On this date in 1957 Perry Mason, starring Raymond Burr, premièred. It continued for 9 years becoming the longest running lawyer series ever to appear on TV. 10 things you didn’t know about Perry Mason.
The character was created by Erle Stanley Gardner, and before the TV series was the star of 82 novels and 4 short stories. Perry Mason made his literary debut in The Case of the Velvet Claws, which was published in 1933.
Erle Stanley Gardner started to study law at Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana, but was suspended after just one month for taking more interest in boxing than in his course work. He dropped out and went to California where he studied for the bar by himself and passed in 1911. He found legal practice boring, though, and turned to writing instead.
He tried acting as well, but only once. He played the judge in the final episode of the TV series, The Case of the Final Fade-Out.
The name Perry Mason came from a magazine publisher called Perry Mason and Company. Gardner subscribed to one of their magazines, Youth’s Companion, as a boy.
The actor most associated with the character is Raymond Burr. In fact, Burr holds records for playing the same character most often on screen. However, Burr originally auditioned to play prosecutor Hamilton Burger, but wasn’t successful. He went on to try for the lead role. He might have been unsuccessful there, too, had it not been for the fact that Gardner was sitting in on the auditions. He thought Burr was perfect for the part and insisted he got it.
Perry Mason ran for nine seasons, or 271 episodes. There were also 30 made for television films. It would take you ten days to watch all the TV episodes back to back, twelve days if you watch the movies as well.
There was a Radio show as well. The radio show first appeared in October 1943 and had a 3,200-episode run.
Most of the TV series was in black and white. There was only ever one episode broadcast in colour, and that was The Case Of The Twice Told Twist, about two thirds of the way through season 9.
Perry Mason did occasionally lose a case. There are three losses according to The Perry Mason TV Show Book: The Case of the Witless Witness; The Case of the Terrified Typist and The Case of the Deadly Verdict. Also, even though many of the cases featured suspects who were domestic servants, the butler never did it.
The Flintstones parodied Perry Mason and Hamilton Berger in their season 4 show Little Bamm-Bamm. They were opposing lawyers known as Perry Masonry and Bronto Berger.
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The Gingerbread Man
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I've been to Valparaiso, Indiana, once. Exactly once. To drop off a young lady after she went on a "double date" with my nephew, my husband, and me. That's my loose, tenuous connection to Erle Stanley Gardner, but I'm most fascinated by the factlet that actor Felicia Day wrote Perry Mason fan fiction when she was a child. That's always the first thing I think of when I think of Perry Mason. Cheers!
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