You be the judge. And you and you and you.
That’s the decision being handed down this fall as television makes the case that every lawyer needs his own show. The evidence: three new courtrooms-in-the-camera.
Joining crabby Judge Judy and Ed Koch’s version of “The People’s Court” are “Judge Joe Brown,” featuring a Memphis, Tenn., jurist who pulled himself out of south-central Los Angeles; “Judge Mills Lane,” a boxing referee who was in the ring when Mike Tyson chomped on Evander Holyfield; and “Judge Wapner’s Animal Court,” marking the comeback of TV’s most famous benchwarmer.
A sociologist might attribute this spree of courtroom “reality” shows to our desire to understand an often complicated and confusing criminal justice system. To which Judge Judith Sheindlin would surely respond: “You’re full of baloney!”
Long before America’s obsession with O.J., or worries that our legal system is falling apart, the public was fascinated with trials. After all, court cases have winners and losers, and therefore inherent drama. TV’s real-life trials date back to “Divorce Court,” which unlike the current wave of legal shows featured actors dramatizing the cases instead of the actual litigants. It ran from 1957 to 1969 and again from 1986 to 1991.
“Divorce Court” was eclipsed by Judge Wapner’s “People’s Court,” still the model by which all small-claims TV justice must be judged. When the show was dismissed in 1993 after 17 years on the air, the genre waned.
In just two seasons, “Judge Judy” has revitalized it.
Her syndicated show, which airs in Chicago at 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. weekdays on WCIU-Ch. 26, has become so successful that the production company behind it, Big Ticket Television, decided to try a companion, “Judge Joe Brown.”
Would-be competitor Lane, an ex-boxer, prosecutor and judge, also is a “Judge Judy” supporter. He’s on the record calling her “pretty tough and hard-nosed.” From him, that’s a compliment.
Sheindlin’s status as the new TV-judge icon was sealed when “Saturday Night Live’s” Cheri Oteri began mimicking her with cries of “Shut your stinkin’ trap!”
Which isn’t far off the mark. Just this week, when Judge Judy faced another “liar” in her court, she blurted out: “I may be wrong. I was wrong once in 1950. I can’t remember what it was. . . . Be quiet!”
Debuting Monday (and continuing at 5 p.m. weekdays on WCIU-Ch. 26), “Judge Mills Lane” will be the first show to challenge her throne. Like Judge Judy, Lane’s stance is tough.
“If somebody were to come to my home to hurt my family, they’d have a tag on their toe before the sun was down,” he said at an interview session with TV critics in Pasadena, Calif., last month. “I don’t make any damn apology for that to anybody.”
Emphasizing personal responsibility, Lane, an ex-boxer, prosecutor and judge, recalls a case in which he told the defendant, “Look, Sonny, it’s not drugs, it’s not because you weren’t breast-fed, your mama didn’t change your diaper, your daddy yelled at you. It’s you.”
Here’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the rest:
– “Judge Wapner’s Animal Court”: Lane could learn from Wapner, whose “Animal Court” is almost as entertaining as “Judge Judy” and much more credible. A sample case from the show, which will feature biting victims, ownership disputes and grooming errors, has production values that rival TV dramas, including the use of hand-held cameras and low-angle shots.
More important, Wapner knows how to keep the narrative flowing and doesn’t need to yell to gain respect. “Please don’t interrupt” is all he has to say to a woman whose dog bit a neighbor. He’s the class act in this field, even bringing Rusty the bailiff back with him.
“Animal Court” debuts Sept. 28 on the cable channel Animal Planet.
– “Judge Joe Brown”: “People need to be humane, kind and caring to each other,” Brown says during an eight-minute marketing video for his show. That’s his angle — tough like Judge Judy — but with more compassion.
He knows because he’s been there. His bio says “nearly everyone around him fell victim to the harsh realities of life on the streets.” A graduate of the UCLA law school, Brown became the first African-American prosecutor for the city of Memphis and later a Superior Court judge. He also presided over the hearing in which questions were raised about whether James Earl Ray’s rifle killed Martin Luther King Jr.
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His show debuts Sept. 14 and will air at 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on WPWR-Channel 50.
– “The People’s Court”: Ed Koch is no Joseph Wapner.
Like his predecessor, he takes pains to point to the specific laws governing the cases in front of him, and his tolerance for uncooperative litigants falls somewhere between Judge Wapner’s and Judge Judy’s. But Koch has a tendency to whine, and the production values on “The People’s Court” are sorely out of date. Worse, the Wapner era’s stiff-collared and deadpan host, Doug Llewelyn, who brought a sense of campy fun to his post-trial interviews, has given way to a couple of lacquer-haired manikin with a fraction of his charm.
The show, at 2 p.m. weekdays on WMAQ-Ch. 5, is entering its second season with Koch.
Who will prevail? You be the judge.