I must confess, I’m very easily amused. For instance, I’m rewatching the Columbo series on Netflix for perhaps the fifth time since I first got the video streaming service last year. Among the things that amuse me are the peculiar habits of Peter Falk‘s character, as they evolved over the life of the series, the increasingly goofy things he did with his raincoat, cigars, car, and other icons of the fictional detective, including that poor basset hound they could never get around to choosing a name for. It became a trope for the script to mention Columbo’s wife in passing, but never showed her face (spinoff notwithstanding).

If I were to create a drinking game for this series, I’d certainly prompt the watcher to keep track of how many times a particular prop was used. Not so much items like the ill-used and much abused Peugeot that Columbo was fondly attached to, but rather inane objects such as a telephone, or a magnetic tape recorder. The latter could be seen in a secretary’s desk drawer one episode, and then propped up on its side and part of a box full of blinky lights to simulate a computer the next. The more of these recycled props I find, the more amusing it gets. And you could always tell when they were pressed for new and exotic locations; having been produced by Universal Studios near L.A., they’d often use the attached theme park. One time, they filmed near the Jaws pool, usually part of the movie studio tour ride.

But I have to say that the thing that never fails to garner a giggle out of me is the number of times they used the same old doorbell sound. I imagine, perhaps not accurately, that they paid a small fee for this sound effect, and used the hell out of it. It was featured heavily in the first season, whenever they needed a doorbell sound. They always used it in a setting in which there was an expensive home, whenever there were rich and/or famous people about. It was very distinctive, with three tones, almost akin to a pipe organ with three large gong-y metal tubes. There was one particularly obnoxious episode in which they played the sound over and over for over a minute, with video of a girl freaking out superimposed over another video of a camera quickly zooming in and out of visual range of the device. I always have to play that particular scene several times, just because I’ve laughed too hard upon initial viewing to pay attention to whatever else is going on.

They got, erm, smart in the second season, and while they continued using the obnoxiously loud and overplayed doorbell sound, they would only use one or two of the three tones, muting the unused ones, trying to creatively recycle the sound effect without appearing to do so. Ahh, the 70s. lol The tri-tone doorbell sound is rarely used after that, though it still has its uses in occasional episodes later on.

I’m writing about it because I’m watching a dreary episode in which I’d forgotten the doorbell sound was used again. I’m always reminded it’s there as the music swells during a particularly intense early scene. The established three tones create a major chord, starting at the top and working its way down. This particular song features a gong-like tone, in the same key as the doorbell’s first note. While it isn’t the actual doorbell sound, hearing that gong makes me sing to myself the other two notes that make up that chord.

I can’t find a compilation of this sound in use during the series on YouTube. I keep thinking I should remedy that sometime.

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