Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing you the best On the program today is another of Radio's great police

procedurals, the lineup.

The show took listeners behind the scenes of the day-to-day work of

police officers in San Francisco,

opening each show with the lineup and identification of

suspects who had been pulled in for a number of different offenses.

Armed with strong writing and top-notch vocal performances,

the lineup is one of the brightest stars in the world of radio police dramas.

The series was initially developed by Elliot Lewis, Morton Fine, and David Friedkin, the trio that also

oversaw Broadway is My Beat, which we heard on the program last month.

After an initial run on CBS, the lineup was turned over to writer Blake Edwards and producer director Jaime Del Valle, the talents behind Richard Diamond Private Detective.

Edwards fleshed out the lead characters of Lieutenant Ben Guthrie and Sergeant Matt Greb,

the hardworking cops who each week worked a case until it was closed, getting the job done through determination

and shoe leather without flashes of brilliance.

The lineup, like Dragnet and Broadway is my beat Beat moved away from the archetype of the Hero Cop.

The men on these shows weren't deductive geniuses, nor were they the helpless adults

who had to be saved by amateur sloths or private eyes on other shows.

Guthrie and Grebe were working stiffs who talked about overtime,

passing their marksmanship tests for the department,

and dreading visits from Greb's in-laws.

Throughout the run of the series, Guthrie was played by Bill Johnstone, one of radio's greatest

voices. You may remember him as Inspector Kramer on Nero Wolf and

...