The Born April 2nd, 1920, Jack Webb became a legendary figure in pop culture thanks to Dragnet,

his landmark police procedural that enjoyed long runs, first on radio and later on television.

But before he made his mark as the no-nonsense Sergeant Joe Friday, Webb cut his radio detective

teeth in shows where he played hard-boiled gum shoes

who worked the other side of the street than the straight and narrow cop of Dragnet.

One of Webb's earliest radio hits was Pat Novak for hire, a detective drama that originated from station KGO in San Francisco.

Webb developed the show with his roommate and friend Richard L. Breen

Breen wrote the scripts and gave the series its legendary Pulp Noir Dialogue and

voice-over narration expertly underplayed by Webb. From his office on

the waterfront in San Francisco, Pat Novak rented boats and took on the odd

investigative job, jobs which frequently found him framed or

conned by his clients and landing in hot water with a thick-headed Inspector Helman of the

San Francisco Homicide Squad. For most of the series,

Helmin was played by Raymond Burr, a few years away from starring as Perry Mason.

Novak's only friend was an ex-doctor-turned-Bastool philosopher named Jockomatigan, a reluctant

sidekick who Pat could usually enlist for the cost of a drink or two.

The series was formulaic, but it worked thanks to the writing,

which is some of the best purple pulp outside of a dime novel,

and thanks to Webb's performance, which has just the right amount of sly humor and world weary cynicism.

Webb starred as Pat Novak for 26 episodes over KGO in March of 1947 for reasons that still remain unclear, both he and Breen left and

headed for the Mutual Network and the similar series Johnny Madero, peer 23. Back on KGO, Ben Morris succeeded Webb as Pat Novak and

he starred in an additional 39 episodes of the program. In 1949, ABC wanted to relaunch the series nationwide,

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