Episode Guide

Also be sure to check out our table of the 1950's Dragnet TV episodes by Michael Hayde.
For episode summaries of the new Dragnet, see the official ABC site for the show.
Notes: Some of the episode summaries originally came from the Nick at Nite page on AOL, but many have been replaced by self-penned ones or ones written Doug Montgomery and Tony More. Many thanks to Doug and Tony for their help in writing summaries (credited as noted).
All episodes directed by Jack Webb unless otherwise noted.

#1-"The LSD Story"
Air Date: January 12, 1967
Written by: John Rudolph
Cast:
Michael Burns as Benjie "Blue Boy" Carver
Art Balinger as Capt. Lou Richey
Olan Soule as Ray Murray
Robert Knapp as Mr. Eugene Carver
Eve Brent as Mrs. Carver
Jerry Douglas as Sgt. Eugene Zappey
Alfred Shelly as Sgt. Dominic Carr
Johnny Aladdin as The Painter
Shari Lee Bernath as Sandra Quillan
Heather Menzies as Edna Mae Dixon

Plot:
This is the famous "Blue Boy" episode. Jack Webb wrote the script for this story (under a pseudonym), which covers the problem of LSD in the hands of teenagers. The drug had only been made illegal one year prior to the episode's original air date. It features a fascinating Hollywood rendition of a flower child strung out on acid -- at the beginning of the episode, Blue Boy has his head in a hole in the ground, after earlier trying to eat the bark off a tree. He is held for public intoxication, although since LSD was not illegal he could not be held for possession. As soon as it is made illegal, some months later, Joe and Bill go out to make some arrests, crashing a psychedelic drug party. By the time they track Benjie down, however, he has OD'd on a combination of LSD and other drugs.

2-"The Bank Examiner Swindle"
Air date: February 23, 1967
Howard Culver as Frank Thomas
Nydia Westman as Mrs. Mary Burnside
Burt Mustin as Fred Gregory
Harriet MacGibbon as Flo-Belle Mirada
Lillian Powell as Mrs. Pauline Gray
Robert Knapp as Captain Lambert
Donald Berry as James Fremont
Bert Holland as Croft
Don Ross as Cameraman

Friday and Gannon go after two slick con men swindling elderly people out of money by gulling them into withdrawing funds from their bank accounts "to catch an embezzler." The con men are so slick they tell their victims that policemen will come to return their money! Some of the victims are really pitiful, including a man in his 80s (Burt Mustin) who was conned out of his burial funds, and a retired bit actress (Harriet MacGibbon, familiar to viewers as Mr. Drysdale's wife on "Beverly Hillbillies"). Mug shots don't help: The aged victims' eyesight is poor and they can't recognize the pictures. So Friday and Gannon get the idea to blow the mug shots up to 8x10--and it works. They meet one smart cookie, an old woman who happens to read detective magazines. Bill poses as her son, and the con men arrive as Joe waits in the next room. One con man (Howard Culver) tells Bill, "Your mother is a very smart woman." Bill asks for their Bank Examiner IDs; Culver says "We both carry [badges.]" "So do we," says Joe, appearing and showing his badge--and his gun. The phony examiner tosses his badge down as he realizes he and his partner are nailed! (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

3-"The Kidnapping"
Air date: January 26, 1967
Written by: Preston Wood
Cast:
Peggy Webber as Janet Ohrmund
Harry Bartell as Ray Righetti
Art Balinger as Capt. Hugh Brown
Ronnie Rondell as Donald Joseph Albers

Plot:
Friday and Gannon are called to a bank because a young retail cosmetics executive (Peggy Webber) is trying to withdraw $75,000 to ransom her boss, who's being held hostage by a young gunman. She brings the money back to the house and the kidnapper flees with the hostage in the trunk. Friday stages a fake breakdown on a freeway on-ramp, trapping the bad guy.

