Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time series#
Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time tv#

Each show was all business, with little if any time for character development. The format of “Dragnet” was crisp and fast-paced. You can still see the show’s influence today in the popular science-based true crime shows on cable such as “Forensic Detectives,” where painstaking, creative detective work is the focal point, not the brief and grisly murder re-enactments. “Dragnet” solved crimes not with bullets or intimidation but with questions, answers, and deductive detective work. Each show always ended with the accused convicted in court before it cut to the credits. “Dragnet’s” moralistic tone also meshed seamlessly with the anti-communist mood of the Eisenhower era.

Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time tv#

Alexander were out to solve crimes, and their terse queries and deadpan shtick as they interviewed each stock eccentric and weirdo became the stuff of TV legend. It was the first crime drama to focus on day-to-day police work rather than the kind of shoot’em-up hyperactivity that plagues crime shows today. “Dragnet” was an overnight smash, very Hollywood noir, black and gray, moody and dark. He quickly went through a couple of sidekicks (his original radio partner had died after the show’s 1951 preview) before settling on Ben Alexander, who played Officer Frank Smith for the rest of the original series’ run. He directed the show, starred in it, and produced it through his own Mark VII production company.

Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time series#

He wore all the hats when “Dragnet” premiered as a television series on NBC in 1952. Webb was able to bring his radio show to the small screen. TV was a new medium in the early 1950s, and many of its early stars and newscasters were carry-overs from radio. It is regarded as the first realistic procedural cop show. Joe Friday, connected with its audience immediately. Fascinated by the technical aspects of police procedures, he developed a new radio series titled “Dragnet,” which first aired in 1949. But soon he found work in Hollywood as a character actor in several movies, including the 1948 film noir, “He Walked by Night,” in which he played a forensic scientist. Webb was an aspiring artist who planned to return to his studies after a stint in the military. A hard-bitten loner who suffered through a miserable childhood, Mr. “It provided the blueprint on which everything has been built.” “Dragnet” was the brainchild of Jack Webb, whose stint in Hollywood included forgettable second-banana film roles in the 1940s and early 1950s.

“‘Dragnet’ is the single greatest cop-show franchise in television history,” Mr. Today’s “Dragnet” is brought to you by “Law and Order” jefe Dick Wolf, who persuaded the struggling alphabet network to order up 13 episodes of the show. ABC has decided to revive this venerable cop drama yet another time, proving you can never have too much of a good thing as long as it’s a sequel to something that once made someone a lot of money. It was canceled again in 1970 only to resurface in 1987 in an affectionate Hollywood spoof starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks, and again in the late ‘80s as a short-lived TV series. Canceled the first time in 1959, it was revived in living color in the late 1960s. Like “Star Trek,” “Dragnet” proved to be a franchise that would not die. Joe Friday and his even more humorless sidekick Frank Smith take a bite out of crime.

Plopping down on their Danish modern sofas in front of the old Philco each Thursday night with a huge bag of Lay’s New Era potato chips slathered with homemade cream cheese dip reeking of fresh garlic and onions, or better yet, digging into hot Swanson’s TV dinners (baked in their newfangled Tappan ovens), thousands of Americans glued their eyes to the tube to watch Detective Sgt. After its premier in the early ‘50s, this gritty half-hour drama starring a hard-boiled B-movie actor with a crew cut named Jack Webb remained an audience favorite throughout the Eisenhower years. It’s been a long time since “Dragnet” was the best-known, best-loved cop series on television. Of course, you remember that unmistakable theme from “Dragnet.” Or, if you’re not a baby boomer, maybe you don’t.