October 7, 1960 (1960-10-07) – July 12, 1962 (1962-07-12)
The Law and Mr. Jones is an American legal drama series starring James Whitmore. The series aired on ABC in two nonconsecutive seasons from October 7, 1960 to June 2, 1961, and again from April 19 to July 12, 1962. The program was created and produced by Sy Gomberg, and was set in New York City.[1][2]
In 2000, James Whitmore said of the series, "That thing arose out of the American Civil Liberties Union … This was right after the McCarthy thing was so hot in this country, and I thought it was time we did something about the right of people to disagree with one another in a reasonable fashion … That was the predication of that show, and I produced it … It was a wonderful experience." ABC had canceled the series after its first season, but thousands of angry letters from fans convinced them to bring the show back in 1962.[4] Whitmore explained, "We were taken off the air after one year, because I didn't want to do the commercials [for] Gleem Toothpaste. They wanted me as that character, that lawyer, to come on and say, 'You ought to use Gleem toothpaste,' and I didn't think I wanted to do that, so they dropped us. Procter and Gamble were our sponsors. Then, they had an astonishing hundreds of thousands of letters. It was engineered by some newspaper guys to get the show back on, and they brought it back on. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the only time that had ever happened, with a TV show. I think it's happened since, but not at that point. We were brought back for one year."[5]