In May 1966, the original "Perry Mason" series ended on CBS after 9 successful seasons. Seven years later, an ill-advised remake was produced by some of the people associated with the original series.
As a dweebie kid projected by his 1960s classmates to be the next Perry Mason, I loved the Raymond Burr reruns - on after school at 4 pm. So in the early 70s there was to be a new Perry Mason in the form of Monte Markham (a regular player on TV back then), I was excited.
This short-lived series premiered just seven years after the original "Perry Mason" television series went off the air in the spring of 1966 after nine seasons producing an astounding 206 episodes(all were in classic black and white by the way,with the exception of one episode that was telecast in color in February of 1966). However,"Perry Mason" remains one of the all time television greats,but after seven years later,why did CBS bring this show back?
They did make frequent TV movies of Perry Mason in the 80s and early 90s (until Raymond Burr died) and they were very successful even thought they were not part of a program "wheel" as were "McCloud", "Columbo", "McMillan and Wife", and such. They were successful because they starred the original Mason, Raymond Burr, and the original secretary Della, Barbara Hale, who had a tremendous screen chemistry between them.
I think that the New Perry mason TV show was very good I have 13 out 15 episodes of this series. I am looking for the following episodes the case of the ominous oath episode 3 and the case of the deadly deeds.
This is the first Perry Mason series I've seen (since I wasn't even born when the original Raymond Burr starrer appeared) and saw it in its entirety (at least what the local station showed). Monte Markham may be a great stage actor, but he never found success on TV and this is why.
