Dragnet Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Dragnet was a long running NBC radio and television show about the cases of a Los Angeles, California police detective, Joe Friday, and his partner. It first aired on the radio on June 3, 1949 and began its television run on December 16, 1951.The show was created and produced by Jack Webb, who also starred as Sgt. Friday. It was advertised as a true-crime police show, told from the point of view of a hard-bitten detective on the Los Angeles police force. It's said that Webb hung out at police headquarters and attended classes at the police academy to help him bring authenticity to the show, a connection referenced by the fictional Badge of Honor show depicted in the movie L.A. Confidential.
The series has been credited for playing a major role in dramatically improving the public image of the police in the USA.
On every broadcast, the announcer stated that "The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed, to protect the innocent." "Hear" was changed to "see" for the television version.
Two other hallmarks of the TV show came at the end of each episode:
- The fate of the perpetrators was stated, as a verdict of a court "in and for the City and County of Los Angeles" on an appropriate date.
- A sweaty left hand (of a convict sentenced to hard labor?) appeared holding what would turn out to be stamp for indenting metal; a heavy hammer struck the top of the handle of the stamp, twice, loudly; the stamp was removed to reveal the result, "MK VII", referring to the production company, Mark Seven Productions. It would later be revealed that the two hands were in fact, those of Jack Webb.
In 1966, a TV movie, also called Dragnet, aired. Starring Jack Webb and Harry Morgan as his partner Bill Gannon, it spawned a new series, Dragnet 1967, which aired until 1970, the title year changing with each season.
In 1982, when Jack Webb died, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department announced that badge number 714, the number used by Webb in the TV show, would be retired by the department and the number would never be used again.
In 1987, a comedy movie version of Dragnet appeared, starring Dan Aykroyd as the stiff Joe Friday (the original Detective Friday's nephew), and his partner Pep Streebeck, played by Tom Hanks. Harry Morgan would have a cameo roll in the film, playing Bill Gannon, his character in the series
In 1989, The New Dragnet appeared in first-run syndication, featuring all-new characters, and in 2003 yet another Dragnet series was produced by Dick Wolf, the producer of Law & Order;, a series that was influenced by Dragnet. The most recent version starred Ed O'Neill as Joe Friday, and after a season that rather closely followed the traditional formula, the format of the series was changed to be more of a ensemble crime drama similar to . With this change came a new title, L.A. Dragnet and it focused less on Joe Friday. With most of the trappings that made Dragnet unique no longer in place, it became just another cops and robbers series and it was canceled in its second season.
Dragnet has been spoofed numerous times. In television, it has been parodied, for example, as a popular skit (featuring Webb and Johnny Carson) on The Tonight Show, and years later as "Mathnet," an ongoing film segment of the PBS series Square One TV. In music, Stan Freberg took a potshot at Dragnet in the spoken-word comedy take-off St. George and the Dragon-net, and Eric Burdon & The Animals spoofed the show's opening at the beginning of their hit single San Francisco Nights.