Jack Webb set the standard for law and order police with the creation of Dragnet
a show which impacted for better or worse every television police show down to
this day. Webb who was a respected character player in the day vaulted to stardom first with the Dragnet radio series and then when it moved to television.
The show started in radio in 1949 and moved to television in 1951 where it ran
for 8 seasons. Every story followed a rigid pattern where Jack Webb as Sgt.
Joe Friday and Ben Alexander as Detective Frank Smith start the day out working in one aspect of police work. They could be at a specific precinct or
at a special command, narcotics, juveniles,homicide, etc. An incident would
happen and for the next half hour these two followed the leads and made the
arrest.
Webb's interrogation technique became legendary. One can still hear his
staccato questioning and when someone got off point, he'd respond with the
familiar catchphrase, 'just the facts'.
About the middle point of the show Webb and Alexander would be in their
police car and this was where these two got humanized. Alexander and later
Harry Morgan would talk about home and family. Webb would listen and
smile and occasionally mentioned he had a date coming up. No relationsips
though. The phrase 'married to the job' applied to Joe Friday like no other.
What a spartan existence he led.
Dragnet was beautifully satirized in an 80s movie that starred Dan Aykroyd as
Joe Friday and Tom Hanks as a young and hip partner. It was brought back by
Webb for another run from 1968-1971 this time in color.
Webb did the same thing for uniform police with a show he produced Adam-12
which had a respectable run. And the show Emergency. his also, had some
solid stories about EMS technicians done in Dragnet style.
Few shows for better or worse had the impact Dragnet has.
