Episode 375 – Casual Friday (Dragnet)
Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)
Jack Mooney
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2020
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We're back in Los Angeles for the grandfather of all police procedurals - Dragnet. Jack Webb is Sgt. Joe Friday and Barton Yarborough is Sgt. Ben Romero in two cop dramas on the streets of the City of Angels - "The Big Bomb" (originally aired on NBC on July 13, 1950) and "The Big Couple" (originally aired on February 22, 1951).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Get this and get it straight. Crime is a suckers road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave. |
| 0:07.0 | The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. |
| 0:18.0 | The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective. |
| 0:22.0 | The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize |
| 0:25.4 | Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account |
| 0:30.6 | America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. |
| 0:33.0 | Yours truly, Johnny Deller. And the Hello and welcome to down these mean streets where today we're heading to Los Angeles |
| 1:01.7 | for the father of all police procedural's dragnet. |
| 1:07.0 | Yes, every cop show that followed in its way goes the tip of the hat to the groundbreaking drama and one to its creator, producer, and |
| 1:16.7 | star Jack Webb. |
| 1:20.0 | After he befriended the Police Technical advisor on one of his films, Webb grew frustrated |
| 1:26.2 | with the way radio dramas portrayed police work, and he said about to create a series that, |
| 1:32.4 | unlike most of those shows, would authentically depict |
| 1:36.2 | the work of the men and women of the police force. |
| 1:40.4 | Everything from interviews to witnesses, to forensic evidence, to the paperwork filed at the station |
| 1:47.2 | was presented without frills and with rigorously researched verisimilitude. On Dragnet the cops warrant sloths with |
| 1:56.0 | superhuman powers of deduction. They didn't blast away criminals with their guns. |
| 2:01.2 | In fact, they rarely had to draw them. |
| 2:05.0 | And they weren't portrayed as glamorous, just hard-working professionals putting in the |
| 2:09.8 | hours in shoe leather to keep the citizens of Los Angeles safe. |
| 2:15.2 | This week we'll hear a pair of shows starring Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday and Barton |
| 2:20.3 | Yarbrough as his partner, Sergeant Ben Romero. |
... |
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