Q: I don’t recall Steve Martin doing a series before “Only Murders in the Building.” Did he? – Jerry Heller, via e-mail

A: Yes, but you have to reach back quite a way for it – like, almost 50 years. Martin was a regular cast member on “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour,” playing a variety of characters in skits from week to week. The same applied to his work on “The Ken Berry ‘Wow’ Show” around the same time; Martin also was a writer on both programs. Those were Martin’s two stints as an ongoing television performer before Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” unless you count his recurring appearances on “Saturday Night Live.” He’s also done a relative handful of guest shots on series including “The Tracey Ullman Show,” “The Simpsons” (in voice only, of course) and “30 Rock.” He also had a role in the much-praised 1993 HBO film “And the Band Played On.”

Q: What was the name of the very first “Columbo” mystery? – Sean Graves, Norman, Okla.

A: Even some of those who think they’re really up on the character might be surprised. Technically, it was a 1962 episode of “The Chevy Mystery Show” in which character actor Bert Freed played the police detective. That was turned into a stage play called “Prescription: Murder,” with Thomas Mitchell (Scarlett O’Hara’s father in “Gone With the Wind”) inheriting the Columbo role. That then became a 1968 TV-movie marking Peter Falk’s debut as Columbo, though some of the character’s later trademarks were missing (the disheveled look, the folksy behavior, etc.).

It took one more Falk movie to sell “Columbo” as an ongoing franchise, 1971’s “Ransom for a Dead Man,” in which the sleuth investigated a lawyer (played by Lee Grant) who had killed her husband. The following fall, “Columbo” became one of the rotating elements of “The NBC Mystery Movie,” with the first episode-proper generated by a couple of notable talents: director Steven Spielberg and writer Steven Bochco.