People's Court Judge Joseph Wapner Dead at 97

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Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Joseph Wapner, the judge who rose to fame on TV’s The People’s Court, has died.  He was 97.

The People’s Court,debuting in 1981, was TV’s first reality courtroom series.  Wapner presided over the courtroom for 12 seasons during the show’s first run in syndication, which ended in 1993. It inspired many other shows, such as Judge Judy and Hot Bench.  He later appeared on Judge Wapner’s Animal Court, which ran for two seasons.

Wapner served as a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge for 18 years before retiring in 1979.

Wapner became a pop culture figure, most memorably in the 1988 film Rain Man, in which Dustin Hoffman’s character, an autistic man, has a constant need to stick to his routines, which include watching The People’s Court.  Any time it seems that he will not be able to watch the show, he repeats the time remaining until the show airs — for example,  “One minute to Wapner” — again and again.  Wapner also occasionally appeared on TV shows as himself.

In November of 2009, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A day later, in honor of his 90th birthday, Wapner returned to The People’s Court in a one-time-only appearance as a guest judge.

In a 2005 interview with the Archive of American Television, Wapner said he’d like to be “remembered as a judge who acted as a judge should … I want to be remembered in a kindly way, in a positive way, someone who had an influence on the law, the way people act, the way people should act.”

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