Peter Falk in the context of "Gene Barry"

Columbo is an American crime drama television series starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. After two pilot episodes in 1968 and 1971, the show originally aired on NBC from 1971 to 1978 as one of the rotating programs of The NBC Mystery Movie. Columbo then aired on ABC as a rotating program on The ABC Mystery Movie from 1989 to 1990, and on a less frequent basis from 1990 to 2003.

Columbo is a shrewd and exceptionally observant homicide detective whose trademarks include his rumpled beige raincoat, unassuming demeanor, cigar, battered Peugeot 403 car, love of chili, and unseen wife (whom he mentions frequently). He often leaves a room only to return with the catchphrase "Just one more thing" to ask a critical question.

John Hill was an American screenwriter and television producer. He was originally from Prairie Village, Kansas.

He got his start in Hollywood when he penned the 1976 TV movie Griffin and Phoenix, starring Peter Falk and Jill Clayburgh. The original title was The fading away of Griffin and Phoenix. ABC thought that too morbid, so he had to change it. In 1980 his film Heartbeeps was released, starring Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters. He was also commissioned to novelize both scripts (the first appearing under the TV movie's original title, Griffin Loves Phoenix), exercising his contractual first-refusal right to do the prose adaptations himself; and years later, in personal conversation with a colleague who knew of the books, Hill confessed that he loved working on them because "they taught me how to be a novelist." They remain, however, his only published fiction. In 2007, Griffin and Phoenix would be remade as a feature film, screenplay also by Hill, starring Dermot Mulroney and Amanda Peet.