Comments on: The Facts of Life, The Facts of Life

By: Just Pete

Just Pete — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:07:00 +0000

As far as I’m aware, the part of Columbo was originally offered to Bing Crosby.

By: ann

ann — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:53:33 +0000

my newest detective ‘not-so-fun’ fact: the Nancy Drew game (*cough and blush*- no I’m not 12) takes up an astounding 0.97 gigs of space- that is 3 times more than my whole MS Word package. Bye bye Nancy

sorry if this posts twice; I too am having probs with the page just now

By: Troy Wood

Troy Wood — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:02:24 +0000

Here’s one more that’s too long for the fact generator, but still quite fun (especially if you don’t already know the answer):

The first recorded “locked room mysteries” was recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus, in the 5th century BCE.

A wealthy king named Rhampsinitus constructed a massive stone chamber next to his palace in which to safely hold all his riches. The chamber had only one door, which was sealed with wax, and guarded night and day by the king’s most trusted soldiers.

Nevertheless, the king was astonished to find that each morning his treasure pile was getting significantly smaller, yet the seals on the door remained intact and the guards reported seeing nobody.

With no clues as to the identity of the mysterious thieves, the frustrated king ordered that the floor of the chamber be lined with traps. The next morning, they returned to find the chamber still sealed, and inside– a single headless corpse, with no sign of the head!

(I should point out that I’m deliberately relating this story in the form of a mystery. Herodotus’ tale clearly states exactly how and why the robberies/murder are perpetrated, so it is therefore, not a true mystery.)

By: Troy Wood

Troy Wood — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:14:10 +0000

The first private detective agency was established in 1833, by Eugene Francois Vidocq, a former fugitive who used his extensive knowledge of the Parisian underworld to become a master criminologist.

Vidocq was a pioneer in the use of surveillance and disguise, ballistics, card-index record keeping, and was the first to use plaster-of-paris to take impressions of shoe prints.

By: Troy Wood

Troy Wood — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:26:33 +0000

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, first published in Graham’s Magazine in 1841, is widely regarded as the first true piece of detective fiction.

By: Emma

Emma — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:35:55 +0000

Not only did Sherlock Holmes never say “Elementary, my dear Watson”, the closest those two phrases (“Elementary” and “my dear Watson”, that is) get to each other in the books is about one very long paragraph.

Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler of Law & Order: SVU fame are named after Dick Wolf’s two children.

Sherlock Holmes is partially based off Dr. Joseph Bell, who was one of Conan Doyle’s professors at university.

Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ biographer and friend, is the narrator of nearly all of Holmes’ stories. Of the four that are not narrated by him, two are from a third-person point-of-view and two from the point-of-view of Holmes himself.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:33:23 +0000

I yield to Kym’s correction, and also apologize for the double post.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:40:05 +0000

Not actually a fact about a real/fictional detective but rather one about an author of detective fiction :

Anne Perry was born as Juliet Hume, and – at 16 yrs old – was co- convicted in the murder of her friend’s mother (The story is told in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures).

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:25:31 +0000

Oops! Frasier + Niles = 2 Cranes, so that should be BoyS… not the singular as above

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:21:37 +0000

An episode of Fraiser mentions the fact that Frasier and Niles wrote stories in their youth under the title ‘The Crane Boy Mysteries’.

Another tidbit about this episode is that it is titled ‘Deathtrap’ – I’m presuming this alludes to Ira Levin’s mystery play of the same name.