ZBC Mystery Movie, (Peter Fox as Columbo)

One of Nick and Judy’s earliest role was in the umbrella show “The ZBC Mystery Movie” which they were the detective show Nick Wilde and Wife. (What a typical 70s title, right?)

Turns out the stand out hit show that outlasted it was Columbo starring Peter Fox. He played that role all the way into 2003.

I believe this was recorded from a later rebroadcast but not sure.

“The ZBC Mystery Movie was a “wheel show”, or “umbrella program” that rotated several programs within the same time period throughout the season. For its initial 1971–72 season, it featured a rotation of three detective dramas that were broadcast on Wednesday nights for 90 minutes, from 8:30–10:00 p.m. in the Savannah Time Zone.”


Ok, this parody is a bit esoteric and as one roommate said “Nice! Nobody under 50 is going to get this”

What inspired this was looking at the wonderful art by  Kosmo Wolf Fox’s  where he is taking old Columbo episodes and redoing bits as a Don Bluth-esque character, Peter Fox.

You can see that stuff here:

His main Twitter is:

Also this was an excuse to learn After Effects and I’ve got to thank Sylys Sable for donating a copy to me. He’s my executive producer and I appreciate his criticism during this editing even if I don’t always agree.  We are pedantic about different things and that is probably a good thing.


Also here is a bit of making of notes.   To replicate the look It helped to pay attention to how the original was made.   Being it was film and all the layers were done on an optical printer the first step was to make this at 24 FPS.  Film Grain and  varying amounts of gate weave was added separately to each layer to keep the right feel.    Each layer wobbles randomly just as the film would not be perfectly held when the images were projected on to it. It would be more than a decade before really accurate optical printers would make special effects become more accurate.

The ad’s at the start were produced at 29.976 fps to keep the look of video.   All of this was pushed though a VCR to not only give it a constant frame rate but to get the right look of analog tape.

For the whole Making off I also posted a side by side comparison from the original:

 

(Yes, I’m a very pedantic video nerd)