NBC’s “Mystery Movie” Turns 40: William Link on the Best and Worst of “Columbo”

This is just one part of a fascinating, four-and-a-half hour interview with Columbo co-creator William Link, conducted in 2002 by Stephen J. Abramson for the Archive of American Television. In this clip, Link talks about why Columbo wasn’t a weekly series, some of the show’s guest performers, a few of its directors (including a young Steven Spielberg), a number of the program’s signature elements, and several of his favorite Columbo clues and least favorite episodes from that long-running series. The entire interview can be found here.

READ MORE: “How We Created Columbo--and How He Nearly Killed Us,” by Richard Levinson and William Link (The Ultimate
Columbo Site).