History Main / ThePerryMasonMethod

* In ''Webcomic/FarOutThere'', Ichabod unintentionally [[http://faroutthere.smackjeeves.com/comics/1028448/page-85-what-the-sam-hill-oh-forget-it-dramatic-twist/ pulls this on Trigger]]. It's "unintentional" because [[spoiler:Ichabod was actually trying to deflect attention off of himself.]]

* Almost every episode of ''Perry Mason'' ever made. In one of the TV movies (late 80s-early 90s), a middle-aged woman's alibi involved changing a flat tire. Mason has a worker demonstrate how lugnuts are tightened at the shop using an air wrench, and invites her to show the court how she was able to remove them without power tools. She couldn't. (This was itself a use of ConvictionByCounterfactualClue; if it really was impossible to remove lugnuts that had been tightened with an air wrench, ''no one'' would be able to change a tire except a mechanic with an air wrench.)

** Related: [[WordOfGod Shu Takumi has said]] that the MASON System in the fourth game is a reference to Perry Mason.

* Do everything right in the first case of ''VideoGame/AviaryAttorney'' and this plays out, the witness losing his temper and threatening to [[PettingZooPeople gut you with his claws]], which is what happened to the victim. [[spoiler: Cruelly subverted as it turns out the defendant was guilty, thought you knew it too, and is happy to profit off an innocent man being executed.]]

** Lisa and Bart get Sideshow Bob to confess to rigging an election by suggesting that he wouldn't be smart enough to do it on his own.
-->Sideshow Bob: Only ''I'' could have engineered such a masterpiece of electoral fraud!
** Wiggum tries to get Homer and Marge to confess to murder by repeatedly shouting "Did you do it?" at random points in his questioning. After the interrogation, he admits it never works...after Homer uses the same method on him to get him to admit thus.
** {{Subverted|Trope}} and {{parodied|Trope}} when Mayor Quimby's nephew is on trial for assault. Firstly, the jury thinks he is guilty (though he isn't) because he is a {{jerkass}} with a HairTriggerTemper who at one point is provoked into ranting that ''he'll kill everyone in the courtroom''; second, the guy who provoked him was ''his own lawyer'' who was trying to show that he was ''not'' a {{jerkass}} with a violent temper by asking him an innocent question that turned out to be Quimby Jr.'s BerserkButton.

-->'''Benjamin:''' I hate trials. [[DiscussedTrope All that ridiculous Perry Mason crap]]. The "I object" and "Your Honor, may I approach?"
-->'''Midge:''' And the banging with the gavel.
-->'''Benjamin:''' And the righteous district attorney.
-->'''Midge:''' I hate district attorneys.
-->'''Benjamin:''' And somebody's gonna get up and give a big dramatic speech.
-->'''Midge:''' Where the actor spits on you.
-->'''Benjamin:''' They have to spit on you.
-->'''Midge:''' It's not dramatic unless they spit on you.
-->'''Benjamin:''' I've been to real trials. No one gives a dramatic speech, but they still spit on you.

-->---''Series/TheMarvelousMrsMaisel''

* The page quote is from season 2 episode 5 of ''Series/TheMarvelousMrsMaisel'', when Midge and Benjamin are attending a stage adaptation of the Lizzie Borden trial. They find the play so boring that they walk out at intermission before the second act (which contains the trial), and Benjamin admits he hates that "Perry Mason crap".

->'''Mia Fey:''' What's wrong, Phoenix?\\
'''Phoenix Wright:''' Usually... Well, usually, the real killer confesses his or her guilt. And now that I think about it, this is the first time someone hasn't.
-->-- ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'', case 4

A sub-trope of CourtroomAntic.

** One particularly memorable three-parter ("D-Girl"/"Turnaround"/"Showtime") involved a defendant who was a famous movie director with a powerful legal team that had managed to stimy most of [=McCoy=]'s usual legal wrangling. When [=McCoy=] eventually managed to get him on the stand, however, he essentially goaded the director by playing his ego with the knowledge that the victim, his ex-wife and producer, had basically wrecked his career by spitefully blocking his desired projects and forcing him to work on films that were beneath him. The director eventually explodes, grabs the murder weapon and screams "That vindictive bitch, ''I could have made something --''" before he calms down enough to realize he's been lured into this trope.

** [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_253/7530-Phoenix-Wrights-Objection Reportedly]] at least partially TruthInTelevision in Japan. The seemingly ludicrous success rates of convictions the fictional prosecutors hold aren't as rare as one might hope, and Phoenix's apparent high success rate would be thought just as ludicrous in Japan, and his near poverty is not a far cry from reality.

** We also get three subversions in ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney''. The first case only worked because Phoenix [[spoiler: forged some evidence]] (that [[spoiler:Kristoph]] [[INeverSaidItWasPoison couldn't reveal without admitting to stealing the original evidence and committing the crime]]), the third case only worked because Apollo convinced [[spoiler: the accomplice that you can't be killed for smuggling in the US/Japan and so he had no reason not to talk]], and the fourth case had to be done as a Jury trial as it was impossible to have enough evidence to pin the crime on [[spoiler:Kristoph]]. The jury trial runs on reasonable doubt, which is enough to save the defendant.

** This trope is subverted in ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies Dual Destinies]]''. Case 4 ends without Phoenix identifying the real murderer, only having done enough to prove that it could not be his client [[spoiler: though Athena is immediately arrested due to incriminating evidence.]] The killer is not identified until near the end of Case 5.

