Previous in this series: Mathnet, Perry Mason and Ben Matlock, Batman, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift , Sherlock Holmes, and Encyclopedia Brown.

This is the last installment in the series.

Diagnosis Murder came just as I was entering my teen years. The show was a long-time success for so many reasons throughout its eight seasons.

First and foremost was Dick Van Dyke, one of America’s most beloved actors, a TV legend whose Dick Van Dyke show was already an American classic. Van Dyke was charismatic and multi-talented, and he brought that to his role as Sloan.

Van Dyke was backed up by a strong supporting cast including Victoria Rowell as Dr. Amanda Bentley, the pathologist and Van Dky’es real life son Barry played his TV son Police Lieutenant Steve Sloan, and the younger demographic was served by sidekicks Dr. Jack Stewart (Charles Baio) and the Dr. Jesse Travis (Charlie Schlater). The likable and talented cast did a great job with each week’s program.

Van Dyke’s stature commanded great guest stars and the program offered all sorts of surprising crossover, including allowing Mike Connors to solve another case of Matlock and allowing Ben Matlock to appear on his third network. They also had several themed episodes were guest stars all had something in common. One such episode centered on an alleged alien abduction. Guest stars included Star Trek alum Majel Barrett,  Walter Koenig, Will Wheaton, and George Tekei as well as Lost in Space’s Billy Mummy.

As a mystery show, the program transition over time. It began as more of “Murder She Wrote” series with straight whodunits. Later seasons played around with different styles including Columbo-style inverted mysteries with Dr. Sloan as the relentless detective. Other episodes would be more soft boiled mysteries that Jessica Fletcher might easily undertake. Other episodes were action-packed adventures. The program mixed it up and managed to be great entertainment throughout its eight year run. It managed to show that a mostly PG detective story could be quite successful, even in the turbulent 1990s.

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Previous in this series: Perry Mason and Ben Matlock, Batman, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift , Sherlock Holmes, and Encyclopedia Brown.

“The story you are about to see is a fib, but it’s short. The names are made up, but the problems are real.”

With these words began one of my earliest mystery series, Mathnet. 

Mathnet began as just one sketch on the series, Square One, a PBS educational program designed to teach kids about Math. Other sketches included “Mathman”, the animated adventures of “Dirk Niblick of the Math Brigrade” among others. Infrequent parodies included a couple of Honeymooners parody sketches. Each sketch, song, or story had the goal of teaching about math in an entertaining way.

Mathnet was its Dragnet-style sketch starring Beverly Leech as Kate Monday and Joe Howard as her partner George Frankly. They were crime-solving mathematicians who demonstrated a wide variety of math concepts in solving crimes.

The initial episode of Mathnet, The Case of the Missing Baseball was more parody than anything else with the cameramen playing off of Dragnet’s use of close ups to show a series of rapid close-ups in part one of the Missing Baseball.  The show couldn’t keep that up forever, so it became much of a homage with comic and educational overtones.  The show also changed from its pilot episode in which the two mathematicians weren’t part of the police force, even though they acted like it until they got the criminal.

Leech turned in a solid straight man performance as Officer Monday, but Howard was the one who shined as the goofy, but usually competent partner. Like Ben Alexander (Frank Smith) and Harry Morgan (Bill Gannon), Howard brought comic relief to the cases with dialogue like this when Kate announces they’ve received a call about a missing autographed baseball:

George: I love baseball, Kate. Martha and I we went to Dodger Stadium last night, Kate.

Kate: The Dodgers played in Cincinatti last night, George

George: Yep. No trouble parking. You ought to go with us. Martha and Me to a Dodger game. No trouble parking.

In another episode, Kate Monday asked an apprehended criminal, “Do you agree that crime doesn’t pay?”

He responded, “Yeah, at least not the way I do it.”

The show’s comedy worked. Then, it was merely funny. Today, I see some of the way it copies Dragnet’s success.

The show played homage to Dragnet in other ways that a kid under 10 who hadn’t seen Dragnet wouldn’t have caught on. James Earl Jones appeared as Chief of Detectives Thad Green.  In the original Dragnet, the Chief of Detectives was Thad Brown.

The program was cleverly educational, working math tricks such as estimating,  calculating the angle of refraction, basic geometry,  probability, depreciation, and the effective use of databases and spreadsheets seemlessly into the plot. While Mathnet didn’t provide a comprehensive math education, it taught some great math principles.

For kids, the program also provided solidly plotted mysteries with some fascinating conclusions. The stories were told as five-part serials that would end each episode of Square One and give kids a reason to tune in tomorrow.  Mathnet began as just one sketch of many, it’s first serial averaging about 6 minutes of air time per show. However, due to its popularity, Mathnet took up an ever-increasing share of Square’s One time.

