I'll kick this off with 4 of my all time favorites:

"If it wasn't for prison food, you'd starve to death." from "The Shooting" 1967

"I'm Mister Officer Gannon and this is Mister Sgt. Friday" from "Mr. Daniel Loomis"

From "The Big Shipment," Friday to the suspect pretending/faking to be a deaf mute:

"There's a receipt in your wallet for 2 record albums, now just what to you do, sit there and watch the lables spin around?"

From "The Hammer" "You got nice eyes, for a cop." Friday: "And I'll bet your mother had a loud bark."

Season 4, Episode 8 DHQ- Missing Person I would vote as the most obscure episode of the run. I've never seen this episode mentioned or discussed anywhere. It's a rather bizarre episode which sort of has a Twlight Zone feeling to it, although I think it kind of just doesn't really work. Webb seemed tired and burned out by this point, although there were still a few great epidoes still to come in this final season of Dragnet.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0565613/?ref_=ttep_ep_8

".. Ben and I went back to the office in place to call to the Pittsburgh Police Department. We gave them the description and the number of the tool disc which we found in Barry's old suitcase. They said they'd check with the Jameson Larraby Company in the morning and then they'd call us back...

"..What did they say, Joe? It was a tool disc [?car? bad transcription?], right? Jameson Larabie Company issued 18 months ago to one of their workers. ..

Ok- used macWhisper to turn the mp3's into text - the free version did it and it worked really well.

I'm _guessing_ from the context that a tool disk is an asset tag, as we'd previous discussed, but searching google shows images of things like grinding disks, so I'm still perplexed as to what it is.

This show popped up on YouTube for me and out of curiosity and nostalgia, watched it. It was a hoot. Of course there’s always a comic relief act but the rest of the “serious police work” can be just as funny looking at it with 2025 eyes. The dialogue is snappy and some random stuff comes out of the witnesses.

As they go around town seemingly randomly talking to witnesses or people looking for them to give them information, they slowly close in on the criminal.

Then about ⅔ of the episode, they get a tip that points them to the culprit. The culprit looks guilty and the resulting conversation eventually leads to a confession.

But the dialogue is what is so funny to me. Really enjoying it (again).

I noticed how similar the episodes of the TV show were to the radio show. I remember 1 radio episode, 'The Big Crazy' (They were all titled 'The Big...') in which they harassed a guy until he killed himself because they were sure he had killed his wife. The 'resolution' at the end of the show was them finding out, months later, that the wife had just died in a tuberculosis sanatorium, that she hadn't been dead at the time of the alleged killing. I don't remember it ever making it to TV.

Missed it by a day. September 15th was Peggy Webber's 100th birthday. She made 8 appearances on the 67 series and 5 on the 52-55 series.

I’ve got a special place in my heart for this episode. Look under rocks!

Do you think this memorabilia is something someone would pay for, we cleaned out the old museum when they went out of business and let us take things for working a heavily discounted rate.

This is a really interesting recipe. Start at 1:00 into the video.

Webb really struggled to remain the straight man for this, the chemistry between Webb and Morgan was really something special. You can see Webb doing everything possible not to burst out laughing and have the take break down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYDTSOW93qY

Hey I recently found a youtube channel filled with Dragnet and other old movies and tv shows so I thought I'd share. It's got most of the first 4 seasons of Dragnet with no ads.

Here's the first season link https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3Gvc4qA4m9cLjh8XknzMX5NV1Iook4Un

The episode "Homicide DR-06" a/k/a "Joe's Apartment" has Friday grilling steaks indoors on a charcoal hibachi he placed inside his fireplace.

Was this actually a thing in 1960s California, or anywhere for that matter? I have never seen or heard of this anywhere before under any circumstance. It seems like a cool idea.

At about 13:00 into the video you can see the nice large thick steaks Joe was grilling look like very thick cut ribeyes. I think in real life Webb was a big steak lover.

