BONUS - Five Favorites: Dragnet
Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)
Jack Mooney
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 153 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our month-long salute to Jack Webb continues with his signature series and my five favorite radio episodes of Dragnet. We'll join Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday as he keeps the streets of Los Angeles safe from crooks of all stripes. We'll hear "The Big Bomb" (originally aired on NBC on July 13, 1950); "The Big Saint" (originally aired on NBC on April 26, 1951); "The Big Bunco" (originally aired on NBC on April 17, 1952); "The Big Bull" (originally aired on NBC on September 14, 1952); and "The Big Little Mother" (originally aired on NBC on October 6, 1953).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Get this and get it straight. |
| 0:02.1 | Crime is a sucker's road. |
| 0:03.9 | And those who travel |
| 0:04.6 | it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave. |
| 0:12.3 | The story you were about to hear is true. |
| 0:15.2 | Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. |
| 0:18.6 | The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective. |
| 0:21.7 | The Adventures of the Saint, |
| 0:23.4 | starring Vincent Price. |
| 0:25.5 | Bob Bailey, in the exciting adventures |
| 0:27.7 | of the man with the action-packed expense account. |
| 0:30.6 | America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator... |
| 0:33.4 | Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. |
| 1:00.5 | ... Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of Down These Mean Streets. |
| 1:08.1 | It's another installment where I share my five favorite episodes of a classic radio detective series. |
| 1:14.1 | And for this go-round, we're continuing our month-long salute to Jack Webb, |
| 1:23.6 | with my five favorite episodes of Dragnet. Now, Webb had other radio shows, Pat Novak, Jeff Regan, |
| 1:30.3 | Pete Kelly's Blues, but his name will forever be synonymous with Dragnet and the character of Sergeant Joe Friday. Web starred in hundreds of radio episodes, two TV shows, and a feature |
| 1:38.7 | film as the dogged LA detective in the show that birthed the modern police procedural. |
| 1:45.9 | Today we'll hear my five favorite episodes. |
| 1:48.8 | Shows that offer an example of the diverse range of stories Dragnet could tell, beginning |
| 1:53.9 | with the big bomb from July 13, 1950. |
... |
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