4-"The Jade Story"
Air date: March 23, 1967
Virginia Gregg as Mrs. Francine Graham
Honio Iguchi as Henry Morita
Don Ross as Officer Bill Wombsley
William Boyett as Sgt. Ed Barr
Harry Hattocks as John Benjamin
Keye Luke as Lin Fong
Anisette as Mary Carstairs
Eddie Firestone as Ben Martin
Clark Howat as Captain Mack
Don Stuart as Frank Andrews

The detectives investigate the theft of $200,000 worth of jade from the home of a wealthy woman (Virginia Gregg) in Bel Air. But something doesn't sound right to Joe and Bill, nor to the insurance adjuster (Harry Hattocks) who happens to be an ex-cop and an old friend of theirs. Besides, all the physical evidence suggests the window in the room that was allegedly broken into, was opened from the inside. The only clue is fingerprints on a fishbowl in the room; they are checked through and they lead to a small-time burglar (Eddie Firestone) whom Friday and Gannon know well. He got in, all right--but not only does he insist he couldn't open the safe (which does not show any jimmy marks), he wouldn't know what jade looks like to save his life. He thinks it comes from Switzerland! When Joe and Bill confront Gregg with their evidence, she admits she sold the jade off to pay her bills after her husband's death. She withdraws the theft claim. Also appearing in this episode is Keye Luke, as an expert on jade. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

5-"The Big Explosion"
Air date: January 19, 1967
Written by: Robert C. Dennis
Cast:
Don Dubbins as Donald L. Chapman
Olan Soule as Ray Murray
Bobby Troup as Al Amory
Harlan Warde as Capt. Henry Mack
Ralph Manza as Gene Ellis
Val Avery as Phil Masturian
Kent McWhirter as Officer (Note: This is actually Kent McCord before he changed his name.)
Ralph Moody as Matt Kemper
John Nolan as Nelson Grove
Bert Holland as Car Salesman

Plot:
400 pounds of dynamite are stolen from a construction site, and the thieves throw a hand grenade at a security guard. After tracking down the getaway car, Friday and Gannon trap a neo-Nazi hatemonger who admits the theft and the setting of an explosive device, but won't give away the location. After keeping him up all night talking, Friday lies to the Nazi about the time, tricking him into revealing the location: a local grammar school that was to be integrated for the first time that day. Friday tells him, "Well, Mister, you're a psycho, and they're a minority, too!" This episode can be considered extremely prescient in light of the widespread rise of right-wing militant fringe groups and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

6: "The Interrogation"
Air date: February 9, 1967
Written by: Preston Wood
Cast: Kent McCord as Officer Paul Culver

(Photo sent in by Raul Moreno.)
An undercover cop with the narcotics Division, who's only been on the force for 114 days, is accused of robbing a liquor store on Sunset Strip. The entire episode centers around the IAD interview by Joe and Bill. The officer in question keeps tripping up on different times and locations, and has a hard time understanding why his story is not believed. In the end, someone who looks just like the cop is arrested after knocking off another liquor store.

7-"The Masked Bandits"
Air date: February 16, 1967
Ron Russell as Larry Hubbert
David Carlisle as Jack Edwards
Tom Baker as Donald R. Jones
Sam Edwards as Mr. Ashton
Robert Brubaker as Al Tucker
Art Gilmore as Captain Howe
Dack Rambo as Fred Tiller
Virginia Vincent as Edna Hubbert
S. John Launer as Lawyer
Karen Jensen as Ginny

The detectives look for four men who have held up cocktail lounges--and wear full-face red masks to hide their identities. In the course of their investigation they encounter a juvenile (Dack Rambo) who gives them a lead: an old Cadillac one of the robbers drove. They find it; the owner turns out to have a wife ten years older than he is; a gun; and a red mask. He identifies another member of the gang, a man named Jones whom he works with; the police stake his home out. Jones is a parolee and Friday and Gannon leave Jones with his parole officer. He gets Jones to confess, while Bill shows Friday a monster sandwich including ingredients like cole slaw, a kosher pickle--and peanut butter! (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

8-"The Candy Store Robberies"
Air date: March 9, 1967
Virginia Gregg as Mrs. Jean Hardy
Austin Green as Claude Thibodeaux
David Bond as George Watson
Art Gilmore as Capt. Mort Howe
Merrie Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Vince Howard as Officer Bondi
Don Ross as desk clerk
Alfred Shelly as Sgt. Al Vietti
Don Stuart as Officer Carl Gordon
Dan Curry as Officer #1
John McCann as Officer #2

Ten stores in a confectionery chain are robbed at gunpoint, always using the same method of operation. Friday and Gannon's superior puts pressure on them to clean up the case. A suspect is arrested following another robbery, but a previous victim is unable to pick him from a lineup. It turns out to be that a team of tall, gaunt down-and-outers have been robbing the stores when ever they needed money, sharing the same gun by keeping it ina central location.

9-"The Shooting"
Air date: March 30, 1967
Written by: David Vowell
Cast:
Don Marshall as Dave Roberts
Art Balinger as Capt. Brown
Hal Baylor as Roger Kensington
Dick Miller as Harry Johnson
Alfred Shelly as Sgt. Al Vietti
David Bond as Virgil Hicks
Harry Bartell as Dr. Anderson
Dick Whittinghill as Clerk
Bert Holland as Carl Wilson
Howard Culver as Pete Stuart

Plot: Police Officer Dave Roberts is shot with a sawed-off shotgun while making a routine check on a "Mutt and Jeff" (tall and short) team of paroled convicts parked near a liquor store. He suffers a complete blackout after the shooting and cannot remember what the criminals look like. As Friday and Gannon try to find the culprits, a liquor store clerk they interview (Howard Culver) tells them, "No matter how much we pay you people-- it ain't enough." A tip after another robbery leads Friday and Gannon to a cheap hotel, where they burst in on the pair with a loaded shotgun. "Flinch-- and you'll be chasing your head down Fifth St.!" Fridays tells one of them. Since the criminals don't *know* that the cop can't identify them, though, Joe and Bill bring Roberts into the interrogation room, and one of the criminals breaks down.

10: "The Hammer"
Air date: March 2, 1967
Written by: Henry Irving
Cast:
Merry Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Brian Avery as Terry Ridges
Art Balinger as Capt. Hugh Brown
Natalie Masters as Mrs. Ridges
Chet Stratton as Chesney Guthrie
Richard Simmons as Marcus Denner
Ralph Moody as Lou Adams
Jill Banner as Camille Gearhardt
James Oliver as Frederick Tosca
Don Stewart as Officer Carl Goldman
Ben Chandler as Chief Everett Snoddy
Vince Williams as Ambulance Attendant

Plot:
A 62-year-old apartment building manager man is found beaten to death with a hammer in his apartment, with a few dollars in rent money and his dead wife's wedding ring missing. Neighbors are interviewed, and we learn that the dead man had been playing cards with some of the tenants on the night of his death. Blood is found on a shirt belonging to one of the men (Brian Avery) but it turns out that it was from an effeminate neighbor's (Chet Stratton) nosebleed. A neighbor's car is found to be stolen, and an APB turns up the car in Arizona, driven by one of the neighbors (James Oliver) and his new wife Camille (Jill Banner). Joe, Bill, and Policewoman Miller fly down to bring them back to L.A. In her interview, Camille is particularly nasty to Joe, provoking him to make one of the strongest statements of any Dragnet episode: "I'll bet your mother had a loud bark!" A torn-out rent receipt is found in the stolen car, and Camille is found to be wearing the dead woman's ring, sealing their fate.

11-"The Fur Job"
Air date: March 16, 1967
Written by: David Vowell
Cast:
Merry Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Clark Howat as Capt. Henry O. Mack
Henry Corden as Emile Hartman
Herb Ellis as Norm Landon
John Nolan as Floyd Sinclair
Renny McEvoy as John Cartwright
Frank Gerstle as Albert Marks
Jody Gilbert as Mrs. Hilliard
Joanne Medley as Miss Hilliard
John McCann as Lt. Danny Bowser
Robert Cleaves as Roger Brucker
Alfred Shelly as Detective

Plot:
$100,000 worth of fine furs are stolen from an exclusive store. Gannon is given a crash course on how to act like an expert in chinchilla and mink by the store owner (Henry Corden). He learns how to stroke the fur up and down the lapel ("Stagey!"), how to blow into the fur and smell it ("If it smells like an animal, don't buy it!"), and how to look for seams ("The grutzen is in the middle."). After getting a tip from an insurance man, Friday and Gannon go undercover at the Bel Air Inn. Joe acts tough ("I didn't come here to listen to some punk who ate a big breakfast!"). They go to a house in East L.A. to see the goods and make the arrest. One of the thieves asserts that "We all want lawyers!" and Friday snaps back, "You're gonna need them!"

12-"The Hit-and-Run Driver"
Air date: April 6, 1967
Written by: David Vowell
Cast:
Audrey Dalton as Patricia Filmore
Robert Clarke as Clayton Fillmore
Harlan Warde as Capt. Tom Janes
Buddy Lester as Bob Dugan
Olan Soule as Ray Murray
Stuart Nisbet as Gus Archer
Dennis McCarthy as Norman Jacoby
King Moody as Norton Bernard
Julian Burton as Ed Neiman
James Seay as Paul Bateman
Morgan Jones as Bill Wheelock
Rhoda Williams as Alica Bronson

Plot:
Two pedestrians are killed by a drunk-driving hit-and-run motorist, but the eyewitnesses tell conflicting stories of the type of car involved. Friday and Gannon track the car's owner, Clayton Filmore (Robert Clarke) to his office, where he awaits them with his lawyer. After showing little remorse, he's convicted of felony manslaughter and receives only a suspended sentence and three years of probation. Five months later Friday and Gannon run across him again after a fatal head-on collision. Filmore loses both his legs. His wife laments, "He was in a hurry." Friday retorts: "He won't be anymore."

13-"The Bookie"
Air date: April 13, 1967
Written by: Preston Wood
Cast:
William Reynolds as Sgt. William Riddle
Luana Patten as Angie
Sidney Miller as Jay Simmons
Bobby Troup as Richard Clinger
Art Gilmore as Capt. Harry Nelson

Plot:
In a drive to break up a gambling ring, Friday goes undercover in Administrative Vice with the LAPD chaplain. Dressed as a surveyor's helper, he investigates a suspected bartender at the Domino Bar & Grill, a widower whose young daughter has a heart condition requiring expensive surgery. Joe flirts with the bar's red-haired waitress, asking at closing time if he can buy her breakfast, but she gives him a very cold shoulder. The bartender is arrested after he takes a bet for Joe, and as he's waiting in jail his daughter dies. Jargon Watch: Use of the term "hinky."

14-"The Subscription Racket"
Air date: April 20, 1967
Brian Avery as Glenn Procustan
Marianne Gordon as Norma Brian
Jerry Dexter as himself
Doodles Weaver as Cliff Tate
Sarah Selby as Marilyn Tate
Larry D. Mann as Pete Benson
Art Balinger as Captain Nelson

(Thanks to Jeff Gilbert and Jerry Dexter for the photo.)
Joe appears on a talk show hosted by Jerry Dexter (Himself) to talk about bunco schemes. After he leaves the set he's approached by a crew member (Doodles Weaver) whose wife is a victim of a magazines-subscription scam in Tarzana. As they visit Weaver's home they note code numbers, on the fence post, put there by con artists to signal the resident is good for a sale. They have trouble convincing Weaver's wife that she's a victim. She insists the man who came to her door, named Glenn Procustan, was a Marine, complete with a Medal of Honor. During record searches Friday and Gannon find out who the local entrepreneur is, Pete Benson; they also find a Procustan who is a Medal of Honor winner--but it was awarded posthumously. They meet Benson and warn him he's in trouble--but he also agrees to locate Procustan for them, and he makes good. They arrest this Procustan (the Medal of Honor winner's son) who was dishonorably discharged from the Marines--and his fiancee, though they both blame Benson. Gannon points out "Benson didn't give you that Medal of Honor to flash." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

15-"The Big Kids"
Air date: May 4, 1967
Roger Mobley as Audie Fulton
Mickey Sholder as Bobby Lassin
Peggy Webber as Mrs. Lassin
Olan Dexter as Hal Rosten
Andrea King as Mrs. Fulton
Robert Grange as Sgt. John Pearson
Art Balinger as Captain Richey
Russell Armes as David Carroll

In the Van Nuys area, Friday and Gannon talk to a teenager (Mickey Sholdar) arrested for stealing about $20 worth of items from a department store. As it turns out, this was an initiation for a club of kids who go shoplifting for a lark. The "ringleader" is a smug kid named Audie Fulton, who earlier sassed Friday. Fulton himself is nabbed with about $75 worth of stolen goods. He comes from a wealthy family and his parents, planning a trip to Europe, can't be troubled with the detectives' messages, until Audie gets arrested and booked. We learn that Audie can't be blamed much--his parents don't really care much about him and he even thanks Friday for trying to understand. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

16-"The Gun"
Air date: April 27, 1967
Written by: Henry Irving
Cast:
Art Balinger as Capt. Hugh Brown
Anne Loos as Mrs. Agatha Edney
Kathleen Freeman as Mrs. Sunshine Pound
Leonard Stone as Det. Charlie Higbie
Olan Soule as Ray Murray
Herbert Anderson as Robert Blake
Lois Yoshiko Kiuchi as Mrs. Watanabe
Don Ross as Sgt. Dean Bergman
Sharann Hisamoto as Miko
(Photo sent in by Raul Moreno.)
Plot:
A beautiful Japanese-born widow, whose Nisei husband was killed in Vietnam, is murdered. A young girl was assaulted a week earlier in the same neighborhood. Joe gets a little too personally involved in the case. Gannon remarks that in a photo of the dead woman she looks like "a living doll." "Not anymore!" Friday snaps back. The trail leads to a man in a yellow truck. In a search of his home, Gannon turns up the hidden murder weapon. Friday's joyous response to Gannon: "If you could cook, I'd marry you!" The episode ends on an emotional note as the young daughter of the dead woman offers Friday her favorite doll as a 'thank you' for catching the killer. Friday graciously turns it down.

17-"The Bullet"
Air date: May 11, 1967
Olan Soule as Ray Murray
Carol Byron as Nora Hamilton
Mabel Albertson as Jesse Gaynor (she played Howard Sprague's mother on "The Andy Griffith Show")
Rick E. Warmick as attendant

All the physical evidence in Nora Hamlin's home indicates that her estranged husband, Carl Martin, 43, killed himself in a locked room. It's just a routine suicide deal until a chemist sends Friday and Gannon back for a second look after it's discovered that the bullet that killed him wasn't from the gun he was holding. The dead man's mother-in-law turns out to be the culprit. She killed him after he fired a gun at the Bible she was holding.

18-"The Joy Riders"
Air date: February 13, 1969
Written by: Preston Wood
Michael Burns as Harold Rustin
Peggy Webber as Eunice Rustin
Lou Wagner as Andrew Rainer
S. John Launer as Mike Chatterton
Robert Clarke as Principal Philip Geiger
Heather Menzies as Nora Chatterton
John McCook as Officer Keefer
Ed Deemer as Sgt. Berry
Mickey Sholdar as Vern Bailor
Dee Carrol as Mrs. Chatterton
Don Ross as Robert Parker

Friday and Gannon talk to a teenager named Harold Rustin, suspected of stealing a car and using a screwdriver to start it. His weary mother (Peggy Webber) talks to the officers; she says "I don't like what I see ahead of me." The detectives encounter Rustin again after some kids take stolen cars out for a drag race on the freeway. Rustin isn't among them and later denies participating. Finally, some kids crash the party of a sixteen-year-old girl (Heather Menzies)--and her father (S. John Launer) finds a shotgun is missing. Later they interrogate several kids and find out Rustin shot and killed a man at a bus stop with the gun. They go to Harold's home and find him--just as his mother arrives; she is shocked ("dear God in heaven...") when they tell her her son is under arrest on suspicion of murder. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

19-"The Bank Jobs"
Air date: October 5, 1967
Kipp Hamilton as Jana Altman
Herbert Anderson as Dr. Philip Lang
Art Gilmore as Captain Howe
Chris Arcade as Richard Madden
Sydney Soule as policewoman
David Carlisle as Sergeant Reed
Bea Tompkins as Doris Colbert
Sherry Boucher as Policewoman Carmen Willis
Kent McCord as Officer Whitman
Marian Collier as Angela Riplon

Friday and Gannon go after a bank robber who forces women out of their cars at gunpoint, to help him rob banks. One woman they find--after an optometrist identifies the woman's car, abandoned by the robber a few blocks from the bank--turns out to be an out-of-state parolee, whose ex-husband was a compulsive gambler. The lead goes nowhere and the bandit pulls more jobs. Finally the robber commits a serious blunder--the woman he picks to help him this time, turns out to be a karate teacher. Although naturally scared the whole time, she was confident enough to disarm him. As Friday and Gannon cuff the robber, he mutters, "That dame is strong as an ox!" Friday shoots back, "Yeah, she must weigh at least 120 pounds." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

20-"The Badge Racket"
Air date: September 26, 1967
Art Gilmore as Captain Lambert
Don Ross as Officer Ainsworth
Toll Avery as Willard Danhart
Stacy Harris as Walter Kinnert
Bert Holland as Ralph
Alfred Shelley as Sgt. William Booth
Eunice Arthur as Patricia Olney
Harry Lauter as Edward Larken
Indus Arthur as Pat

A businessman from the Midwest is taken for $1000 by two con men posing as LAPD vice officers. Joe and Bill go undercover in the hotel where this businessman--and other apparent victims--have been staying. Bill poses as the out-of-towner. He tries to get information from a hotel bartender on local gambling, and is almost burned by a hotel detective who visits him in his room. Gannon talks to the bartender again--who said he had to "clear him." He gets information on a gambling game and passes this on to the hotel dick. Meanwhile, the scam is in operation as a girl invites herself into Gannon's hotel room. A few minutes later two men claiming to be vice cops also come in and claim to have arrested her for prostitution. Joe listens from another room as the two con men try to set Bill up. He agrees to "post bail" so he doesn't have to "testify at her arraignment"--and, although Bill can't see her face, she smirks. Gannon goes with the con men and the woman--and Joe, unnoticed, follows closely enough to get on the same elevator in the police building. As they get out, Joe and Bill have heard enough and pull their guns. As Joe prepares to Mirandize the suspects, one (Stacy Harris) snarls, "Save it, Cop, we want attorneys and we've got nothing to say." Joe answers, "I don't think you'll have to, fella--you've said it all!" (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

21-"The Shooting Board"
Air Date: September 21, 1967
Written by: David Vowell
Cast:
Art Balinger as Capt. Hugh Brown
Leonard Stone as Lt. Danny Bowser
William Boyett as Lt. Pierce Brooks
Harry Bartell as Deputy Chief Roger Murdock
S. John Launer as Deputy Chief R.A. Houghton
Dennis McCarthy as Inspector John Powers
Anita Eubank as Marianne Smith
Jeff Malloy as Officer Vincent
Gary Brown as Officer Paul

Plot:
After working a double shift, Joe goes out for cigarettes to an all-night laundromat at 2am. He finds a young couple breaking into the change machine, confronts them, and the man shoots at Joe. Joe returns the fire but they escape, leaving a trail of blood. Joe reports the shooting but the "shooting team" can't find a trace of the perp's bullet in the wall. The perp turns up dead and his girlfriend screams that Joe is a murderer. Things look dark for Joe when he is called before a Shooting Board. Finally, the perp's bullet is found: it had become lodged in the laundromat wall right behind a shelf, and had not been discovered because the shelf covered the hole. Joe is exonerated.

22-"The Search"
Air date: January 4, 1968
Written by: Preston Wood & Robert Soderberg
Cast:
Peggy Webber as Marian Stanley
Robert Clarke as Bert Stanley
Jean Howell as Edna Felton
Kent McCord as Officer Jim Reed
Vic Perrin as Vernon Hall
Sidney Clute as George Selfridge
Rick Warrick as Officer Stedman
Gail Bonney as Mrs. Bonney

Plot:
A mother (Peggy Webber) reports her two young girls missing, thinking that her alcoholic (but currently sober) ex-husband (Robert Clarke) has taken them. Joe and Bill pay him a visit but find that he is home sick with the flu. Neighbors are interviewed and a convicted molester (Vic Perrin) is found in a nearby railway yard, but none of the leads pan out until they hear about a former neighbor who owned a dog. It turns out that the dog came back to the neighborhood, and the girls followed it back to the neighbor's new home and then went inside and fell asleep on a bed. At the end of the episode there are signs of reconciliation between the girls' parents.

