This Old Man

December 15, 2023 8:00 PM

What if COLUMBO and DOCTOR WHO had a crossover? [8:50]

The Elmer McCurdy story is real, and not a plot from the Six Million Dollar Man. Wikipedia has the details. (CW: Includes a photo of the fresh version of McCurdy's corpse.)

Joel J Artist is an artist with a handful of YouTube videos, mostly about art.

The McCurdy story was a FPP previously.

posted by ChurchHatesTucker (13 comments total)

Nice find!
posted by JHarris at 9:02 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is very well conceived, thanks!
The Constant has an excellent podcast episode on the topic of McCurdy.
posted by meinvt at 9:32 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Score one for the YouTube algorithm. This video had a few hundred views as of my posting, and Joel had a few dozen subscribers, but this was right in my wheelhouse.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:32 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

That was fun to imagine ... While we're thinking about great 70s TV SF/F + mysteries, I wonder what if KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER and LA BRIGADE DES MALÉFICES had a crossover? America's hard-boiled reporter Carl Kolchak stumbles into the supernatural again and teams up with France's Martin Paumier, "Sherlock Holmes de la féerie, Maigret de la sorcellerie moderne." The Kolchak TV movies from 1972 and 1973 line up best with La Brigade des maléfices's first episode from Aug. 1971 and its last episode from Sept. 1971. IIRC, Paumier is available after that too, but Kolchak first encounters the supernatural in Jan. 1972 and leaves Las Vegas with no job. By Jan. 1973, he works for a newspaper in Seattle. Is there an odd event near Paris then that Kolchak could be sent to cover? It's not his usual beat, but if he lucks into an arts & culture assignment, there's the Rothschild Surrealist Ball in Dec. 1972 with costumes by Salvador Dalí! That'd look good on camera and basically fits Paumier's kind of weird. Of course, it turns out to involve occult activity, Kolchak goes to the police, someone sends him to Paumier who greets him in a caftan while his African gray parrot grabs his straw hat, etc., etc.--and voilà, Kolchak: The Night Strangers. I guess a further crossover with Columbo and/or Dr. Who doesn't work, because they're all about figuring things out non-magically.
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:50 PM on December 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

Didn't this movie already happen?
posted by praemunire at 12:18 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, apparently Columbo, Kolchak, and Doctor Who are all set in the same universe:

• Columbo's 1972 episode "The Most Crucial Game" has a crossover with the movie Airport: "There is a P.A. announcement regarding Trans Global at the airport."
• The Rockford Files' 1974 episode "This Case is Closed" also has a crossover with Airport: "An airport PA directs passengers to the Trans Global Airlines service counter."
• The Rockford Files' 1980 series finale "Deadlock in Parma" has a crossover with Kolchak: The Night Stalker: "Carrie Osgood worked for the same fictitious newspaper as Carl Kolchak on Kolchak: The Night Stalker series."
• Kolchak: The Night Stalker actually has an abundance of crossovers that reach Doctor Who, albeit generally in print sources: there's some novel with a direct connection to Doctor Who; there are multiple connections to Sherlock Holmes, who is part of the Doctor Who universe; there's some crossover with the Hulk who is part of the Marvel Comics universe where Doctor Who is part of the Marvel Multiverse too thanks to years of Doctor Who comics from Marvel; and supposedly there's some crossover with Star Trek, where Doctor Who has also crossed over with Star Trek, at least in a comic

So maybe having them meet isn't too strange.
posted by Wobbuffet at 1:55 AM on December 16, 2023 [8 favorites]

Side note, did not know Matthew Rhys was in a Columbo!
posted by pjenks at 6:03 AM on December 16, 2023

I want to see a crossover with Capaldi as Who vs Capaldi as Malcolm. Timey wimey f@#kity bye
posted by zaixfeep at 7:17 AM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Columbwho?
posted by a humble nudibranch at 8:48 AM on December 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Peter Falk used his own raincoat in the series.
posted by DJZouke at 12:55 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love this line from the Wikipedia article:
"McCurdy decided to incorporate his training with nitroglycerin into his robberies. This often caused problems as he was overzealous..."
posted by doctornemo at 2:52 PM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thrilled to have an excuse to post Brian Dewan’s 1993 song “The Cowboy Outlaw,” which tells a fictional story based on Elmer McCurdy’s.

And the teeenage boys did holler
And the teenage girls did faint
When they saw the bone protruding
From the varnish and the paint
posted by ejs at 8:33 PM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've been watching a lot of Columbo lately, and its always fun seeing the random people that pop in, I've caught Vincent Price, Martin Sheen, Jessica Walter, and of course an evil Dick Van Dyke.

Kolchak, Columbo and Rockford being in the same universe just makes sense.
posted by lkc at 3:34 PM on December 18, 2023 [2 favorites]