January 2, 2004


BOB GARFIELD: Court TV may be giving the networks a run for their money, but courtroom drama has been riveting audiences for decades -- long before cameras were allowed to capture the real action live. WNYC reporter Alicia Zuckerman has the story. [PERRY MASON TV SHOW THEME MUSIC UP & UNDER]

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Perry Mason first emerged in the pages of nearly 90 paperbacks by Erle Stanley Gardner in the 1930s, and then on a popular radio series. But in 1957, it was the actor Raymond Burr who personified the Perry Mason that lingers today. Ron Simon is the television curator at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City.

RON SIMON: We always go back to that one looming figure of Raymond Burr in television. He created the lawyer. There was something about the incarnation of the lawyer seen on a regular basis that created in the public opinion what a lawyer was like.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: After Perry Mason, courtroom shows proliferated, ranging in tone from The Defenders to Night Court to L.A. Law. Simon sees that last show as a turning point.

RON SIMON: The thing that-- certainly that Steven Bochco and David Kelley brought to the legal genre is that the personal life of the L.A. Law character or Ally McBeal are as important as the legal cases. In many ways the craziness that is reflected in the private life erupts in the craziness of the court system -- this total confusion of private and public realms.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: In fact the trials on Kelley's The Practice deal largely with the lawyers' personal issues, and in this scene from his show Ally McBeal, law partners and best friends John Cage and Richard Fish are going to couples therapy to resolve their issues.

CHARACTER FROM ALLY McBEAL: That's my problem is that he always gets to go first. His needs are always prioritized over those of other people. And the horror of that is compounded when you consider that the center of his very being is nothing but sex and money! Sex and money! Sex and money!

ANNOUNCER: In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups--: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. [LAW AND ORDER THEME MUSIC UP & UNDER]

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Now in its 14th season, Law and Order is one of the most successful courtroom dramas in TV history. Unlike The Practice, the show is not character-driven. The case is the star. Executive producer Jeffrey Hayes says that's how it's always been.

JEFFREY HAYES: The first show we did was-- the Mayflower Madam show which we called By Hook or By Crook, and then the second show we did was the Bernie Goetz story which we called Subterranean Homeboy Blues. "Ripped from the headlines" sounds easy. What's hard is to make it dramatically interesting once you get past the crime; once you get into the prosecution.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: The show has spawned two spinoffs by creator Dick Wolf-- Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is now in its fifth season, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent went on the air two years ago. Hayes explains what he thinks makes the show so successful.

JEFFREY HAYES: In our courtroom scenes, if you look, we do a lot of cutaways to the victim's relatives. A lot of times we'll stop in the middle of a trial and go to the judge's chambers, and --or do a couple of scenes with the jury out. But to me all that's part of the courtroom drama aspect of it.

SAM WATERSTON/PROSECUTOR: Mr. Robinette'll ask you to feel sorry for Jenny Mays. That's all right. You can feel sorry for her. But don't forget that there is a dead man here. And don't forget Alex Corbin was abducted by the woman who got him addicted to crack in her womb.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: If fictionalized court shows came from Perry Mason, what's the origin of reality court shows? Ron Simon has an answer.

RON SIMON: The interesting thing is that reality courtroom drama was also with television from the beginning. If you consider the Army-McCarthy hearings an extended drama in the '50s, then you can see that television was dealing with real life situations almost from the beginning. There was something intriguing about the courtroom situation.

ATTORNEY LAWRENCE WELCH: Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator.

SENATOR JOSEPH McCARTHY: Well, let's, let's, let's--

LAWRENCE WELCH: You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

JUDGE JUDY: Are you not following what I'm saying to you?

WOMAN: Yeah.

JUDGE JUDY: It is not piercing through? If somebody you feel is trying to control your life, you don't put them in a situation where they can do that!

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Where courtroom dramas have historically focused on the lawyer, reality shows set the judge at center stage. Today there are around ten of these shows that emulate small claims court. Many of them feature some street-smart judge, like Judge Judy, who impart wisdom with a sharp tongue. [PEOPLE'S COURT THEME MUSIC]

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Twenty years ago there was just one -- the People's Court. When Judge Wapner went on the air in 1981, he generally handled the People's Court with sobriety and respect. Nowadays TV courtrooms need to put the ante to pull in viewers. Again, curator Ron Simon.

RON SIMON: The archetypal silent judge who listens and then reacts is really not someone who plays that well on television. You need someone who motivates the action.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Now on its fourth Judge, Marilyn Milian, the People's Court has taken on characteristics of its high-intensity imitators. [LOUD GAVELING]

MARILYN MILIAN: We're done, and now is the part where the -this is my favorite part -- this is the part where the judge rules and no one interrupts her. [GAVEL]

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Stu Billet, the show's creator and producer, says that all these shows are sort of interchangeable, but it doesn't matter because the public's appetite for them is insatiable.

STU BILLET: They're the soup du jour. The only difference, really, is the judge; like game shows back in the '60s and '70s -- there were 35 game shows on the air.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Now millions of people are watching the justice system play out on the small screen.

FLOYD ABRAMS: It's a problem, because these people then go to sit on juries, and they have some tendency to think they know more than they do.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams.

FLOYD ABRAMS: People, for example, in criminal cases want to know where the fingerprints are; what the DNA is -- when the police don't always get fingerprints, and they don't always take DNA sampling.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: Abrams still applauds the notion of court shows, both fiction and reality. In fact, he's been an advocate -- literally -- for cameras in the real-life courtroom.

FLOYD ABRAMS: I had a judge who told me once that because I represented Court TV in a successful effort to get television into the O.J. case, that I was personally responsible for the decline and fall of the legal system.

ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: But few people complained about the Army-McCarthy broadcasts undermining the legal system. Most thought it was good for democracy. It turns out what was good for democracy may even be better for ratings. For On the Media in New York, I'm Alicia Zuckerman.