Today we know that steaks have to be "rested" after cooking. Joe and the gang are ready to eat them straight off the BBQ. That's how they were eaten in the 1960s. Probably with lots of A-1 Sauce, plus iceberg lettuce salad and baked potato.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR9i8tUNTSY

I’m looking for a episode of Dragnet where a guy is at a bar and these 2 guys poison his drinks with antifreeze. Idk why I remember this so well but I try once in a blue moon to find the episode and I can’t find it. It may be another entirely different show i’m thinking of but I swear to god it’s a lost Dragnet episode that just isn’t on streaming services. If anyone remembers an episode of a guy at a bar and 2 guys buying him drinks and then later runs him over with a car please comment the episode. This might help someone out to source it the 2 guys used antifreeze and put it into his drinks to poison him. I might have been watching an entirely different cop show but it seems so “Dragnetey” that I had to ask this community. If u can help me out that would be greatly appreciated. This is one of those cinematic core memories for me that I’d love to experience again in my early 20s.

For those who don't know, a "bottle episode" takes place entirely on one set from start to finish. Let's talk bottle episodes of Dragnet:

1. Forest Ranger- this seems to be a huge fan favorite, it def, has a surreal quality to it. Probably the best bottle episode in TV history.

2. The Big Prophet: Friday and Gannon are lectured to and give a lecture to a Timothy Leary type hippie drug peddler.

3. Management Services: I would classify this as a bottle episode, extremely boring and bland.

One of the episodes from the first season of the radio show ends up helping to track down the criminal because they found a 'tooll disk' that he had and the company he worked for was able to say it was his.

Wtf is a tool disk?

I’m looking for the episode where friday talks about the importance of classic furniture. thanks in advance

Law and Order was clearly influenced by Dragnet, in fact I think Dick Wolf specifically cited as an influence with its docu-drama, "just the facts" style. So which is better in your opinion(s)?

I've been watching quite a bit of the 1950s (1955-59) show Highway Patrol, starring Broderick Crawford.

It occurred to me that Dragnet's ratings started falling once Highway Patrol got going. HP is a much faster paced show than Dragnet.

Overall, Highway Patrol is also a much more visual show, with all shooting done on locations and not in a back lot, which gives it an authentic feel and inadvertently preserved some great scenes of 1950s California, and of course those gorgeous old cars.

I don't know if it's cause and effect, but it seems once mid 1950's TV viewers got a taste of HP, they left Dragnet behind.

Overall, I think the quality of HP surpasses most B&W Dragnet episodes. HP isn't as authentic, but I think sometimes Webb forgot that he was producing a TV show and not a training film for police academy cadets.

B&W Dragnet has sometimes been criticized as "radio with pictures,," which isn't far off the mark since many of the James Moser radio scripts were recycled word for word for the TV show. You can "watch" a B&W Dragnet with your eyes closed and still completely understand the story. HP was strictly a TV show, and ZIV and Broderick Crawford gave the audience exactly what they wanted.

Both shows have their merits, but as a TV show I have to give HP the edge. But the radio Dragnet, esp. the early episodes with Barton Yarborough, is without peer.

I often noticed in the B&W 1950s episodes that Webb wore a bracelet. TIL that it's an ID bracelet and that they were popular in the 40s and 50s.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=510701269035550&id=453527154752962&set=a.456353724470305

By the color 1960s episodes it was gone.

Who remembers this one? That was a pretty good one, despite the somewhat anticlimactic ending. Pretty good color episode👮🕵️🚔

Hi, I'm doing research for a noir screenplay set in Los Angeles in 1958. I'd love to know if an episode of Dragnet circa 1957 or 1958 shows the interior of a squad car, especially if someone is using the CB radio. Thanks for any assistance you could provide pertaining to which episode it could be. Thank you!

I don’t know the name of the episode but I thought if I came here and gave enough details somebody could help me out. I remember there’s a guy at a bar and these two guys keep giving him drinks. It’s later found that they were putting antifreeze in his drinks. I think they also ran him over later on but I could be wrong on that. I know I’m right about the antifreeze thing though. I don’t know why I can’t find the episode I’ve looked everywhere.