Columbo

* Reruns, including the TV-movies, aired on The Family Channel and Fox Family (now ABC Family) from 1994 through 2000 and currently air on the Hallmark Channel.

* Columbo creators Levinson and Link claimed that Columbo was partially inspired by the Crime and Punishment character, Porfiry Petrovich, as well as G.K. Chesterton's humble clerical detective Father Brown. Other sources claim Columbo's character is based on Inspector Fichet from the classic French suspense-thriller Les Diaboliques (1955).

* Columbo's wardrobe was provided by Peter Falk himself. They were his own clothes. The original trenchcoat has been donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

* Columbo's battered car is a 1959 Peugeot 403 convertible, which Falk selected personally from the studio's inventory. When Columbo boasts that it's a rare automobile, he isn't lying: only about 500 of them were built as two-door convertibles instead of four-door hardtops, and the car is one of only two of this model in the US. (In "Identity Crisis", Columbo tells the murderer that his is one of only three in the country.)

* Peter Falk would often ad-lib "Columbo-isms" (fumbling through pockets for a piece of evidence and discovering a grocery list, asking to borrow a pencil, becoming distracted by something irrelevant in the room, et cetera) into his performance as a way to keep his fellow actors off-balance. He felt it helped to make their characters' confused/impatient reactions to Columbo's antics more genuine.

* The character of Robert Goren (a knowledgeable and detail-obsessed man who intentionally comes off as distant and oblivious to suspects) from the NBC program Law & Order: Criminal Intent, is partially inspired by Columbo. Other television detective characters that were possibly inspired by Columbo include the neurotic Adrian Monk (from Monk) and the street-savvy but irresponsible Shawn Spencer (from Psych).

* The children's educational show Sesame Street featured a sheep detective named "Colambo".

* Columbo has been parodied twice by The Simpsons. In "Simpson Tide", Homer Simpson attempts to do a Columbo impression, which consists simply of saying "one more thing" in a gruff accent repeatedly. On a different episode, Chief Wiggum attempts to defend his position as a police officer by saying that he was "able to solve an episode of Columbo". On being told that they show who committed the crime at the start of the episode, Wiggum replies "Yeah, but you have to remember."

* "The Columbo Effect" is a term used by British doctors for a (usually male) patient's habit of finally stating what really worries them just as they are about to leave, in the manner of Columbo's interviewing technique.