Dragnet

1 9 5 1 - 1 9 5 9 (USA)
361 x 30 minute episodes
1 9 6 7 - 1 9 7 0 (USA)
98 x 30 minute episodes

"Just the facts, Ma'am"

The NBC series Dragnet featured the cases of Sergeant Joe Friday, an old-fashioned by-the-book cop in the LAPD. This show made Joe Friday to television what Sherlock Holmes was to literature (and The Shadow to radio), and Jack Webb - creator, producer, writer and star - fashioned the police-procedural series into a television classic.

Fans appreciated its unglamorous, realistic depiction of routine police work, while detractors criticized the wooden acting. Actually, Webb sought a documentary mood and even used amateurs - occasionally the people involved in the actual cases upon which an episode was based - resulting in less-than-flashy performances.

Sgt Joe Friday would talk viewers through the dates, times and places of the investigation, straight from the police blotter. "The story you are about to see is true," ran the opening. "The names have been changed to protect the innocent." The pervasive monosyllables and monotones would have been inappropriate in any medium but half-hour television: on the small screen it translated into intimate, compact slices of life.

Friday's work with the LAPD ran from 1951 to 1959, although the series was successfully revived from 1967 to 1970 (this time in color). Friday's sidekicks through the years were Barton Yarborough as Sgt Ben Romero; Barney Philips as Sgt Jacobs; Ben Alexander as Officer Frank Smith; and, in the 60s version, Harry Morgan as Detective Bill Gannon.

This was the first American drama series to be screened on British television.