Perry Mason on the Radio

While the film venture of Perry Mason turned embarrassing with Hollywood, surprisingly Gardner attempted to put his story and hero on radio. Though he was advised to try for a night time as the prime slot, Gardner ended up selling the radio rights to Procter & Gamble, who chose to put the series on during daytime. Usually sponsored by some detergent companies, these daytime radio programs triggered a trend called "soap opera".

In October 1943, the Perry Mason radio series ruled over a few stations. Eventually in course of just three months, the episodes were playing for five days a week on all stations across the nation. Gardner felt the episodes were a continuous advertisement for his books in the similar manner how the Ellery Queen radio show encouraged the famous detective books under the same name. However, he too felt he failed miserably when he attempted to write down the scripts for the episodes. He ended up saying, "As a soaper, I stunk". He accepted openly that he was better at narrative writing and not at scripting.

With the sponsors getting in yet another writer to work on the Mason character, Gardner felt he lost control of the show. He expressed that he thoroughly disliked the writings, plots, production and even ads related to the show. He closely monitored the show everyday and passed on comments that were not quite complimentary. Gardner was not so happy with the show though this continued for about three years. At this juncture, a writer called Irving Vendig came to the scene. He added more character, more colour and more appeal for Perry Mason's character thereby making Perry more concrete. He could succeed in moving Gardner to like the writer and the "new Mason.

With the passage of time, the show became more popular and highly successful. Several voices were used for Perry including Bartlett Robinson, Santos Ortega, Donald Briggs, and John Larkin. At a point, though actor Walter Pidgeon came close to finalising a deal on as the voice of Perry, it never came through. Much later, he performed a cameo guest role on the TV show. In this manner, dozens of actors and over 3,200 scripts found their way in course of the radio show's twelve-year life.