant detective fooling the suspect and trying to make him at ease by thinking that Columbo isn't so bright. But when Columbo does that in front of someone who isn't a suspect and who Columbo certainly *knows* is not a suspect, then that means the scene is shtick that's likely been concocted as a time-filler moment. The long, meandering scene of Columbo getting fitted for a jacket in "Candidate For Crime" also falls in this category because Columbo should have enough sense when to just get to the point with someone he doesn't need to go through the routine with.

I remembered another episode that might have crossed the fine line. In "Agenda for Murder," Columbo offers two jokes to Oscar Finch, one an Irish and one Jewish. Oscar doesn't want the Irish joke and settles for the Jewish joke. Me, on the other hand, being Jewish would take the Irish joke. Either way, one of us would be offended. I didn't understand the Jewish joke.

It's a tiny "choice of words" kind of moment, and it isn't even about Columbo himself, but there's Karl Lessing's line "I'm your hairy teddy bear."
I know it's a little like semantics, but something like "fuzzy teddy bear" would be another matter. Whereas "hairy teddy bear" just sounds a little weird.

I've said this half a dozen times, but there's the scene where Columbo tells Cathy that Ken Nichols wanted a bribe to leave her. No matter how honest a person Gloria West is, it's something like third-hand information - Gloria heard it from Tony, who supposedly heard it from Ken, but who knows.

For cringe, it's hard to beat Columbo's old-school way of flirting with little girls or young teens. Like in "Bye Bye Sky High IQ" when he tells Caroline "You're a remarkably pretty girl" and she happily tells him this is the first time someone complimented her on her body instead of her mind. Or in "Etude In Black" when Columbo somewhat creepily shows up in his dirty raincoat to watch a little girls' ballet class, and when he compliments Audrey she asks if he's referring to her mind or her body and he (jokingly) says "Both." Of course I get that this was all innocent, but it's not the sort of thing people would just overlook today.

Another scene in "Identity Crisis" is when Nelson Brenner gives the bear Archibald to a little girl who is standing alone at one of the booths at the fair. That would draw red flags today. Things were different in the 1970's.

I'm drawing a complete blank as to which episode this was, but in one episode Columbo sends a dozen red roses to the suspect. And I think in the same episode she buys him a tie. Could that be Vivian Dimitri? Anyway that's skating on the line of almost cheating.

Fred, you're thinking of "It's All In The Game" with Faye Dunaway as Lauren Stanton. I had forgotten the flowers, but she's the one who bought him a new tie.

Without a doubt my most cringe worthy line I think Columbo ever delivered was in "A Trace of Murder"

It actually makes me wince every time I hear it.

That line is:

"Officer, locate that cat. That cat maybe the only witness to this terrible crime"

Also, take your pick from about a dozen moments in Grand Deceptions ranging from the most unrealistic relationship between two people, the absolutely awful scene at the funeral with the least subtle intelligence officer of all time and the whole thing with the boxes.

The tuba scene in Sex and the Married Detective tries to be cute, but for me it may be the cringiest.

I never get the "Etude In Black" criticism for one reason. When he says "Both" to Audrey's question, he says it in that really nervous way, as if to say "What are you trying to do to me with that question?!"
Then he actually does say something like that, like "Give me a break, will you?"
So in a funny way HE'S the one who's cringing.

There is another horrible cringe moment from (I think) Sex and the Married Detective. Columbo goes to a bartender school to interview somebody and all of the students are required to wear green bowties or vests for some reason (it was so awful I blacked out the details). While Columbo interviews the instructor, the bartending students just stand there and shake their drink mixers, as if that's something that needs to be practiced.

Also, in Columbo Likes the Nightlife, Columbo stops the music and puts the lights up at the discotheque. The "extras" just stand around patiently. I know it's a network made-for-tv movie, but perhaps they could have set the scene during the daytime to avoid that. It looked silly.

I honestly love the "newer" episodes (from '89 to 2003) way more than most people, but you have to overlook a lot of silliness like the tuba and bartender scenes sometimes to get to the good parts.

The conversation with the undertaker in "Swan Song". Columbo is trying to be as respectful as possible without cutting the chat short. Finally Scotti has to give in and says "You're a hard sell, Lieutenant, huh? Well, I'm sorry."

Even though it's a nearly-perfect episode, there's one moment of Negative Reaction that I have a funny feeling about. It's when he "accidentally" slips that ransom photo of Frances tied to the chair in with those others. He calls it a "perfectly good picture." I know he means "good" in a TECHNICAL way, but it's a strange thing to say to Galesco, since it's a long while before he starts accusing him of murdering Frances.

I've always had a big problem with that photo scene in Negative Reaction. Galesko is supposed to be grieving his wife's murder and he is casually shown a picture of her tied up before she was killed. Whoopsie! How did THAT get in there.

Consider that this is AFTER Columbo interrupted her funeral service by clumsily taking a bunch of pictures at awkward moments.

We know that Galesko didn't love Frances and murdered her, but Columbo is supposed to act like Galesko is grieving. And by disrupting the funeral he disrespected every other person who actually did love her.

That said, it truly is a great episode. Dick Van **** is a surprisingly good villain. Having Joanna Cameron didn't hurt either.

It should have made everybody cringe at the fact he was so attracted to Miss McGrath before nd after the murder. Most men who just lost their wives would be in a horrible space; not Galesko - off to the Philippines he goes with the young sexy Miss McGrath.