Raymond Burr’s acting certainly satisfied me about the required brains and gravitas.
And the signature tune was wonderful!
<slight hijack>
If the case is sufficiently bizarre, I’d go hire Phoenix Wright instead. Everyone he spends more than five minutes in a room with is neurotic, psychotic, or channeling the spirit of a dead person. I’m not sure either Holmes or Mason would be quite up to, say, a case involving a terminally-insecure, flirtatious circus magician, a paraplegic acrobat with a klepto monkey, and a ventriloquist browbeaten by his own dummy…
</sh>
Just thought I’d mention that at least once Perry Mason was fooled (The Case of the Terrified Typist)
Perry was defending Mr. X who turned out to be the murderer. However Mr. X was actually Mr. Y who was impersonating Mr. X, and Perry and Paul Drake, at the last minute during a court recess, found the real Mr. X kept prisoner somewhere. (The real Mr. X was innocent but some of the evidence implicated him. Mr. Y had to impersonate Mr. X to pull off a diamond theft. Mr. Y thought he couldn’t be convicted - but he collapsed on the stand when Hamilton Burger asked him “You’re not really Mr. X are you? You’re actually Mr. Y, noted con artist!”) Hamilton Burger was all “I’ve finally beaten you in court Perry! Your client, Mr. Y aka Mr. X is GUILTY!!!” and Perry told him “Not so Hammy; much of your evidence concerned the real Mr. X, my client was not Mr. X, therefore this is a mistrial and you need to start over!” The judge agreed with Perry and Hamilton blew a gasket. Perry Mason FTW!!!