Dragnet
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
In the late 1960s and early 1970s a man named Jack Webb produced two television series.Both shows were based off of the files of the Los Angeles Police Department. Both encorporated the quote at the right. One of them, know as Adam-12 followed police
"The story you have just seen is true. The names were changed to protect the innocent." |
Just the Facts... Dragnet's episodes used detectives Friday and Gannon as vehicles to show the heroics of the detectives of the LAPD. The crimes they solved really occured, the criminals they arrested were really apprehended, and in nearly every case convicted in a court of law. Each episode (as many Television favorites do) followed essentially the same formula around the basic structure of the official report.
This is the city...
Each episode of Dragnet opened with a monologue by Jack Webb as Joe Friday.
This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I carry a badge. |
The Setup
After the monologue, the opening credits would roll over a picture of Joe Friday's badge1. Afterwards, Friday would fill us in on the situation at hand. The format of the show required that he and his partner, Gannon, be
We were working the day watch out of the Homicide division... |
Bill Gannon's Bits
Officer Bill Gannon2 was, with the exception of the occasional eccentric witness, the show's closest thing to "comic relief". Officer Gannon3 -- who, though outranked by Friday was a bit older and the only one of the two who was married -- would generally begin the episode with something that Joe found amusing.
Honestly, Joe, you will never understand the way I eat! |
...and the Show Begins
After Bill and Joe get done chating, a call comes in4 and the show gets rolling. To keep the serious television viewer involved in the show's reality, Sgt. Friday would regularly inform the audience of the time of day at wich each event depicted occured. This is all well and good if you're watching for reality. But watching a rerun of Dragnet is usually more fun from the tounge in cheek perspective. In this case, you'll want to keep score of some of the more clichéd bits, such as...
- The Nod: The most common Dragnet fallback gesture. "The Nod", true to it's name, is a nodding of the head, coupled with a thoughtful expression on the face of (usually) Bill Gannon, occuring after (again, usually) Sgt. Friday has made a very insightfull comment. "The Nod" can also be a head shake, however, displaying the dissaproval of the detectives at a criminal's explanation of his or her motives.
- The Eccentric Witness: Usually an elderly woman who has absolutely no idea what's going on. Sometimes she wants nothing more than to help the police apprehend the badguys. Othertimes she will have nothing to do with the cops. She's been a religious zealot, and a widow with a tremendous fortune, no hearing, and a total disregard for her own money. Hippies and people with glaring physical dissabilities count, too.
- "Just the facts, Ma'm": a rarer quote than you might think
- A Strong Anti-Drug Message: This one goes with the anti-hippie message of the entire show. Joe Friday really rants on sometimes. "Marijuana is the flame! Heroine is the fuse! LSD is the bomb!"
- Joe's Walk: Like the Grinch's heart, this man's underwear is two sizes too small.
- The Detectives at Home: This is when you need to find something else to watch. If the characters aren't on duty, and are, instead, spending the evening with eachother at the home of one or the other, there's no show. Sometimes what you get is a series of small disturbances that the neighbors ask our heros to investigate. At least once there was an entire episode where the only crime commited was a misdemeanor, and the first twenty minutes of the show was fluff.
The Wrap Up
So Joe and Bill have gotten their man. Once again they've saved the day. The voice over guy informs us that the story we have just seen is true, and tells us that "on date "x" trial was held in court "y" in and for the county of Los Angeles. In a moment, the results of that trial." Then you've got a nice commercial break, after which the voice over guy tells you who was convicted of what, and what sentence they recieved. Roll credits, play that theme music.
The MovieThere was a movie made of Dragnet, starring Dan Akroyd as Joe Friday the nephew of the original, late, Joe Friday. Tom Hanks plays his oddball, shoot-from-the-hip partner, Striebek, and Harry Morgan makes an appearance as Captain Bill Gannon. It's a comedy, of course, and though the story you're about to see isn't quite true, it's a great laugh.