The NBC Mystery Movie was a weekly series that debuted in 1971. Airing on Sunday nights, it rotated four ninety minute per episode TV shows, including Columbo. There was also a Wednesday night version for a while with different shows, and a reboot (confusingly, on ABC), but I’m going to focus on the original version.

Columbo’s first television incarnation was a standalone TV movie featuring Peter Falk. Called Prescription Murder, it was based on a stage play that had starred legendary character actor Thomas Mitchell. Columbo quickly became the breakout entry from the NBC Mystery Movie lineup and Falk became a star. Columbo and Falk would later return in the aforementioned ABC Mystery Movie reboot, followed by several TV movies, the last of which aired in 2003. (There was also a short lived “spinoff” called Mrs. Columbo, AKA Kate Loves a Mystery, but we don’t talk about that.)

The other NBC Mystery Movie series were McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver as a New Mexico police officer on loan to the NYPD (he rides his horse through the streets of New York city in the opening credits), and McMillan and Wife, starring Rock Hudson as the San Francisco Police Commissioner and Susan St. James as Wife, who helps him solve crimes. At the time, Rock Hudson was one of the few former movie stars who went on to have a successful TV show, while big names like Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda tried and failed.

There was also a fourth series, or rather a series of attempts at a fourth series, but none of them did well in the ratings. Hec Ramsey, starring Richard Boone as a circa 1900 Oklahoma lawman, lasted the longest, two seasons. Amy Prentiss, starring Jessica Walters as the first female Chief of Detectives in San Francisco (a young Helen Hunt played her daughter) lasted only three episodes. Figuring that viewers obviously liked series that started with “Mc”, the next try was McCoy, starring former movie star Tony Curtis as a conman/detective. It lasted one season. Quincy, ME had a far better fate: after four episodes the Jack Klugman show about a medical examiner was converted to a weekly series that ran for eight seasons. And finally, Lanigan’s Rabbi, starring Art Carney as a small town police chief in California who gets help solving crimes from his close friend, the local rabbi, lasted four episodes.

Here’s the opening of the NBC Mystery Movie in the first season: