then it is all cool andrew
obviously we are all entitled to our opinions...and forums like this one are the places where we can express them.
and of course all these silly things have nothing to do with the show itself...the quality of writing and acting and direction and production is why we love the show so much..but all these little things are fun to mull over sometimes.

i had a thought on columbo's first name, in columbo goes to the guillotine, when he walks into max dysons studio. he speaks to a cop who's wife just had a kid, and says harry thats some terrific name for a baby.. could he be a harry columbo ??

Sorry to throw another spanner in the works but I believed that 'Frank' was made up by some man who had a copyright on trivia questions - and then used it as evidence when the makers of 'Trivial Pursuit' nabbed it as a question? He used it (and a few other questions) to prove that they were plagairised.
Or was it all a dream? Discuss!

Yes, it was "Philip" that was the name at the centre/center of the board game court case.

Your close sarah but the name used was philip. The biggest problem I have with this 1st name debate is when people say IT IS frank. Like Cass said it's just an opinion.

If people want to believe it's Frank cause a prop says it is thats fine. Just don't go round telling people IT IS Frank.

As for erasing all images that have a name that looks like frank would be pointless in my opinion. Its only on screen for a short time.

Inspector Morse's name wasn't revealed until the very end. Maybe columbo will go the same way.

FRANKly, I've had my PHILLIP of this recurring issue.

mercurior said...
"i had a thought on columbo's first name, in columbo goes to the guillotine, when he walks into max dysons studio. he speaks to a cop who's wife just had a kid, and says harry thats some terrific name for a baby.. could he be a harry columbo ??"

i never saw 'columbo goes to the guillotine' so i hadn't known about this line.
in the movie 'mikey & nicky',costarring peter and john cassavetes, there is a scene where mikey(peter) is talking to his wife on the phone about their son 'harry'. when mikey gets off the phone nicky(cassavetes)teases mikey about the child's name and makes a stupid joke comparing the name harry to hairy.
(why am i telling you this??? i don't know!! )

Harry is another form of Henry...
Henry VIII behead quite a few people in his time, albeit not by means of the guillotine.
Still, it makes you think that as the episode in question is centred around a beheading, maybe Columbo was making a loose reference to Henry VIII?

Who knows?

andrew, i knew that about the henry/harry correlation..i'm a bit of a shakespeare freak! ...and that very well could be.
but i will just add another bizarre reference to peter and the name 'harry'....
in the movie 'husbands' which starred peter, and john cassavetes and also ben gazzara..jc asked peter and ben to choose their names for their characters. gazzara picked 'harry'(in a little salute to the owner of a bar he frequented)

and then for some unknown reason peter picked the name archie..he just liked the name. now if we really make a stretch here, we could say that that is why nelson brenner of 'identity crisis' dubs the name of the huge stuffed bear he wins at the amusenment park 'archibald'!!

again..useless information...but i just can't help myself!!!

ok...sorry...i have officially gone insane!!

c crisp said...
"...in Wikipedia ("the free encyclopedia")they show a video capture from the same episode which looks (suspiciously, to me) crystal-clear, and sho' nuff their conclusion is that the case is "solved" - his first name is most assuredly Frank."

well, as i had pointed out, anyone can edit wikipedia information...and our own beloved welshdragon has done just that...check out wikipedia now..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbo#First_name

Sorry to bring this up again. I know how people feel about this subject Its a radio interview with Mark Dawidziak. Columbo's first name is discussed at 11mins 30secs into the interview

Dawidziak Radio Interview

you're not sorry welshie!!

yup, pretty darn good explanation there!
(i just want to point out that, yes it does appear at the time you say, and i'll just add that it is in segment 3)

thanks for posting this interview. it was cool.

Sorry, I thought the link would take you straight to the interview. heres one you can copy and paste instead

http://www.worldtalkradio.com/playlistTNG.asp?SegmentID=3783

Might as well settle this.

I have never put this on the site, but I have a scan of Columbo's real, TV ID from the "new" (1980-present) series, smuggled out of Universal by an inside source.

See and believe:

come on ted.....you don't really believe that, do you?

Interesting that his face is so "Pink" in that photo!

I especially like the horrible ID photo -- it shows that, even though nobody expected (even in 1980) that viewers would get such a close look at the ID, somebody was witty enough to give Columbo a classically awful-looking ID photo, like the worst drivers-license picture ever taken. Columbo looks like he just dragged himself in from a 3-night stakeout, and on top of that, as you say, they gave it really bad coloration.

The ID cards might not be official canon on issues like Columbo's name, but clearly somebody is having great fun with the props.

This thread reminds me of Malcolm 'it's just Lovejoy' Lovejoy (Lovejoy tv series)

OK, I know this has been overdiscussed and that people are sick of it. But I just accidentally tripped into this thread while searching for something else and wanted to add some thoughts for the record:

(1) If Columbo's first name were Frank, I would be happy with that. It fits.

(2) I understand and appreciate the point that the show's creators, writers, and Falk himself never gave Columbo a first name and wanted to keep it unknown, and so the ID card was not intended to establish a name. I agree with that logic, except...

(3) You can also argue that intended by the writers or not, the fact remains that the ID card *is there* in the episode. We can speculate all day as to who intended what and whether that was a prop guy's decision and whether the director should have vetoed it if no name was intended to be established...but at the end of the day all we have to go by is what is actually there in the episodes themselves. It doesn't matter what the painter intended to paint or not to paint--all that matters is what ended up on the canvas. So rogue prop-guy or not, a name did get established in an episode. I can certainly see the point that there is no higher authority on "Columbo canon" than the actual content of the episodes, as that *is* Columbo.

(4) I picked up on the Harry thing in Columbo Goes to the Guillotine, too. When the episode first aired on TV (and I was much younger), I felt *certain* they were dropping a hint that Columbo's own name was Harry. He seemed to deliver the line with a (metaphorical) wink. But upon rewatching it now, it doesn't seem as dramatic as I remembered. Cass points out tht it might well be an in-joke, but as a reference to Falk's other non-Columbo work.

(5) FLOYD??? NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!