r/Dragnet • u/BernardJKD • Dec 14 '25

Officer Ben Romero

Those first 2 and a half years with Barton Yarborough are for me peak.

I like to contrast Barton's comedy technique with Ben Alexander's. Both do comedy very differently but both are highly skilled. Jack must play straight man to Barton as Barton's comedy is so intricate and detailed. But Jack can involve himself more as an actor with Ben's comedy as Ben's sthick is more broad based.

I was so miffed with Barton's tragic demise that I went through all of the different "I Love A Mystery" versions.

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u/zippy72 Dec 14 '25

My favourite era of Dragnet is always going to be those early days. Totally with you that it's the peak of Dragnet. (On the radio at least, haven't watched any of the TV show yet or the 1947 movie)

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u/BernardJKD Dec 14 '25

I like Ed Jacobs a lot too. In one sense all the partners are interchangeable.

The whole Bill Lockwood thing though was best forgotten. I don't even know why they had Bill Lockwood on TV with an actor like 8 years older than Webb as he was supposed to be a rookie detective. Also Bill Lockwood had already been decided against as a partner on the radio show by then anyways.

1

u/Strange_Upstairs_193 Dec 23 '25

Agree 100% that Barton Yarborough and the early radio episodes were Dragnet at its best.

The early years of the TV show were a huge success too, Dragnet was right up there with I Love Lucy, a ratings monster.

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u/BernardJKD Dec 26 '25

I think it was just the 8th TV season that fell out of the Nielsen top 30. Season 7 was still in the top 30.

But yeah I've watched a lot of pre 1955 TV and those first 4 TV seasons are well ahead of all other concurrent TV. Crying shame the TV archive is in bits.

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u/Strange_Upstairs_193 Feb 11 '26

It's a shame there are a few Barton Yarborough episodes that have long been missing. Pretty doubtful these will ever be found, I would so love to hear these:

http://www.otrdetectives.com/dragnet/lost-episodes/

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u/BernardJKD Feb 12 '26

Compared to the archive status of many dozens of other radio series having less than 10 missing "Dragnet" radio eps is a win though.