This episode of the television program "The Thin Man" shows a collection of coins and a discussion of fictional coins including a "Prince John Tuppence" and a "Teak Arrow." "The Thin Man" was a half-hour television program which ran on the ABC television network from 1957 to 1959. This episode is titled "Fatal Cliche" and was first broadcast on November 15, 1957. The story is about husband and wife detectives who solve a case of stolen rare coins and a murder.

Nick and Nora Charles are a sophisticated married couple living in a New York City apartment. Nick had been a detective and Nora an heiress before they married and Nick is now "retired."

The couple are visiting the Vandrey Modern Art Museum when businessman August Vandrey asks them to recover a rare coin collection stolen from a safe. Nick is "retired" until he meets the son Crane and Crane's beautiful fiancee Joan Dalt.

Nora tries to pull Nick away but they stay. August describes one of the stolen coins as a "Prince John Tuppence" (two pence), supposedly "a commemorative struck off in the year 1215 for the signing of the Magna Carta." August introduces his son Crane as the "real" coin collector and describes it as a "stupid hobby", "why not buttons, feathers?." August implies that he also disapproves of the son's "other hobbies", meaning the blonde girlfriend. Nick then goes to see a coin dealer for more information on the coin.

The dealer states that the Tuppence is extremely rare and would be hard to sell unless the seller took it to Europe and claimed that "it had been dug out of the ground." He estimates that the coin is worth $50,000, "a small piece of copper worth a big piece of change." Nick then visits a "stool pigeon" Angy who constantly uses cliches like "the early bird gets the worm."

Angy tells Nick that the thief might be a safe cracker named Brown who has come into some money. They visit Brown's apartment and find him shot dead with a lot of coins on the floor.

The coins appear to be standard movie prop coins. The police arrive along with Nora and the Vandreys, and after an inventory, find that whoever shot Brown took a coin, not the "Prince John dingus" but another coin, a "Teak Arrow", "a clean specimen from the Mariana Islands, nineteenth century, not worth more than ten dollars." The police detective tells the group that they are free to go "but nobody leaves town." Nick replies "There goes our trip to Mesopotamia" (now Iraq). Asta bites a coin on the table and runs off with it.

Nora follows Asta and recovers the coin, which is made of bone. The stolen teak coin is then found where the shooter dropped it. Nick learns that August has left all of his money to his museum and that his son will get nothing. He meets with Joan who tells him that she has broken up with the son and implies that she could become interested in Nick. He discovers that Joan knows nothing about coins except "coins in quantity", i.e. a golddigger. Nick tells Joan that he knows that she hired the safecracker and then after killing him, stole the wrong coin. Joan then pulls out a gun as Nora arrives to check up on her husband.

Nick uses the old ruse "the gun safety is on" to get the gun away from her. Back home, case solved, Nick and Nora are together.

Peter Lawford as Nick Charles
Phyllis Kirk as Nora Charles
Asta as Asta (The dog, a Wire Fox Terrier)
Morris Ankrum as August Vandrey
Penny Edwards as Joan Dalt
Percy Helton as Angy
Director: Robert B. Sinclair
Writers: Bruce Geller, Dean Riesner, Dwight Taylor
(Bruce Geller later created the television series "Mission Impossible")
The characters Nick and Nora Charles came from the 1934 book The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett,
but he is not listed in the television program credits.