[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_perry_mason_method1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:349:[[Film/APlaceInTheSun Would you believe that isn't Perry Mason?]]]]

* Inverted in ''Series/TheTick'' episode "The Tick Versus Justice." Destroyo, acting as his own attorney, asks witness Arthur a loaded question, which Arthur answers in such a way as to provoke a Villainous Breakdown and confession from Destroyo.

** {{Subverted}} and {{parodied}} when Mayor Quimbys' nephew is on trial for assault. Firstly, the jury thinks he is guilty (though he isn't) because he is a {{jerkass}} with a HairTriggerTemper who at one point is provoked into ranting that ''he'll kill everyone in the courtroom''; second, the guy who provoked him was ''his own lawyer'' who was trying to show that he was ''not'' a {{jerkass}} with a violent temper by asking him an innocent question that turned out to be Quimby Jrs. BerserkButton.

A sub-trope of CourtroomAntics.

* One strip of ''NewspaperComic/TheFarSide'' has [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext a cow confess to the crime while serving on the jury]].

* ''Suspect'', in which Creator/{{Cher}} plays a lawyer defending a deaf-mute Vietnam veteran (Creator/LiamNeeson) on a murder charge, may have the über-example; in the climax she unmasks the real murderer [[spoiler: who happens to be the very judge presiding over the trial!]]

[[caption-width-right:349:[[Film/APlaceInTheSun Would you believe that isn't Perry Mason?]]

[[quoteright:349:[[Film/APlaceInTheSun http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_perry_mason_method1.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:349:Perry Mason, having his way with a sorry witness]]

* JudgeDee sometimes does this, occasionally even using torture, and he's the ''judge''. {{Justified}} in that convictions in his setting (AD 600s China) ''had'' to be obtained through confessions. Some villains would hold out even when incontrovertible proof was being displayed.

* In ''ComicBook/YoungbloodJudgmentDay'', Toby King's relentless pursuit of the details behind a book missing from Riptide's room after her murder, gradually uncovering an intimate connection between a certain member of Youngblood and that book, eventually causes [[spoiler:Sentinel]] to fly into a fit of rage and attack him. He grabs at the book and curses King for ruining his plan, outing himself as the murderer.

* Works for Elle Woods in ''Film/LegallyBlonde'', although she doesn't initially suspect the witness (the daughter of the murder victim). Elle only realizes that something's up when the victim's daughter claims that on the morning her father (the victim) was killed, she had gone out to get a perm and then came home and took a shower--Elle, being a [[TheFashionista fashion-and-beauty expert]], [[TruthInTelevision knows you should wait at least 24-hours to get your hair wet after getting it permed]]. After pointing out this little tidbit to the rest of the court (as well as using an example of when a sorority sister of hers had made the mistake of getting her hair wet to soon after getting it permed), Elle performs an aggressive cross-examination, which eventually gets the witness to confess that she's the true murderer. [[spoiler:The girl further confesses that she was actually trying to shoot her stepmother, largely because she resented the fact that her father married someone the same age as her.]]

* Works for Elle Woods in ''Film/LegallyBlonde'', although she doesn't initially suspect the witness (the daughter of the murder victim). Elle only realizes that something's up when the victim's daughter claims that on the morning her father (the victim) was killed, she had gone out to get a perm and then came home and took a shower--Elle, being a [[TheFashionista fashion-and-beauty expert]], [[TruthInTelevision knows you should wait at least 24-hours to get your hair wet after getting it permed]]. After pointing out this little tidbit to the rest of the court (as well as using an example of when a sorority sister of hers had made the mistake of getting her hair wet to soon after getting it permed), Elle proceeds to get the witness to confess that she's the true murderer.[[spoiler: The girl further confesses that she was actually trying to shoot her stepmother, largely because she resented the fact that her father married someone the same age as her.]]

* Works for Elle Woods in ''Film/LegallyBlonde'', although she doesn't initially suspect the witness (the daughter of the murder victim). Elle only realizes that something's up when the victim's daughter claims that on the morning her father (the victim) was killed, she had gone out to get a perm and then came home and took a shower--Elle, being a [[TheFashionista fashion-and-beauty expert]], [[TruthInTelevision knows you should wait at least 24-hours to get your hair wet after getting it permed]]. After pointing out this tidbit to the rest of the court (as well as using an example of when a sorority sister of hers had made the mistake of getting her hair wet to soon after getting it permed), Elle proceeds to get the witness to confess that she's the true murderer.[[spoiler: The girl further admits that she never meant to shoot her father--she was actually trying to shoot her stepmother, largely because she resented the fact that her father married someone the same age as her.]]

** Lisa and Bart get Sideshow Bob to confess to rigging an election by suggesting he wouldn't be smart enough to do it on his own.

* Works for Elle Woods in ''Film/LegallyBlonde'', although she doesn't initially suspect the witness (the daughter of the murder victim). Elle only realizes that something's up when the victim's daughter claims that on the morning her father (the victim) was killed, she had gone out to get a perm and then came home and took shower--Elle, being a [[TheFashionista fashion-and-beauty expert]], [[TruthInTelevision knows you should wait at least 24-hours to get your hair wet after getting it permed]]. After pointing this out to the court (as well as using an example of when a sorority sister of hers had made the mistake of getting her hair wet to soon after getting it permed), Elle proceeds to get the witness to confess that she's the true murderer.[[spoiler: The girl admits that she never meant to shoot her father--she was actually trying to shoot her stepmother, largely because she resented the fact that her father married someone the same age as her.]]