''Night Court U.S.A.'' is a dramatized court show that aired weekly on

KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

, beginning April 18, 1958. The ''

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'' listing for the seminal session explained: "This half hour program makes use of both

character actor A character actor is a supporting actor who plays unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrieved 7 August 2014, "..a breed of actor who has the ability to ...

s and people off the street to portray those brought into night court." The show eventually switched to using scripted cases, and was extended to an hour. The subject matter of the cases was often whimsical. An example from season 2 was that of a drunk

woman A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regard ...

who passed out in a park. She claimed that she was merely

bird watching Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device like binoculars or a telescope, by ...

. Most defendants entered a plea of guilty "but with an explanation" and then proceeded to throw themselves on the mercy of the court with the unfortunate circumstances leading to their

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

. The judge was played by veteran

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), l ...

Jay Jostyn.

References

External links

''Night Court, USA'': More Fiction Than Reality
* {{IMDb title, 0288384 1958 American television series debuts 1961 American television series endings Dramatized court shows