Popular Culture 20100429. One of the bad guys, Jack Webb

The series Dragnet was one of the most watched and most horrible TeeVee programs aired in the late 1960’s.  It used all of the negative stereotypes to produce a vile and completely in disregard of reality program that ever aired, until the Fox “News” Network aired later.

It was created by the alcoholic Jack Webb, who drank himself to death at age 52.  It started in the waning days of radio, and came back with a vengeance on the TeeVee in the mid 1960’s.  He was Joe Friday on the radio from 1949 until 1954, and was simultaneous on the TeeVee until 1959.  Most of those shows are not readily available, but everyone remembers the next series.

This was produced by Webb’s own production company, Mark VII, and was just awful.  (Actually, Mark VII was older, and was referred to by Deputy Barney Phyffe in a very old episode of The Andy Griffith Show).

Webb had several sidekicks during the run of the show, but the best known one was Sgt. Bill Gannon, played by the character actor Harry Morgan.  Most of you will remember him as COL Potter from M*A*S*H.  But Webb’s dirty fingers reached much further back into TeeVee, and he left his nasty prints on many shows.

His main thrust was law and order, and with it, a very rabid anti-Red philosophy.  He was also a race baiter, and was not sorry to be one.  Here is a short list of series to which he was associated:

Most interesting to me, as a Star Trek fanatic, was that he and Jeffrey Hunter (CPT Christopher Pike in The Cage(the original pilot for Star Trek) , later modified as The Menagerie) went into business together.  It did not last long, because Hunter died shortly afterward.  This gave rise, for good or ill, to William Shatner to the the CPT.

The modern Dragnet was just awful.  It was trite, with horrible cliches like, “Just the facts, ma’am”, “I’m just a cop”, “I wear a badge”, and many others.  It is fascinating to me that his badge number was “714” the same number imprinted on Quaalude.

I do not know if his horrible direction, horrible writing, or horrible acting was the worst.  I think that his horrible persona might trump them all.  The music is now a stereotype of horrible (“Dun, ta dun, dun ta dun dun DUN!”) music for videos, and EVERYONE recognizes it.

The most famous episode of the last series is Blue Boy, where an acidhead finally killed himself without knowing what he did.  That one was a hit, and another, the name of which I can not remember, where the parents of a small child were smoking joints and she drowned.  It was just classical melodrama, and it was no good.

Even my mum hated the show, and she was as conservative as they came.  She also lived long enough to hate Rush Limbaugh.

I would appreciate any feedback about “Joe Friday”.

Warmest regards,

Doc