Columbo

While Columbo is in the car with the corpse looking for evidence, the corpse is in the foreground. During the entire search you can see the guy is breathing.

saying he doesn't speak italian isn't neccesarily a goof. after all, you'd be surprised what people will say about you/ in front of you if they think you don't understand. a man as intelligent as columbo would certainly know enough to use that to his advantage.

In the previous show "Death Hits The Jackpot" Columbo can speak fluent Italian but, in this show he says he doesn't know Italian.

During the opening credits, camera cranes up, water fountain in the foreground, building in the background. The water in the fountain is flowing in reverse.

The football teams are Canadian from the CFL: the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Edmonton Eskimos.

The woman who was an accomplice after the fact, said she didn't know if the murderer had done it when she heard that the rock star was dead. How could she have been driving in his car with a mask of him on at the moment of the crime and not know he was murdering her, or at least committing an improper act.

About 26 minutes into the episode, when Mavis runs out to greet Wayne, a large boom microphone is clearly visible bobbing above their heads.

The arrest warrant that Columbo hands to Oscar Finch reads: The People of the State of OSCAR FINCH (Plaintiff) vs STATE OF CALIFORNIA (Defendant).

The musical instructor tells the children that his instrument is a "tuba". Although that is technically true, it is really a Sousaphone -- an instrument created by J. W. Pepper at the request of "March King" John Philip Sousa. The instrument that Columbo plays, on the other hand, is a traditional tuba.

When Columbo does his analysis of the two sodas, one is full and the other half full. Columbo then leaves and Bradey returns to the fountain to dump the sodas in the sink. They are now completely empty with only a slight chocolate residue in them. Of particular interest is the fact that it is all one shot, which means the glasses were replaced while Columbo and Bradey are at the door. The originals were likely replaced with breakaway (sugar) glass to avoid possible injury to Fisher Stevens when they shatter.

Trivia: This episode contains a true rarity--a clear shot of Columbo's face as he reacts to the sight of an extremely grisly homicide. As befits a veteran officer, his reaction is restrained, but he does react.

Columbo secretly tapes his conversation with Dr. Mason, hoping to pick up the "kill" command. The conversation leads to the movie Citizen Kane and Dr. Mason, with relish, pronounces Kane's dying word, "Rosebud". At the end of the episode, when Columbo plays the tape for Mason, his pronunciation of the word "Rosebud" is distinctly different.

Although Dr. Mason's gate is said to be the original gate from the movie Citizen Kane, with the exception of the "K", it only vaguely resembles it. If you watch the movie Citizen Kane, you will notice that the real gate is much heavier wrought iron, and exceedingly more ornate.

At approximately 5:17 in the episode there is a scene of Kay (Trish Van Devere) in the bathroom wearing only a shirt. We are looking at her legs. As she moves, the shirt rides up and there have clearly been several frames cut from the film where perhaps too much of her buttocks were revealed (well, too much for prime time 1978, anyway).

when Kay Freestone is alone in lift after seeing gun on roof, she uses bent metal rod to pull gun over edge. while gun is balancing on edge camera shots swap from Kay to gun and every time gun is in different place.

When Columbo shows Paul Gerard Vittorio's appointment book, you can see that the exclamation marks near "M.Choy & M.Duvall" have been added in pencil, the rest of the entry being in ink. There appears to be a small exclamation mark beside "Duvall" in ink that was edged in, but it's not very clear, which probably led to the pencil additions.

Food critic Paul Gerard tells Columbo that Mary Choy owns "The House of Choy." But the sign on her restaurant reads, House of Shanghai. MaureenAbato

The programmable Accutrac 2000 turntable used in the murder plot was the first example of a brand new and important technology. As an arm scanned the width of the record, an infrared light beam was bounced off the surface and the returning light intensity was read. The turntable was thereby able to measure and store the location and width of each individual track, allowing the user to play only those tracks he wished to hear. This technology would eventually become the method by which vast amounts of digital information could be read using a reflected laser beam, leading to laser discs, CD's, CD-ROM's and ultimately, DVD's.

At the end, Ruth confesses to the murder, in order to avoid having it brought out that she had previously murdered Janie's father. She doesn't want Janie hurt by this knowledge. Yet this woman arranged her brother's murder so that, if the police didn't go for the burglary theory, suspicion would fall on Janie.