In the middle of the second season, the show was packed up and moved to New York where other Children’s Television Workshop Shows were based.  Their first case in New York, The Case of the Swami Scam aired as a standalone TV movie. In subsequent seasons, Leech was replaced by Toni Di Buono as Pat Tuesday. But by then I was in an area where we didn’t get PBS.

I remember Mathnet fondly for two reasons.  First, it along with the entire show, Square One was successful at making math fun. There are math tricks I use today that I learned from Mathnet and I wasn’t the only one. A reviewer on IMDB notes:

In 6th grade in 1997, on Fridays we would watch Mathnet. It was always fun but plenty educational! As a student math was always the easiest when it was made fun, and that is exactly what this movie did for us. Quite frankly, the Mathnet series actually inspired my class to do our homework, because we weren’t allowed to watch it unless the whole class did their homework. It was always a treat when we got to watch these movies. There aren’t many good math movies (as I know now because I am studying mathematics)so it is amazing that Mathnet is so interesting. When the teacher who used them retired, he took the tapes with him and now Indiana is Mathnetless which it a pity!

If only educational TV was always that effective. It also helped spur a lifelong interest in Dragnet.  When I got older, my love of Mathnet fueled my love of Dragnet and the rest, as they say, is history.

Mathnet with its blend of great comedy, solid math skills, and some great fun with classic mysteries, still brings a smile to my face. My only regret is that the show has not been given its due with a DVD release.

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Previous in this series: Batman, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift , Sherlock Holmes, and Encyclopedia Brown.

When I was growing up, lawyer shows were a regular part of our family TV viewing. My dad would rarely let us watch cop shows like Dragnet when we were young, but lawyer shows were another story.  Indeed, one day when we were fasting from TV, he made an exception for Perry Mason because “it taught good morals.”

When I was growing up, I didn’t get to see much of the classic Mason programs, as I’d usually be doing something else or watching something else when it aired in the afternoon on TBS.

However, during prime time, Perry Mason mystery movies were regular prime time fare in our home. Raymond Burr made twenty-six Perry Mason movies between 1985-93 with Barbara Hale reprising her role a sDella Street. The first nine installments feature William Katt as Paul Drake, Jr. and the last seventeen starred William Moses as Ken Malansky.

At the same time, with the success of the Perry Mason movies, a quite similar program launched by Fred Silverman, who produced the Mason movies. Television icon Andy Griffith playing the role of Ben Matlock, a wily defense attorney who, just like Mason, represented innocent clients and cleared them through spectacular courtroom showdowns where he revealed the true killer.

Of the two, Matlock was my clear favorite. Partly this was due to the fact that Matlock was a weekly affair while Perry Mason only aired once in a while. But more than that Griffith was simply more fun to watch. His character of Ben Matlock was not Sheriff Andy Taylor. He was charming, hot-headed, smart, and cheap. He loved hot dogs, and wore his trademark gray suit. In addition, Matlock had some fun guests from time to time including Don Knotts and Randy Travis.

When it came to the dénouements where our lawyer heroes faced off with the murderer, Burr was proficient and forceful as Mason, but Griffith’s storytelling ability made his final explanation of the case incredibly satisfying and fun.

The show also featured better investigators in Tyler Hudson (Kene Holliday) and Conrad McMasters (Clarence Gilyard.) While Perry Mason mysteries were longer, which should have left time for more development, it often felt like the movies had to last two hours to the failures of the investigators particularly during the Paul Drake, Jr. era.

Whether it was Mason or Matlock, I loved each series, with its mix of mystery and legal drama. They weren’t realistic portrayals of how courtrooms really operated. They were idealistic portrayals of the legal profession, of lawyers who always found themselves on the side of right and justice, and always got their clients off. Right nearly always won. Each episode was a quiet tribute to the American system of government. These type of shows inspired many people to enter the legal profession including Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Such idealistic program had me even thinking about a career in the law when I was a teenager.

However, by the mid-1990s, it became clear that such idealistic programming couldn’t survive. Court TV had become popular and Americans witnessed several people they believed guilty receive in trials such as the Menendez brothers case, the Rodney King trial, and finally the O.J. Simpson Case. New lawyers heroes tended to be more realistic with more morally ambiguous leads, with some almost being anti-heroes.such as Picket Fences’ Douglas Waumbaugh (Fyvush Finkel) who won eighty percent of his cases with no regard for the guilt, innocence, or sleaziness of his clients.

Raymond Burr, died in 1993, but the Perry Mason franchise continued to fill out contracts for the required movies with Paul Sorvino and Hal Holbrooke playing lawyers filling in for Perry in four more movies.

Matlock was cancelled over NBC at the end of its sixth season, but it was given a second lease on life on ABC.

