The Genesis Of The Influential Police Procedural Franchise

“Just the facts, ma’am”…

If you are of a certain age, you will remember the half-hour crime drama Dragnet on NBC with Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday and Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon. It opened its four season run on this day in 1967. But if your certain age is more advanced, you will also realize this was the launch of the first reboot of Dragnet, not the original series.

The first Dragnet, which also aired on NBC and was based on the radio series of the same name created by Jack Webb, premiered on December 14, 1951. It ran for eight seasons. And it is considered, perhaps, to be the most famous and influential procedural crime drama in television history.

The stories in Dragnet were based on real cases, but the writing department took some liberties to make them more palatable to the audience.

Reportedly, Jack Webb was comfortable playing Joe Friday on radio but balked at the prospect of continuing the role before the cameras. His choice to fill the role was Lloyd Nolan, who was known for his later three season (1968-71) stint as Dr. Morton Chegley on the Diahann Carroll sitcom Julia. But NBC insisted that Webb remain Joe Friday and an iconic TV character – and series-turned-franchise – was born.

Barton Yarborough played Sgt. Ben Romero, Sgt. Friday’s first partner on the original Dragnet. But the day after he filmed the second episode, he suffered a heart attack and died four days later at the age of 51. As a result, Friday rode with various partners until settling on Ben Alexander as detective Frank Smith.

While Webb’s goal in Dragnet was for a realistic depiction of police work, which helped shape thee public perception of law enforcement, Alexander’s Frank Smith also provided some sporadic comic relief (which, of course, was later parodied on the big screen courtesy of SNL’s Dan Aykroyd as the straight-laced nephew of Sgt. Friday).

When Webb relaunched Dragnet in 1967, he tried to persuade Ben Alexander to return. But Alexander was committed to the ABC crime drama Felony Squad, and Harry Morgan was cast as Officer Bill Gannon.

At the time, Morgan was known to audiences for his regular roles in four TV series: sitcoms December Bride (1954-59) and the spinoff Pete and Gladys (1960-62), anthology drama-themed The Richard Boone Show (1963-64), and the drama Kentucky Jones (1964-65). But Morgan had appeared opposite Jack Webb in the film noir movies Dark City (1950), Appointment with Danger (1951), and Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955), and was an early regular member of Jack Webb’s stock company of actors on the original Dragnet radio show.

The revival was initially called Dragnet 1967 to differentiate it from the original series.

This reboot of Dragnet was an early example of a television series continuing in the form of a reboot. And it was the second series in the Dragnet franchise, which eventually included film, books, comics, and endless merchandising.

In 1982, 12 years after the conclusion of the Dragnet reboot, Jack Webb began working on another revival of Dragnet. At the time, Harry Morgan was portraying Col. Sherman Potter on the MASH spin-off AfterMASH, and Webb chose former Adam-12 star Kent McCord (who had guest-starred in the second Dragnet), to fill the undefined role. No indication was given whether McCord would be playing his character of Jim Reed from Adam-12, which Webb also created, or a totally new character. On December 23, 1982, however, Webb died unexpectedly from a heart attack and the Dragnet revival was scrapped. But this was not the end of Dragnet.

Dragnet Hits the Big Screen

In 1987, a comedy film version of Dragnet was released starring Dan Aykroyd as Joe Friday (the nephew of Webb’s Sergeant Joe Friday), and Tom Hanks as his partner, Detective Pep Streebeck. Apart from Aykroyd’s spot-on imitation of Webb’s Joe Friday and Harry Morgan reprising his role of Bill Gannon (now Captain), the film version has few similarities with previous incarnations.

Regardless, Dragnet on the big screen was a hit both critically and commercially , reportedly grossing a total of $66.7 million worldwide.

Two Additional Revivals of Dragnet

In 1989, Dragnet returned in first-run syndication for two new seasons under the title The New Dragnet. It was paired with The New Adam-12, and it starred Jeff Osterhage as Detective Vic Daniels, Bernard White as Detective Carl Molina, and Don Stroud as Captain Lussen.

In 2003, a Dragnet series was produced for ABC by Dick Wolf (the Law & Order, FBI and Chicago franchises) with Ed O’Neill (Married With Children, Modern Family) as Joe Friday and Ethan Embry as Frank Smith. After a moderately rated first season, the format was changed to an ensemble crime drama under the new title, L.A. Dragnet, but that too failed to find a sizable audience. Fun factoid: Eva Longoria (pre-Desperate Housewives) joined the cast in season two as Det. Gloria Duran.

Over 20 years has passed since this most recent Dragnet reboot. But today we celebrate 58 years since the debut of Dragnet 1967, the first Dragnet spin-off.

While there is no news, at present, of a new version of the iconic franchise, an eventual return in some format should come as no surprise. Dragnet, after all, is the series that defined the category of police procedurals. It is synonymous with the format. And there is never any shortage of stories to tell.