Mr. Chameleon was painfully contrived, employing dramatic cliches seldom heard after sundown. But its creator, Frank Hummert, was a master of soap opera, utilizing in his dramatic shows the obvious devices of simplistic dialogue, heavy exposition, and constant repetition of names, so that there was never a doubt as to the speaker's identity.

Chameleon ooperated out of "Central Police Headquarters." A case was sometimes said to be "famous" the moment Chameleon was assigned to it. Following the pattern set by that other prime-time Hummert stalwart, Mr. Keene, Chameleon had a big dumb sidekick, Dave Arnold, whos function was to ask ovvious questions and be suitably perplexed until the boss revealed an outcome already deduced by much of the listening audience._{John Dunning}