Talk:Donald Lam

MERGED
I have today created a new page called Cool and Lam and merged all information from both articles, making both individual pages into redirects. (see below -- this has been proposed for six weeks with no adverse comments). I was instructed that I couldn't merge the talk pages so I will leave them as they are, so that people have a record of what's happened. If anyone has any questions or problems, my talk page will be a good place to let me know. Accounting4Taste 01:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Merge
I've proposed to merge the Bertha Cool and Donald Lam pages into a single page, Cool and Lam. My reasoning for this is that there are no books that have just one of them -- even in the two wartime novels when Donald Lam is servingin the army, he's constantly referred to and is an active presence in the novels. All the rest contain the two equally. Also, I checked out the Nero Wolfe page, and it contains Archie Goodwin -- a very similar situation. Both are pairs of private investigators, both have one active "leg-man" partner and one "managing" partner. I'm leaving this proposal up for a while just to ensure that if anyone disagrees, they have a chance to express themselves. This note has been repeated on the other page that I propose to merge. Accounting4Taste 03:12, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Lam is Bertha Cool's side-kick. He's the main character in all the "Bertha Cool - Donald Lam" mysteries. I wonder why they added Cool's name to ther series.

- Créativist

Unlikely Duo?
Although the assertion that Cool and Lam are known as "The Unlikely Duo" has proliferated throughout pages discussing them, I would very much like to see a citation referencing this. I have copies of all the novels, in many different editions, and cannot even find a cover blurb suggesting this specific name. In addition, I have a copy of an unaired television pilot for "Cool and Lam" from the 1950s which features Erle Stanley Gardner himself saying a bit about the duo -- and he doesn't use that name. Nor does a Google search reveal anything other than the Wikipedia reference. I'll leave this up for a while before making alterations just in case someone can come up with a citation. Admittedly Cool and Lam are an unlikely duo, but I find it hard to accept that they could be known as "the" unlikely duo without more evidence. Accounting4Taste 20:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I checked some more references, cannot find any reference to this, so nominated the "The Unlikely Duo" page for deletion for lack of attribution and have here removed the reference. Also I've edited this page to increase the out-of-universe perspective, added dates and a reference citation to the list of books, added a few more facts about Donald Lam, and fixed a couple of typos. Accounting4Taste 03:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Added some information about the TV pilot -- the quality of the copy is poor, and the copyright date is illegible, but might be 1957. Accounting4Taste 04:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

IMDB cites it as 1958. Accounting4Taste 03:28, 22 April 2007 (UTC)