Media Alert

I was scrolling through the on-screen TV guide a few nights ago and noticed that tonight on a very old (of course…) rerun of Perry Mason, one of the guests is…Erle Stanley Gardner!  I checked iMDB, and it’s the only time he appeared on the show. 

In other words, it took nine seasons before the Perry Mason show asked the man who created and wrote the "Perry Mason" books to do a cameo!!

Gardner plays “Second Judge,” so for all I know he doesn’t have any lines, though maybe they gave him one.  I like such things, so I set my DVR to watch.  (All the better since I can fast-forward to the courtroom scenes.)  But it also has a good cast, with Jackie Coogan (renowned as a child actor who starred with Charlie Chaplin in The Kid and later got famous again as "Uncle Fester" on The Addams Family) and Estelle Winwood (who had a long Hollywood career, but is perhaps best known today for playing the "Hold Me, Touch Me" old lady in The Producers.  And oddly, Dick Clark.

For those interested in such whimsical things, the episode airs tonight (Tuesday) on MeTV at 11:30 PM Los Angeles time.  It's called, "The Case of the Final Fade Out."