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Dragnet: The Nickel Plated Gun, June 10, 1949
There's not much that can be said about Dragnet that hasn't been said already; it remains the most iconic show of radio's post-WWII era. When Jack Webb and company took to the airwaves, they hit the ground running. Webb himself was a veteran of several lead roles on radio, such as private investigators Johnny Madero, Jeff Regan, and Pat Novak. While he had found success playing these characters as the edgy, simile-tossing detective archetype, Webb was smart enough to realize that there were enough tough-talkers on radio, and that Sergeant Joe Friday should be portrayed as an intelligent, hard-working veteran of years of police procedure.
The event that shaped the future of Dragnet, more than any other, was Jack Webb meeting Sergeant Marty Wynn of the Los Angeles Police Department while acting in the 1948 crime film He Walked By Night. Webb played Lee, the LAPD crime lab specialist, while Wynn was the technical advisor on the film.
He Walked By Night made a lasting impression on Jack Webb: that the truth could not only be stranger than fiction, but also more compelling. This was not Webb's first exposure to the dramatic recreation of a true story (that honour goes to his 1946 show 'One Out Of Seven'), but Dragnet would be the show that made adherence to reality its trademark. Webb's growing friendship with Marty Wynn, and Wynn's partner Sgt. Vance Brasher, convinced him that the time was right for a realistic police drama. On June 3rd, 1949, barely six months after the release of He Walked By Night, Dragnet hit the airwaves.
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By Bobby H BowenThere's not much that can be said about Dragnet that hasn't been said already; it remains the most iconic show of radio's post-WWII era. When Jack Webb and company took to the airwaves, they hit the ground running. Webb himself was a veteran of several lead roles on radio, such as private investigators Johnny Madero, Jeff Regan, and Pat Novak. While he had found success playing these characters as the edgy, simile-tossing detective archetype, Webb was smart enough to realize that there were enough tough-talkers on radio, and that Sergeant Joe Friday should be portrayed as an intelligent, hard-working veteran of years of police procedure.
The event that shaped the future of Dragnet, more than any other, was Jack Webb meeting Sergeant Marty Wynn of the Los Angeles Police Department while acting in the 1948 crime film He Walked By Night. Webb played Lee, the LAPD crime lab specialist, while Wynn was the technical advisor on the film.
He Walked By Night made a lasting impression on Jack Webb: that the truth could not only be stranger than fiction, but also more compelling. This was not Webb's first exposure to the dramatic recreation of a true story (that honour goes to his 1946 show 'One Out Of Seven'), but Dragnet would be the show that made adherence to reality its trademark. Webb's growing friendship with Marty Wynn, and Wynn's partner Sgt. Vance Brasher, convinced him that the time was right for a realistic police drama. On June 3rd, 1949, barely six months after the release of He Walked By Night, Dragnet hit the airwaves.