ALL SCI-FI

[scotpens]

It's worth noting that Dragnet actually got its start in radio, with 314 episodes aired between June 1949 and September 1955. It was one of the last radio dramas. The first Dragnet TV series, with Ben Alexander as Sgt. Friday's partner Officer Frank Smith, ran for eight seasons from December 1951 to August 1959.

[Pow]

A powerful and insightful speech made by Sgt. Joe Friday. And one of my favorites.

What Is A Cop?
From "The Interrogation"
Written by: Preston Wood and (uncredited) Jack Webb and Richard L. Breen

It's awkward having a policeman around the house. Friends drop in, a man with a badge answers the door, the temperature drops twenty degrees.

You throw a party and that badge gets in the way. All of a sudden there isn't a straight man in the crowd. Everybody's a comedian. "Don't drink too much," somebody says, "or the man with a badge'll run you in." Or "How's it going Dick Tracy? How many jaywalkers did you pinch today?" And then there's always the one who wants to know how many apples you stole.

All at once you lost your first name. You're a cop, a flatfoot, a bull, a dick, John Law. You're the fuzz, the heat; you're poison, you're trouble, you're bad news. They call you everything, but never a policeman.

It's not much of a life, unless you don't mind missing a Dodger game because the hotshot phone rings. Unless you like working Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, at a job that doesn't pay overtime. Oh, the pays adequate---if you count pennies you can put your kid through college, but you better plan on seeing Europe on your television set.

And then there's your first night on the beat. When you try to arrest a drunken prostitute in a Main Street bar and she rips your new uniform to shreds. You'll buy another one---out of your own pocket. And you're going to rub elbows with the elite---pimps, addicts, thieves, bums, winos, girls who can't keep an address and men who don't care. Liars, cheats, con men---the class of Skid Row.

And the heartbreak---underfed kids, beaten kids, molested kids, lost kids, crying kids, homeless kids, hit-and-run kids, broken-arm kids, broken-leg kids, broken-head kids, sick kids, dying kids, dead kids. The old people nobody wants---the reliefers, the pensioners, the ones who walk the street cold, and those who tried to keep warm and died in a three-dollar room with an unventilated gas heater. You'll walk your beat and try to pick up the pieces.

Do you have adventure in your soul? You better have, because you're gonna do time in a prowl car. Oh, it's going to be a thrill a minute when you get an "unknown trouble" call and hit a backyard at two in the morning, never knowing who you'll meet---a kid with a knife, a pill-head with a gun, or two ex-cons with nothing to lose. And you're going to have plenty of time to think. You'll draw duty in a "lonely car," with nobody to talk to but your radio.

Four years in a uniform and you'll have the ability, the experience and maybe the desire to be a detective. If you like to fly by the seat of your pants, this is where you belong. For every crime that's committed, you've got three million suspects to choose from. And most of the time, you'll have few facts and a lot of hunches. You'll run down leads that dead-end on you. You'll work all-night stakeouts that could last a week. You'll do leg work until you're sure you've talked to everybody in the state of California: people who saw it happen, but really didn't. People who insist they did it, but really didn't. People who don't remember; those who try to forget. Those who tell the truth; those who lie. You'll run the files until your eyes ache.

And paperwork? You'll fill out a report when you're right, you'll fill out a report when you're wrong, you'll fill one out when you're not sure, you'll fill one out listing your leads, you'll fill one out when you have no leads, you'll make out a report on the reports you've made. You'll write enough words in your lifetime to stock a library.

You'll learn to live with doubt, anxiety, frustration. Court decisions that tend to hinder rather than help you: Dorado, Morse, Escobedo, Cahan. You'll learn to live with the District Attorney, testifying in court. Defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, judges, juries, witnesses. And sometimes you're not going to be happy with the outcome.

But there's also this: there are over five thousand men in this city who know that being a policeman is an endless, glamorless, thankless job that's gotta be done.
I know it too. And I'm damned glad to be one of them.
My Name's Friday. The Unauthorized but True Story of Dragnet and the Films of Jack Webb, by Michael J. Hayde.

Trivia: The Interrogation (Air Date: February 9, 1967).The story involves an undercover cop who, while on duty, is arrested and is accused of robbing a liquor store. Friday & Gannon conduct the interrogation of the cop who proclaims his innocence and becomes enraged over his situation. Kent McCord plays the cop. Jack will cast him as officer Jim Reed (along with Martin Milner as his partner Pete Malloy) in Adam-12 which ran from 1968 to 1975.