The Big Clan

"The Big Clan" is a very good episode of "Dragnet". However, I do wonder if there's any way this sort of episode could be shown today. After all, it's no longer considered politically correct to refer to folks a 'Gypsies". The more acceptable term is 'Roma' or 'Romani' and folks are starting to point out that the stereotype of the 'thieving Gypsy' is very broad and certainly doesn't mean all of the Roma are thieves or living outside the law.

In this installment of the series, the story is pretty weird...and it's obvious the folks are pretty dumb. They call themselves Gypsies, but I think a better way of looking at it is that they are grifters...and call themselves Gypies. Regardless, they sure picked the wrong cop to approach!

It seems that there's a power struggle in the community and one potential leader of these crooks wants to go into business with Friday. He'll bribe Friday in order to get Joe to harass fortune tellers aligned with the other potential leader as well as give a free pass to his supporters. Of course, Friday agrees...in order to get a bribery case on the pair who approached him. Friday and Gannon also handle a case involving a Madame Maria....a fortune teller who has stolen a lot of money...and a woman working for the man who is trying to bribe Friday!

This is a pretty humorous episode...and you just can't help but think how stupid these folks are! Well worth seeing...whether politically correct or not.

This episode features the well-travelled Virginia Gregg in a different role for her, as she normally takes on very serious characters. In this episode, she's a major player in a Gypsy fortunetelling scam, very gregarious and friendly, and trying to entire Joe Friday into being an "inside cop" for their organization.

He's hit with an $11K bribe to keep the heat off the fortunetellers as they scam (mostly) lonely widows out of their life savings. The LAPD launches a major simultaneous operation to catch dozens of fake fortunetellers in one big sweep, including the woman who recently rooks an older widow out of $15,000. What happens when they meet the ringleaders again?

What a pleasure it was to see this episode this morning on the 'Sleuth Channel'. We're sure that this episode wasn't as warmly received when last we viewed it. The previous time was during that 'Crack in Time' known as 1968. It was the Year that acted more like a whole Decade. There was so much that happened that year.

How many remember: the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Death of Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia. the Killing of Senator Robert Kennedy and the Near Sedition at the '68 Democratic National Convention in 'sweet home', Chicago. There were countless other occurrences; but you get the picture. Isn't that right, Schultz?

The year was also this writer's first full year on the Streets of Chicago in Service of the good old CPD. But even though this doesn't seem to be so long ago (Only 40 years!); in many respects it is light years ago.** You know what I mean. Those are now the "Old Days!"

It was an Era when being a Policeman meant being a Man. It was still believed that it was a job for a Man; although we had Policewomen and Police Matrons, who did their jobs and did them well. They displayed aptitudes in areas that the guys just couldn't handle. You know what I mean; areas involving children, Juvenile Offenders and processing any female arrestees of the opposite Sex! (And that's the best kind!)

In this time in our History there was no worry about 'hurting anyone's feelings' and it was the Bad Guys who were afraid of us; rather than the Good and the Upstanding Citizenry. Then came in the principal know as "Social Engineering" and all of a sudden it was Official Department Policy that there was no difference between Women and Men' not even the Pink vs. Blue Booties!

OUR STORY………………Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Officer Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) are the Detective team assigned to investigate cases of Larceny by Confidence Game involving victims who had frequented Fortune Telling Parlors operated by members of the Ethnic Group known as "Citizens of the World" or more commonly, Gypsies.

The story is meticulous in giving the audience a true to life look at the type of con game that is played against their typical victim, the lonely elderly widow. The cold hearted manner in which they prey on the semi-senile and the confused is graphically portrayed in such outlandish scenarios as to stretch credibility. That brings recall of a saying that our Father, Clem Ryan (1914-74) had told us;" Truth is stranger than Fiction."

In the course of clearing up a few of the cases and arresting a fugitive Gypsy Queen, Friday and Gannon manage to gain the confidence of Operators of a String of Fortune Telling Parlors, who attempt to bribe the good Detective Sgt; offering to make him some sort of partner in the criminal enterprise. But Joe, Bill and their boss, Captain Lambert (Clark Howat) have been around far too long. They use a wire and make inventory of the proceed$ of the bribery; when the Male/Female operators enter Police HQ of their own volition to check on the arrest of the Gypsy Queen; they find themselves in the Hoosegow and charged with a couple of Felonies.

All of this was followed with the obligatory admonitions concerning spoken by Announcers George Fenneman* and John Stephenson; "The Story you have just witnessed is True" and "On March 22nd a trial was held in Superior Court", etc.

Being a full-fledged "Boomer" and a kid who remembers the original DRAGNET (Mark VII Ltd., 1951-59) done in glorious B & W, the characters and format were certainly no strangers. When it was resurrected in 1967 with the advertising campaign of "Friday is coming to Thursday on NBC", we immediately knew what they meant and were elated!

But today for the very first time in the well over fifty (50!) years of familiarity with the Jack Webb Brainchild, that I saw it in a truly different light. The description given of the show was "Docudrama", a word unknown to us until many years later. But it surely was a word that fit a series of anthological stories; linked by their being crime stories culled from the real life case files of the LAPD. The presence of Sgt. Friday, Officer Gannon and Captain Lambert was the one factor which truly made it a series.

And Only the Names were changed to protect the Innocent!

NOTE: * Yeah, he's the same George Fenneman who was Comic Foil for Groucho on YOU BET YOUR LIFE (FilmCraft/NBC TV, 1950-61).

NOTE: ** Before any eggheads out there have a fit, we know that a "Light Year" is a measure of Distance and not of Time. We was jest havin' a little fun weeth eet! You do understand; don't you, Schultz?