| The Good Old Days The show started out being about the 1950s and
walked through to the mid-1960s. In early shows, bus
stations were where people met; bus lockers were where
they hid the evidence. Only later did airport sets come
into vogue. Perry and the cast favored traditional 1950s
wardrobes. On occasion, Perry would sport a bow tie, and
once he even shucked his traditional dark suit jacket for
a vest. He was sometimes spotted wearing a test-pattern
print suitcoat, the kind that made viewers thankful that
the episodes were shot in black and white. The characters
had a preference for driving around in highend Fords Lincolns and Thunderbirds. Perry also sported
a Cadillac on occasion. Paul almost always drove
convertibles.
In the later episodes, fallout shelter
signs are quite prevalent, giving the viewer the
impression of not simply visiting the late fifties-early
sixties era, but of being trapped there. Perry, a World
War II veteran who served on a minesweeper (as revealed
in several episodes), took on the godless Communists on
two occasions. In "The Case of the Weary
Watchdog," he helped smash a human slave ring
controlled by the Red Chinese. In "The Case of the
Fraudulent Fraulein," Perry and Paul traveled to
East Germany in an attempt to free a little girl the
Commies were cruelly holding hostage.
Oddly enough, not all the Perry Mason
fans lived on this side of the Iron Curtain. At one
point, Radio Liberty reported that in the Soviet Republic
of Estonia, families would crowd around their TV sets and
tune in the show from nearby Finnish airwaves. By its
eighth year, the show was being syndicated in fifty
countries, the greatest foreign distribution of any CBS
show.
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