Cool and Lam

Erle Stanley Gardner is famous for creating Perry Mason. Apparently, he also wanted to see a television version of two of his detective characters, Cool and Lam, and this pilot episode was all that ever became of that dream. It's interesting that Gardner himself introduces the show...and he does it on one of the sets for "Perry Mason"!

Bertha Cool and Donald Lam are the two title detectives...a more unusual pair of dicks I cannot recall having seen. Bertha is a big, rather told old broad and Donald is a pipsqueak...and he spends much of the episode being beaten up and threatened. Why would this be? After all, their case seems pretty ordinary...to find a missing lady. And, finding her seemed to be no trouble at all...so why all the goon tactics? Well, if you're really curious, it's on YouTube and you can see it for yourself.

I think the biggest reason this series never was made was that the show seemed very talky...though this could also be said for "Perry Mason" (1958). In addition, while the story had a few nice twists, it also wasn't super interesting and the characters seemed a bit limited. An interesting attempt....but not much more.