Dragnet (Jack Webb cop show), any fans?

Dragnet is my all time favorite police/cop tv show, both the B&W and colour versions.

I have several of the B&W dvd sets (all seem to be pretty worn out public domain prints) , and all 4 of the later Technicolor seasons (1967-70) from Universal and Shout Factory, those look good.
I also have the 1954 movie on vhs.

Any other Dragnet fans here?

BTW, Kojak is my 2nd favorite.

 

I used to watch it on Nick at Night all the time. Great show.

 

I loved how they would use the same core crew of actors and they would
play different characters.....

 

I'm a fan. If I can't sleep I can catch it on METV @ 12:30 AM with Adam: 12 following right after.

I hadn't noticed that, but I can say that Richard Anderson was one of several actors to guest star in many different roles on The Rifleman.

 

Never much of a fan of the TV show, but I LOVE the radio productions. That crisp, staccato delivery of dialogue paired with superb audio production and natural sound FX makes for a very entertaining ride. It's 'retro' and old-school without many of the hokey qualities the TV version tended to pick up, IMHO. It also had a breezier pace than the TV version. Great listening on long road trips.

dan c

 

I always enjoyed listening to Webb and Morgan going back and forth, almost like a comedy team.

 

Garlic nut butter sandwich!

 

I'm a fan of Webb, including not only Dragnet in all of its forms but some of his other movies, like "Pete Kelly's Blues" (jazz) and especially "-30-" (newspapers). Webb was reportedly a pretty grim fellow and probably wouldn't have been amused, but I laughed all the way from 4:20 - 4:20 at this parody from last year (warning, some NSFW language).

 

Jack actually got his start in comedy

 

Virginia Gregg was in a ton of the episodes.
Anybody remember her as the tambourine tbumping Bonnie Bates in The Great Pyramid Swindle?
A real life lawyer also appears in that episode as Webbs lawyer, his name is Bert Fields, he is probanly retired now.

 

I always enjoyed it; the Webb/Morgan chemistry worked well. I knew what they were after with the way it was produced, but some of the dialog and characters were so straight it was funny. One of my favorite bits is walking in on the acid party when Webb opens the door, takes a whiff and says "that's weed", then snaps a joint in half and sniffs it and says "marijuana".

 

John Landis wanted wanted Webb to play Dean Wormer in Animal House. Can you imagine Belushi and Jack hanging out between takes?

 

Like any child of the 60's, I was big fan of all the Webb shows (Dragnet, Adam-12, Emergency!), but Dragnet was always my favorite of the bunch. A wonderfully over the top time capsule of a incredible time in American popular culture, and every time I watch it I feel I'm being immediately transported back in time. One of the few shows of the period that I still enjoy revisiting.

 

Jack was married to Julie London, after divorcing from Webb, she married Webb's friend Bobby Troup, the three remained good friends.
Troup and London were both in Emergency, a Webb production.
Troup was on several color Dragnets

 

Raising my hand here.

 

The Ed O Neill reboot was pretty cool, wish it would had done better in the ratings.

The comedy movie with Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks was fun for what it was, Harry Morgan from the colour series had a cameo.

 

Jack Webb probably had a sense of humor:

 

Yes he did!

 

It seems like only some of the 50s shows have ever been on home video, are the other episodes "lost"?

 

I think the copyright expired on a lot of them.

Some of the early radio shows are lost.

The biography on Jack Webb "My Name's Friday" is quite good.

 

I have fond memories of watching the 60s version with my father when I was a child. My late fiancé also loved Dragnet, so I am reminded of those two whenever I watch my Dragnet DVDs.

 

I love the anti-drug episodes of Dragnet, because they're an absolute riot. I thought they were ridiculous and insipid when I was watching them at 12 in the 1960s! Stupid, stupid, stupid shows. They're hilarious today:



It doesn't help that this YouTube clip is sped up by about 10%, so Jack is almost incomprehensible. But the gist of it is still there. They other great episode of Dragnet is the one where they find the dead kid in the bathtub, all because the parents were "stoned out on pot." Godamighty, this was an awful shot... but entertaining on a strange level.

My folks used to live at an apartment building on Coldwater Canyon, and their landlady was a close friend of the ex-Mrs. Jack Webb. She told me she appeared in quite a few episodes of Dragnet, usually a couple every season, sometimes as a murderer. On one particularly memorable show, her character was accused and later convicted of beating her child with an electric iron cord. She told me people would come up to her on the street, recognize her, and then yell at her for beating children! (She was actually a very nice lady who didn't beat anybody.) She also told me that Dragnet was an incredibly efficient show because everybody was reading off teleprompters, and they'd shoot the whole 30-minute show in 3 days -- that's an extremely fast pace for TV.

 

I find it hilarious that the Christmas episode from B/W and color are absolutely identical. They even use most of the same actors in both episodes (the pawn shop owner and the priest).

 

Love the 1967-70 version a lot. Have seen all of those episodes many many times!