Unfortunately, te ABC episodes were clearly inferior. One thing you could say for Perry Mason is that the show was established as a package deal with cast and crew developing major chemistry. Matlock’s creators seemed to believe they could do Matlock with any old set of supporting actors. It doesn’t. The final two seasons found Griffith with a poor supporting cast and weak writing.

In addition, the show got away from its roots and seemed to be trying to keep up with modern lawyer shows. Ben’s divorced daughter defends a man for murder, falls in love with him, only to find out he’s guilty. One episode has a couple getting a divorce for the fun of it and hiring Ben to handle the case. Ben takes it reluctantly, though he makes it clear that prefers more pleasant matters such as solving a grisly triple murder. These plot drifts make the episodes seem like pale imitations of both the original Matlock as well as the lawyer shows that Matlock was trying to catch up with.

Ben Matlock would have one last hurrah when Andy Griffith reprised the character for a two part episode of Diagnosis: Murder. This meant that Matlock had appeared on all three major networks as Diagnosis: Murder was on CBS.

I still have fond memories of both shows. It may not be realistic, but with the talents of Andy Griffith and Raymond Burr, they painted a vivid portrait of the ideal lawyer hard at work and fighting for the innocent and justice.

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Previous Installments:
Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift , Sherlock Holmes, and Encyclopedia Brown.

Batman sticks out like a sore thumb in the world of costumed crimefighters. When people think of superheroes, they think of Superman, Batman, and Spider-man. Beyond those big three, other names come up such as Wonder Woman, Iron Man, the X-men,  the Incredible Hulk, the Green Lantern, and Captain America. The comic book superfans can come up with more, but for most people on the street, that’s about the limit.

What makes Batman remarkable in the group is the lack of superhuman powers.  Batman’s mix of physical training, agility, and cool gadgets will only get him so far. Batman must survive using his wits and his cunning. Most Superheroes have to do some detective work.  Batman has far more detective work involved in his case than most. After all, Batman’s the guy with his the top underground crime lab in the DC Universe and began doing his thing at Detective Comics.

To list Batman as a “sleuth” requires some qualification. There have been numerous spins on Batman. So,  there are many interpretations of Batman I’m not thinking of. The intentionally campy 1966 TV series is definitely not what I’m thinking of (though I like that on its own merits), nor the recent movie adaptations which center on Batman as  a complex action hero or some of the more recent cartoon adaptations which are basically Jackie Chan Adventures with a cape and cowl.

For me, when I think of Batman as a detective, I think of the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series. The series was beautifully animated in Art Decco with fantastically retro buildings and cars, giving the series a very moody Noirish feeling.  Voice acting was solid with Kevin Conroy providing the finest Batman voice ever and Mark Hamill, a veteran super villain actor, brought his talents to the role of the Joker in fifteen episodes.

In the series, most episodes have an element of mystery  Even, Heart of Ice, the origin episode for Mr. Freeze had Batman doing serious detective work to uncover the identity of Mr. Freeze.  Batman had plenty of episodes where he was trying to find out who did it, but sometimes finding out why was just as important for Batman. There was a reason that Ra’s al Ghul called Batman “detective.”

The noir mystery quality of Batman: The Animated Series was never better illustrated than when it came to the big screen with a brilliantly written and produced feature length story, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.  Mask of the Phantasm features Batman on the trail of a vigilante who is killing off gangster. The film is a fascinating with a very human portrayal of Batman,  superb villains and a huge twist ending. The 1993 film suffered from poor promotion efforts by Warner Brothers, so I’m revealing a well-kept secret here.

The series and the movie was in so many ways, a throwback to the Noir movies of the late 30s through the 1950s.  Batman was the two fisted defender of righteousness, the night in tarnished armor in the words of Raymond Chandler. It was slower-paced and cleverly written when compared to today’s cartons. On a commentary track on one of the DVD releases, one of the writers commented, “We wouldn’t be able to get away with this today.”

Batman stopped getting away with it after a few years. The original Animated Series went off the air in 1995, but Batman wasn’t gone for long. It relaunched in 1997 as , The New Batman Adventures  along with a new Superman series.  The new show had the same cast, but lacked the same magic. For one, it was a downgrade in animation. The focus shifted away from Batman to other characters and consequently, the well-told mysteries of The Animated Series disappeared from the Batman series with the exception of the fascinating “Judgment Day” story.  The shows sped up with more action and like any series featuring a popular comic book hero began to work in less successful and well-known characters (it’s all about the comic book cross-sell) for guest shots. The series left the air in 1999. Of course, Batman has remained in the public imagination with two television series, motion pictures, and direct to video movies. For my money though, no Batman venture since has ever approached the brilliance of Batman: The Animated Series in portraying Batman as a detective.

Twenty episodes of Batman: The Animated Series are available to watch for free online at the WB.

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