Don't Take the Dead Into Your Own Hands, Take Them to A Cemetery

Or

Judgment Day

Or

Time for Wapner.

(Props to Don)

Judge Joseph Wapner, best remembered for his decision in the landmark case Carson v. Letterman, aka The case of the Creased Clunker, has died at the age of 97. Born and raised in Southern California and having dated Lana Turner in high school, Wapner was well suited for a celebrity-obsessed nation even then so willfully ill-informed that he was more well-known than any member of the US Supreme Court. After earning a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in the Pacific during World War II, Wapner graduated from USC Law School, spent 10 years in private practice, 2 years on the Los Angeles Municipal Court then 18 years on the LA Superior Court. After retiring, he assumed the bench of The People’s Court, where low-income, poorly educated, inarticulate citizenry argued for the amusement of the masses, in what was essentially televised arbitration set up to look like a small claims court. With trusty Rusty as his bailiff at his side, Wapner genially, and occasionally angrily, grilled the downtrodden as they squabbled over petty loans and minor damages, while professional hairdo Doug Llewelyn waited in the wings to exult in triumph with the victors and console the losers. Wapner donned the robes for 12 seasons before being unceremoniously, and unknowingly, dumped when the producers tried to revamp the show to improve floundering ratings. Unable to leave the limelight behind, Wapner presided over for Animal Court – kind of an Stupid and Illegal Pet Tricks where people would sue each other over damage their animals had caused. In an episode of Sliders, he played Commissar Wapner, where The People’s Court was actually a criminal court in an alternate world where the Soviet Union had defeated the United States.