“My name’s Friday…I’m a cop.”

The recent passing of character great Harry Morgan cast a notable pall over the House of Yesteryear because it coincided with a tribute I was working on for Edward Copeland on Film…and More to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the television debut of Dragnet, which premiered on Chesterfield Sound-Off Time 60 years ago on this date before becoming a regular series on NBC Thursday nights (in its first year, however, it alternated weekly with another OTR chestnut introduced to the boob tube, Gangbusters).  If you’ve been reading this blog for some time now, you know that I am one of the world’s biggest fans of the seminal cop show—in fact, I broke out several of the Dragnet DVD sets while I was writing the Copeland piece and got my nostalgia on, so to speak.

I have two very vivid memories of the 1967-70 version of Dragnet, on which Morgan co-starred as Joe Friday’s (Jack Webb) partner when Friday’s sidekick, Frank Smith, was unable to appear in the revival of the program that originally aired on TV from 1951-59 (actor Ben Alexander was by the time of the 1966 Dragnet pilot appearing on ABC’s Felony Squad with Howard Duff and Dennis Cole and the producers wouldn’t give him a release).  The first was watching the show when I was a kid; it could have been at the tail-end of its original network run but more than likely it was probably when the show first hit syndication—anyway, there’s a fourth season episode entitled “Homicide: Who Killed Who” that features Friday and Gannon investigating a series of homicides and before one of the victims expires he whispers the cryptic words “Oft One.”  I have no idea why this episode gave me nightmares as a young tad but it did.

The other occurred during my days of exile in Morgantown, WV during the 1990s—I was living with my BFF The Duchess and her family before striking out on my own and her husband and I had a nightly ritual in which we would watch Dragnet on Nick at Nite every evening, howling with derisive laughter any time one of the “drug” episodes were repeated (particularly when the characters who disagreed with star Webb’s “gateway drug theory” were written as arrogant, campy Batman villains)…and imitating Webb and Morgan’s nodding in assent to each other just to see who could break the other up first.  (This probably coincided with the time that he and I devoured an entire box of Snickers ice cream bars in one sitting, thanks for noticing.)  I’ve stated many times in the past that despite the show’s frequent descent into Reefer Madness absurdity, Dragnet is one of my favorite TV series of all time.  I cannot stress enough, however, that you really need to acquaint yourself with the classic radio broadcasts (particularly those with Barton Yarbrough, who played Joe Friday’s first compadre, Ben Romero) to understand why Dragnet was such a groundbreaking show.

The post you have just read is true.  The names have not been changed, because nobody is innocent.