In today's Salon: Long before there was "Law and Order," a TV criminal defense attorney named Perry Mason brought high courtroom drama to the masses. [link] ... Watching them, you may be surprised at how gore-free they are -- virtually every murder takes place off-screen -- and how unafraid the writers were of boring us with complicated points of law. But there's a larger and subtler surprise: A show conceived in the Eisenhower era is, for all intents and purposes, a harbinger of 1960s counterculture, the kind of anti-law enforcement, pro-Bill of Rights template that Abbie Hoffman might have scripted.

I just saw Bones. Since Ellie was born, I always have such a hard time with shows with kids in them. I spend the whole time thinking about how the child's life will be totally screwed up and so on and get depressed about it. Still, I liked watching how each of the characters interacted with baby Andy.

On a much shallower note, Frisco has the same little bear outfit that Andy was wearing. We are so trendy.

Does he also have a purple elephant? Because that's wrong.

Phalanges!

t /never gets less funny

We actually do, although it's not the same one.

Interesting article on Perry Mason. I haven't seen the show in 30 years, but in my memory he's a millworker's kid who somehow got a law degree and decided (voluntarily or not) to use it more to serve justice than to make big bucks at a big firm.

And I wouldn't say Erle Stanley Gardner was a bad writer. He was a good genre and pulp writer at a time when genre and pulp writers didn't get respect. And had to churn out enormous volume to make a decent living.

Well, compared to dragnet, it's pretty lefty, but what isn't?

Was Dragnet rightie?

I ask because I listen to the ye olde timme radio Dragnet shows on npr each weekend. There is one episode that gets replayed regularly that is, hands down, the most compassionate, thoughtful treatment of heroin addiction I've ever encountered in pop media.

I'll have to go do some Jack Webb wikipedia-ing.

eta: I love this Webb trivia from imdb:

At the height of "Dragnet's" popularity, people would actually call the LAPD wanting to speak to Webb's character, Sgt. Joe Friday.

The Department eventually came up with a stock answer to the large volume of calls: "Sorry, it's Joe's day off."

Well, I thought so, the few times I'd seen one, but I am from a different time and to the left of most Americans, even so. I should keep that in mind. I didn't know that Perry Mason had such humble origins(the character, not the...brand, or whatever.)

Perry's been playing on local PBS in the evenings around here. Is it at all accurate that he'd do criminal law as well as consulting on contracts and all that?

And he strikes me as just a touch sleazy anymore. I do like Della, though, she had a lot more to do than I remember.