I like the extended news broadcast before and after the show . . . more on that later.

Maybe real cops don\'t follow \"type\" at all, but I\'m sorry . . . the voice of Howie the Cop just didn\'t work for me. He sounded like a shoe salesman, or a piano teacher, or a Quaker pastor. (My appologies to all salesmen, teachers and pastors.) He sounded like, in a room of a hundred people, the gentlest soul in the whole group. But then again, Columbo isn\'t your typical hard-nosed cop either.

The news and commercials were very good, and today I miss the public service announcements so common back then; I guess these days radio stations don\'t have to do them and we, the public, don\'t need them. ???

But I almost choked on my coffee at the beginning! Right after E.G.\'s intro and before Act I we get the commercials. An ad for Miller beer which was pretty typical at the time; followed by a short-story Public Service announcement. Poor boy begging for food (won\'t you help him?) and then this; \"George W. is an alcoholic, but wishes he wasn\'t.\"

I know that I shouldn\'t spend so much time on commercials, when RMT stories really are the main thing here; and I shouldn\'t get political . . . but gawd I found that funny!