.Vote for it here - tvshowsondvd.com/shows/Trials-OBrien/4368Middle-aged, saddled with alimony, and a gambling habit. This is a lawyer show?It was a lawyer show, but a far cry from The Defenders or Perry Mason, which were the successful lawyer shows that preceded it. Where there's a market for 1, there's a market for 2 or 3 or 4...but with a twist to distinguish each one. Where Perry Mason was a whodunit, The Defenders gave us a weekly sermon on some hifalutin liberal social issue. But O'Brien? He was just trying to keep the wolf from his door. On CBS. The Tiffany Network.I was 11 years old when this was on, so my bedtime was no longer 7pm. Now it was 9pm. This was an hour show that aired at 8:30. But I would have been more inclined to watch The Rifleman or Ensign Pulver or Burke's Law or The Man from U.N.C.L.E., anyway. Or The Outer limits, or Space Family Robinson, or Batman.But this was what Mom and Dad wanted to watch. Mom was a fan of Peter Falk's, and she would always tell us he had a glass eye. Dad, after the war in the late '40s, lived in Greenwich Village studying art at the Art Students League, and he used to hang out in the White horse Tavern tossing the bull with the other young turks, his drinking buddies, of whom Peter Falk was one.For me, as a boy, it, Trials of O'Brien, was what was on TV. And sometimes I was allowed to stay up and watch.So, from an 11-year old's perspective...This show had a really hilarious opening sequence every week, in which the protagonist, a New York City street lawyer who likes hanging out with his cronies (and gambling) is in a floating crap game that gets raided by the police, and you see the cops rushing in, and all the miscreants, of which our lawyer protagonist is one, dispersing and fleeing the authorities. Very funny stuff! Opening sequence. Every week.Also funny was that this was no Brooks Brothers -wearing, respectable, successful-wealthy attorney like the lawyers on The Defenders and Perry Mason were. This was a street lawyer who was always behind on his alimony payments, and his ex-wife would be pestering him to fork over. So, when he WOULD get a case, he didn't get to hold on to the paycheck for very long.That's it. That was the character. This was a show about a working-class guy who had passed the bar exam. His main connection to Columbo would be the seedy appearance. But Columbo was a straight arrow family man dedicated public servant. O'Brien is closer to Joe Pesci's character in My Cousin Vinnie, but older, and more inclined to hanging out with his cronies than a girlfriend. But, like Cousin Vinnie, this was a legal mystery show cloaked in comedy. And, like Cousin Vinnie, O'Brien was loaded with New York City atmosphere.And what a boat-load of talent from week to week!DIRECTORS. Richard Donner. Abner Biberman.GUEST CAST - ACTRESS. Faye Dunaway. Jessica Walter. Estelle Parsons. Cloris Leachman. Tammy Grimes. Barbara Barrie. Joanna Pettet. Britt Ekland. Zohra Lampert. Alice Ghostley. Sheila MacRae. Angela Lansbury. Rita Moreno.GUEST CAST - ACTOR. Gene Hackman. Frank Langella. Martin Sheen. Alan Alda. Charles Grodin. David Carradine. Robert Blake. Roger Moore. Robert Loggia. Tony Musante. Nehemiah Persoff. Lou Jacobi. Norman Fell. Harold J. Stone. Alejandro Rey. Barnard Hughes. Philip Bosco. Vincent Gardenia. Kenneth Mars. Reni Santoni ("Poppy" on Seinfeld). David Doyle. Dana Elcar. Michael Constantine. Conrad Bain. Thayer David. Simon Oakland. Tony Roberts. Frank Converse. Claude Akins. Theodore Bikel. Brock Peters. Jack Albertson. Will Geer. Pat Hingle. Buddy Hackett. Mischa Auer. Milton Berle. Burgess Meredith....to name a few..

I enjoyed this Series very much back in the Sixties and used to stay up late just to watch it. Peter Falk has always been one of my favourite actors and was excellent in this series and I enjoyed the comedy in it - especially the frequent references to "the Great McGonagle". I always thought and hoped it would achieve a higher profile and was very disappointed when it just "disappeared" from the TV schedules and I've never seen it since. However, Peter Falk went on to achieve more success with "Columbo". I also enjoyed the performance of Joanna Cassidy, who I think was the actress who played the former wife of Peter Falk's character in "Trials". There was good chemistry between them. I would love to watch it again but don't know where to look for it!

This series was way ahead of its time, with a main character who was a divorced, cynical, slightly seedy lawyer, and was very rumpled -- a Columbo prototype. Peter Falk's charm was evident, and David Burns added a vaudeville touch. The plots were clever, although not memorable after forty years. But I thought it was terribly sophisticated at the time, and, yes, I can still hum the theme music. Even the cast was ahead of its time. In its one year, the guest cast featured the up-and-coming Frank Langella, Cloris Leachman, Faye Dunaway, Estelle Parsons, Britt Ekland, David Carradine, Gene Hackman, Martin Sheen, Alan Alda, Charles Grodin, Tony Roberts, and Brock Peters; and it was a veritable who's who of familiar faces like Vincent Gardenia, Murray Hamilton, Will Geer, Tammy Grimes, Norman Fell, Jack Albertson, Philip Bosco, Barnard Hughes, Angela Lansbury, Tony Musante, and Al Freeman Jr., among many others. Even the playwright Marc Connelly! I've never caught any reruns, but I would love to see some episodes again to see if it was as good as I thought it was. Doesn't anyone else remember The Trials of O'Brien?

Peter Falk portrayed a maverick defense attorney with great zest. Elaine Stritch was his secretary, Joanna Barnes his ex wife with whom he was on very good terms, and the scene stealer was David Burns as the Great Mc Gonigle ( name borrowed from a WC Fields flick ). I can't recall any specific episodes except the show was set in New York City, the script ahead of its time, the acting superior, the stories always believable and interesting, and the theme music was outstanding. Burns/Mc Gonigle was Falk/O'Brien's leg man. He wore an old overcoat and seemed to be chained to bulging leather briefcase, the old fashioned type with the metal three position latch across the top. O'Brien would need some piece of information and invariable Mc Gonigle would reach into some deep recess of his bag and whip out the perfect document. I remember Falk/O'Brien one time remarking as if in wonder, "Don't ever lose that bag." That year Trials of O Brien finished dead last in the Prime time Nielson ratings ( something like 67th out of 67 shows). But to me it was one of the best things ever on TV, which is probably why I have watched perhaps two weekly series of any kind since ( the other being The Wonder Years).