Dragnet
"This is the city, Los Angeles, California. I work here, I carry a badge." From the distinctive four-note opening of its theme music to the raft of catch phrases it produced, no other television cop show has left such an unforgettable mark on American culture as "Dragnet." By providing the prototype of the realistic action show, it marked a major turning point for TV that had, up until then, been dominated by comedy and vaudeville. Dragnet's signature was its appearance of realism, from the documentary-type narration by Joe Friday, to the cases it portrayed taken directly from the files of the Los Angeles Police Department, to its attention to the detailed of police work. Viewers were reminded of the dead ends and the constant interruptions of their private lives that haunt real police officers and this made the final shoot-out and capture of the bad guy all the more exciting. At the end of each episode, after the criminal was caught, an announcer would describe exactly what happened at the trial and the severity of the punishment. So, there you have it as Sgt. Joe Friday would say, "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.

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