Radio Recap: Dragnet

"Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true; only the names have been changed to protect the innocent."

Dragnet is one of the best-remembered and still popular old-time radio shows of them all. It can be genuinely credited with altering not just the genre of police/crime radio dramas but the way in which radio drama was depicted from then on - to say nothing of the show's vast influence on television, particularly on Dick Wolf's Law and Order franchise. The original radio series was heard over NBC from January 1949 until March 1957 - although the show's final original episode was "the Big Close" (September 20, 1955) and all subsequent episodes were rebroadcasts.

The series originated with Jack Webb and Barton Yarborough as detective sergeants Joe Friday and Ben Romero, serving under chief of detectives Ed Backstrand (Raymond Burr), later Thad Brown (various actors). It's kind of amazing that a number of early episodes of Dragnet feature appearances by Harry Morgan as a variety of minor characters; nearly 2 decades later, he became famous as Joe Friday's TV partner Bill Gannon on the colour version of Dragnet.

The show hit perhaps its finest note when Barton Yarborough passed away during the show's 3rd season. Rather than eliminating the character of Ben Romero as though he'd never existed, it was written into the first episode following Yarborough's death- "the Big Sorrow" (December 27, 1951) in which Romero was killed and Friday must inform his family. Amazingly, that episode was also adapted to the Dragnet television show a year later.

Following Yarborough/Romero's death, Friday's new partner was Ed Jacobs (Barney Phillips), then Ben Romero's nephew Bill Lockwood (Martin Milner and Ken Peters) and finally Frank Smith who was portrayed by various actors until Ben Alexander took over the role in 1952 and held it through the Dragnet television series and feature film.

NBC was not known for giving a lot of rope to sustained programs (unlike CBS) but Dragnet wasn't sustained for very long; after it's successful run of summer shows in 1949, by the fall it was sponsored by Fatima cigarettes, who covered the series for many years to come; Webb performed in the commercials, giving testimonials about how fine Fatimas were.

Dragnet inspired a host of imitators, some I've written about before on the blog, most notably the Line-Up, 21st Precinct and Whitehall 1212. It set off a wave of programming that sought to find new angles on presenting crimes with authentic details; it's hard to imagine shows like Night Watch or Confession being greenlit had it not been for Dragnet proving there was audience interested in such programs. John Dunning noted in On the Air that Dragnet was also frequently compared to Gunsmoke, despite the differences in style and genre. Listeners recognized that both shows were striving for authentic-sounding realistic programming in genres that didn't always strive for such versimilitude.

Of course, Dragnet learned from its predecessors, improving upon the programming choices Calling All Cars and Gang Busters had made, kicking to the curb a lot of the tired old tropes of police dramas. But then, Dragnet itself became something that was seen as a bit tired and trope-y; certainly, you hear a lot of the same voices in each episode and also a lot of the same character types - the sullen youth, the indignant suspect, the gabby woman.

Television came upon Dragnet quickly; the series Chesterfield Sound Off ran a pilot for Dragnet on December 16, 1951 with the radio script from "City Hall Bombing" (July 21, 1949) and Webb and Yarborough reprising their characters. Their own television series debuted the following month but sadly, due to Yarborough's death, he only appeared in the first episode. The television version ran until the summer of 1959, during which Webb and Alexander also starred in the 1954 Dragnet feature film. Dragnet returned for a 1967-1970 run as a colour television program with Jack Webb starring opposite Harry Morgan.

Although Webb's particular clipped manner of speech had led him to being a subject of parody since all the way back to Pat Novak, for Hire, Dragnet's distinctive music, narration and performance style made it especially ripe for parody. Fortunately, Webb was usually a pretty good sport about that, giving his blessing to Stan Freberg for his comedy record "St. George and the Dragonet," even supplying Dragnet's musicians to supply the score for the sketch. Webb was also not above parodying Joe Friday himself in comedy sketches with Jack Benny and Johnny Carson on television.

However, the 1967-1970 Dragnet series brought in some less-than-affectionate parody, particularly because that series was essentially the same as the 1951-1959 series, only in colour. It was seen as hopelessly behind-the-times and out-of-touch, especially in its attempts to depict the ill effects of drug use (a long-time Dragnet staple), which tended to result in ridiculously hammy performances by the actors portraying addicts. Perhaps that's why the next time Dragnet was revived it was as a parody - the 1987 Dan Ackroyd/Tom Hanks comedy film (with Harry Morgan reprising his role from the '67-70 series). Of course, Jack Webb had died in 1982; he didn't see what had become of the franchise that made him famous.

Dragnet continued to be revived and for all I know, even as I type this, someone in Hollywood is trying to bring it back again. It came back in 1989 as a syndicated series starring Jeff Osterhage and Bernard White as brand-new protagonists; that series is mostly forgotten now. In 2003, Dick Wolf (whose Law and Order franchise had looked to Dragnet for inspiration) revived the series with Ed O'Neill and Ethan Embry as Friday and Smith; it lasted two very truncated seasons.

I'm particularly partial to the first year of Dragnet; the emphasis on action is a little bit stronger and I find Barton Yarborough to be Webb's best sidekick, his vocal twang being endlessly fun to listen to (I also appreciate hearing Raymond Burr in the majority of episodes). To me, the best of the early days include "the Werewolf" (June 17, 1949), the police impersonator in "the Red Light Bandit" (July 14, 1949), the mad bomber who tries to blow up city hall in "City Hall Bombing" (July 21, 1949) and the emotional Christmas episode ".22 Rifle for Christmas" (December 22, 1949).

The rest of Dragnet is good - the quality of the series' production values, writing and performances don't vary much across the years, even as Webb moved on to other partners for Joe Friday. Some episodes I enjoy include: Friday trying to prevent a suicide "the Big Jump" (January 11, 1951); the horrific fate of neglected children "the Big Children" (February 1, 1951); Friday and Romero interrogating a suspect who has a lot to say "the Big Cast" (February 8, 1951); Joe being injured, causing Ben to assume the lead and narration "the Big Ben" (March 15, 1951); an apparent suicide investigation "the Big Casing" (May 3, 1951); the two-part "The Big Mask" featuring an elusive masked bandit (December 28, 1952 and January 4, 1953; and the show's more heart-warming Christmas episode "the Big Little Jesus" (December 22, 1953).

I think it's a shame Webb decided at some stage that every episode should be "the Big"-something. It's harder to recommend Dragnet to fellow OTR fans when it takes so much work to figure out which of the 300+ episodes were the good ones; I think Webb wanted the titles to be stark, but they're also rather bland.

There are hundreds of Dragnet episodes online; some are network versions, others are clipped versions from the Armed Forces. Here's the Old Time Radio Researchers' YouTube playlist: