365 Days of Columbo: January 20th

Lt. Columbo debuts onstage in Prescription: Murder

Before Peter Falk ever wore the raincoat on-screen, Columbo lived on the stage. On January 20, 1962, the play Prescription: Murder (by Richard Levinson and William Link) premiered at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre — with veteran character actor Thomas Mitchell playing a rumpled police detective named Lt. Columbo.

That stage production matters because it’s basically the character’s “prototype”: the essential idea is already there — a deceptively unassuming detective who’s happier asking questions than flashing a badge. When the story was adapted for television a few years later (the 1968 TV movie), Falk stepped into the role and started to develop the mannerisms, rhythms, and that wonderfully persistent charm that would define the series.

Columbo Cries Wolf premieres in the U.S.

Columbo Cries Wolf first aired in the United States on January 20, 1990, during the show’s late-run revival of feature-length “mystery movie” installments. It’s the one with a glossy, tabloid-sleek L.A. atmosphere: a men’s-magazine empire, a mansion full of models, and a killer who thinks he can out-produce reality itself.

Ian Buchanan plays Sean Brantley, a showman who turns deception into a business model — and then tries to apply the same instincts to murder. 

The Most Dangerous Match airs in France

January 20 also shows up on the international side of the Columbo timeline. The season-two episode TheMost Dangerous Match had a French broadcast date of January 20, 1974.

Laurence Harvey’s chess genius Emmett Clayton commits a crime of panic, and the show leans into the contrast between a killer who prides himself on strategy and a detective who wins through patience, observation, and the occasional “just one more thing.”

Happy birthday: Joe Boston 

Not every Columbo anniversary is about an actor in front of the camera. Joe Boston was born on January 20, 1936, and he has a Columbo credit as a second unit or assistant director on Any Old Port in a Storm (the beloved Donald Pleasence wine-collector episode).