The case of the slipaway sidebar
A stray bit of code will push it to the bottom of the page.
Drake Lives
A Paul Drake imitator.
Masonic [need + past participle]
“His hair needed cut”: so says a witness in the Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Wrathful Wraith” (November 7, 1965).
Pocket notebook sighting
One of Perry Mason’s countless operatives has been watching a certain address. When a taxi picks up a hastily departing visitor, he trusts his pocket notebook to preserve the details, and the notebook fills the screen.
Additional reverie
Perry Mason, Paul Drake, and the Remington Rand Photocharger.
Recently updated
Perry Mason and John Keats: A reader writes to point out the “burrs” in Keats’s poem.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Paul, do you have anything yet on today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper?” “Just one lead so far, Perry: OUZO.”
The one that got away
J.D. Lowe has discovered an overlooked murder in an episode of Perry Mason.
“The Case of the Purloined Prairie”
A fifth (and almost certainly final) piece of Lassie fan-fiction. I’m thinking of it as distraction, diversion, respite.
Masonic Toad
Perry Mason in Zippy.
Masonic grammar
From a Perry Mason episode: “I didn’t know whom to believe!”
My uncle Perry
The Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Bogus Books” (first aired September 27, 1962) centers on a spurious first edition of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. And who reveals that he’s a Sterne fan? Mason himself.
Meta-Mason
I love when old television shows have the characters talk about television.
On Academia
Paul Drake, on Academia Drive.
Media studies: file drawers, notebook, EXchange name
There are many ways to enjoy television.
A joke in the traditional manner
Where does Paul Drake keep his hot tips?
No melodrama
“Thank you, Mr. Mason. You saved me from becoming a cheap and melodramatic anti-climax.”
Do Androids dream of Perry Mason?
A new use for an old phone.
Barbara Hale (1922–2017)
Della Street to Raymond Burr’s Perry Mason.
Separated at birth
Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh.
“Try the wireless”
From a Perry Mason episode.
MetaTV
MeTV is MetaTV — and movies.
Masonic Ticonderoga
A Dixon Ticonderoga in a Perry Mason episode.
Overheard
Paul Drake may not be big in Japan, but he has a Japanese presence, if only in the form of a man.
Domestic comedy
”It’s like Godzilla meets Rodan!”
Separated at birth?
William Hopper (Perry Mason’s Paul Drake) and Peter Falk (Lieutenant Columbo) look nothing like one another. But each in some way looks like Jacques Derrida.
No diagram needed
“You know what I love about you? I never have to draw you a diagram.”
Separated at birth?
Mississippi John Hurt and Ray Collins (Lieutenant Tragg).
Perry Mason’s office
“The aim of this project was to make a floor plan drawing of Perry’s office suite based upon a careful analysis of what can be seen in the show.”
Streetside gum machines
Wall-mounted gum machines.