I would have had a telephone clue in The Most Crucial Game. Before Columbo plays the tape where the chimes are not heard, he tells Paul that he got the pay phone records for the phone near where the Ding-A-Ling Truck was spotted by the little boy. (Remember, Columbo found out Ding-A-Ling doesn't serve the area.) The call on the pay phone was of course made at the same time Hanlon claims he was talking to the victim. How could the victim (in the days before call waiting) be talking to two people at once? Hanlon claims he was talking in office. Columbo plays the tape - no chimes. I think this ending would have been stronger and more persuasive ending. I mean, Hanlon could say he just replaced the batteries in his clock, but the pay phone records would be most damaging.

Very very good John. And since this is one of those episodes that had a weak last clue...this would have been a great addition.
Just one small thingy..........that wasn't a little boy who spotted the ice cream truck in the neighborhood.....it was a very bratty snotty annoying little girl..who has been discussed on this forum before....she is such a twit!!!

I always thought that if there had been an earlier call on the same day where the chimes could be heard, that may have made the missing chimes on the call from the phone booth a more solid piece of evidence.

If the first call Hanlon made from the box had been made around 1:30, and the chimes were heard on the tape, the missing chimes from the 2:30 call would maybe be more convincing evidence. A clock probably wouldn't lose or gain much in an hour.

Some really great entries here involving small plot defects that could have been handled better. I was also refering to characters . . . Columbo's character is brought out by foils, usually the villain; however, he's also great when dealing with snooty butlers and sales clerks. Can anybody think of any missed opportunities on this score?

Speaking of butlers and sales clerks, the Lieutenant has a love/hate relationship with maids. They either hate him (Double Shock, Murder of a Rock Star) or love him (Sex and the Married Detective, It's All in the Game).

An insightful point. As I don't recollect specifically, is it that the maids who don't care for Columbo reflect the same snooty characteristics of their employers? Possibly the ones who love him see cops as "one of them"--underpaid workers who deserve more respect than they receive.

That's a good point. In Double Shock, the maid had a lot of respect for her deceased employer and hated Columbo, but the opposite in Murder of a Rock Star. The same is true to a lesser degree in Forgotten Lady and Dagger of the Mind (although those were butlers rather than maids).

The maids that liked Columbo the most were always of one type of ethnicity -- the Polish maid in Sex and the Married Detective and the Hispanic maid in It's All in the Game (isn't that Rosario from Will & Grace?).