The Dovid just made my day with this little tidbit: “The character of Columbo was created by Richard Levinson and William Link, who claimed that Columbo was partially inspired by the Crime and Punishment character, Porfiry Petrovich”. Here are The Dovid’s insights as to the connections:
1. The show always begins with the murder. You get to see exactly how it’s done. So the mystery isn’t “whodunnit?” or even how they did it. It’s just the thrill of watching the cat and mouse game.
2. Because the entire beginning of a given episode is just setting up the motivation for the murder and showing the murder itself, the viewer has a long time “alone” with the murderer. The viewer almost sympathizes with the murderer’s motivation, and gets investested in the success of the crime. Then it’s all thrown off balance when columbo enters the story (about a quarter through the show already) and becomes the prtagonist again. The viewer isn’t quite sure who to identify with.
3. Columbo is very friendly with the suspects, and often shows interrest in their lives and what they do. He’ll eat lunch with the suspect or just hang out at work with the suspect, admiring his talents, asking him all about his field of expertise and being very impressed. This is definately a Porfiry Petrovitch influence.
Other connections will make my day, and the days of the few other people in the world with my love for all things Crime and Punishment (all things, that is, except the Epilogue; Damn you, Dostoevksy, for letting Raskolnikov go soft!).
7 Comments
my philosophy of religion teacher told us this last week. i was the only person in my class who knew who colombo was. and when i said “the grandpa in the princess bride,” only one person knew what that meant…my generation is sad
And to think, it all started with a “Bill Cosby: Himself” video…you’re welcome.
I’m pretty sure “Crime and Punishment” is the only book I ever read all the way through, so I like to milk it for all the intelligent conversation it’s worth.
Looking back on it now, I sure picked a long book to be the only one I actually read. I totally should have gone with “Of Mice and Men.”
why not “Old Man and the Sea”?
I don’t know what either of them are about, but I know i find mice a whole lot cooler than old men.
that’s only because you haven’t read it. old man and the sea is great. especially when your english teacher lets you write a terrible poop song about it instead of writing a paper….oooh highschool
POOP SONG?!?! Can we get an MP3 of that?
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