Talk:Hamilton Burger

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It is very unfair to portray Burger as inept, or incompetant. He or his trial deputies usually had good cases, which was part of the novel's charm - evidence pointing to one, but the culprit was another. His first appearnces showed him as a man who did NOT want to prosecute an innocent man, and was horrified that the evidence Mason provided exonerated Mason's client. Later, he became somewhat cynical, saying Mason's tactics did more harm than good, and went after Mason more so that his clients. Mason gave him a few good lessons in crossing him when it was all personal. In "The Case of the Careless Kitten" Burger went after Della Street (Mason's secretary) and after Mason provided the proof to get her aquitted, he let Burger solve the case on his own (he did give a clue to Detective Tragg, whom Mason respected as an upholder of the truth. They crossed swords a few times, but Tragg was always willing to admit he was wrong to get a killer).

alternative view:

Burger's character was great on TV, taken from the middle and later books: a sniveling, self-rightous prig whom we loved to see lose (sort of a grown-up Eddie from Leave it to Beaver). The TV's show's decline had everyone getting together palsey-walsey - no fun at all. Tragg might have been an upholder of the truth, but he was first of all a policeman and representative of Burger, frequently carrying his dirty laundry. But most of all he was probably the most sardonic character on mainstream TV for five years.

Mad Magazine

Mag Magazine ran a story called "The day Perry Mason lost a Case" in which Mason is shown being arrested by Lt.s Tragg and Drumm; Burger tries to prosecute a case but fails as usual-in fact his preformance is so bad-that when he loses to Mason- he was actually looking good! In another Mad Magazine spoof Mason has won his case-by exposing a clown witness as the killer; when the Judge orders the police to arrest the clown, they nearly arrest Burger instead! In another Mag Magazine spoof 1959 "The Day Perry Masonmint lost a Case" Burger actually wins a case and Mason loses!

Marijuana and indecent exposure?

The Wikipedia article on William Talman said he wasn't charged with anything; he was just at a party that was raided by the police. What's the story here? 140.147.241.133 (talk) 17:58, 17 July 2008 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

A "cure for goldfish?"

"In one unusual case Mason uses a cure for goldfish demonstrated by Hamilton Burger to expose a killer! {"The Case of the Glittering Goldfish"}" Was"goldfish" considered a disease, or was it a "cure" like curing meat? This sentence should be removed as nonsense unless clarified. Edison (talk) 04:18, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

It's a cure for a disease that afflicts goldfish, and more than that it's unsourced and POV. I've requested citations and I'll come back after awhile to clean up that paragraph. — WFinch (talk) 13:05, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Hamilton Burger's Name

Why hasn't anyone mentioned the obvious play on words here, Ham Burger?

Michou 13 (talk) 02:24, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

I WAS JUST GONNA SAY THAT, why does the entire long ahh ahh article go by without a stink of a mention of Ham(ilton) Burger? that could not have possibly been an accident in any world, by any stretch of any imagination, a deliberate choice which the article ineptly overlooks entirely, but alas, i guess the world has bigger problems than fixing the wikipedia page for a fictional detective about a movie(?) most people (including me) know not even the first thing about Official-brongle (talk) 21:06, 12 April 2026 (UTC)