SHANNON

SHANNON 1961 television series.

This interesting mystery program aired for one season and 36 episodes. George Nader plays the title character, an insurance investigator for Transport Bonding and Surety Company. His car has a phone, tape recorder, and camera, all of which pop up at the press of a button -- real high tech! Shannon's grouchy boss was Bill Cochran, winningly played by Regis Toomey, whom later on assisted Amos Burke on Burke's Law. Shannon was a pleasant, if unspectacular, show but it did have some memorable episodes: a middle-aged woman is used by a younger man and car thief in "Never Help a Lady;" "Professional Widower" is about a man who marries -- and murders -- for money; "Cold Trail" concerns a man jailed for embezzlement who may have been innocent; "Iron Clad Alibi" concerns a missing sack containing a quarter of a million dollars; suspicion surrounds everyone in a case of a missing husband in "Duke of the Valley;" and a woman insists that the man she loved was not the rotter everyone else portrays him as in "Saints and Sinners." Nader played Joe Shannon with just the right touch. Like Perry Mason's Raymond Burr, Nader also had a longtime male companion.

Verdict: Interesting old mystery show with a likable cast. **1/2.