23-"The Pyramid Swindle"
Air date: November 30, 1967
Written by: Norman Lessing
Cast:
Virginia Gregg as Horton Bonnie Bates
Byron Morrow as Palmer Forrest
Bert Fields, Esq. as Hal Davies
Robert Cornthwaite as Dr. Edgar Peter Sundstrom
Art Gilmore as Capt. Lambert
Byron Keith as Nick Gowers
Vinton Hayworth as The Judge
Chet Stratton as Everett Tottle
Sam Edwards as Mr. Black
Alma Platt as Little Old Lady
Sidney Clute as Salesman

Plot:
Joe and Bill try to bring down Bates (Virginia Gregg), who runs a religious-flavored pyramid scheme, drawing in suckers by placing want ads to lure "prospectors" into her illegal moneymaking scheme and holding rowdy enrollment drives in hotel function rooms. People pay a fee to join the "Dollar Wise" shopping club to get discounts on consumer merchandise and cash commissions when they get others to join. In a rare Dragnet courtroom scene, things look bad for the case when an expert attorney for the defense says that all of Bates' claims are theoretically possible. The prosecution counters by asking for details, and it turns out that everyone in the U.S. would have to become a member for the current members to be getting the bonuses Bates promises.

24-"The Big Ad"
Air date: November 9, 1967
Written by: Charles A. McDaniel
Cast:
Anthony Eisley (of "Hawaiian Eye" fame) as Harvey Forrester
Don Dubbins as Steve Deal
Art Balinger as Captain Hugh Brown

Plot:
Friday & Gannon are working Homicide Division when they get an unusual lead from ex-con Steve Deal. Deal is out of jail and trying to "stay clean," but is in desperate need of money. He places an ad in the paper: will do anything to earn $1000. The problem is that one of the responses to the ad sounds too much like a solicitation to commit murder. That's where Friday & Gannon come in. Their dilemma: how to draw out the bad guy and verify that this is a solicitation to commit murder without giving themselves away or jeopardizing their own safety. Friday & Gannon lay out a plan to contact the strange solicitor. Sure enough, Harvey Forrester (Anthony Eisley) wants his alcoholic wife dead. Friday, unknown to Forrester, fills in as Steve Deal. Forrester arranges for Deal (Friday) to sneak into Forrester's home and kill his drunken wife. But when it's time for the deed to be done, Friday learns it's a trap. Forrester has other ideas; he's going to make it look like a botched burglary that resulted in his wife being killed by the intruder, but all the while, Forrester is laying in ambush, waiting to "bump off" Friday. (Plot summary written by Tony More)

25-"The Big Frustration"
Air date: October 19, 1967
Written by: Sidney Morse
Cast:
John Lupton as Sergeant Carl Maxwell
Art Balinger as Captain Hugh Brown
Len Wayland as Sergeant Al Maxwell
Grace Albertson as Mary Maxwell
Bill Williams as Sergeant (Chaplain) Bill Riddle
Robert Patten as Sergeant Taylor Searcy
Alfred Shelly as Sergeant Frank Isbell
Lane Bradford as Champ Ridgely

Plot:
Sergeant Carl Maxwell, a veteran of 12 years service with the LAPD, has "disappeared" and it's Friday and Gannon's job to find him. Maxwell hasn't reported to work and his whereabouts are unknown. He faces the possibility of being called before a trial board and being dismissed if he's not found soon. Friday & Gannon hope to get 5 days to locate Maxwell, but Captain Brown can spare them for only 2 days. How do they find the proverbial "needle in a haystack?" After getting a good lead from Maxwell's brother and sister-in-law, Friday & Gannon finally locate Maxwell at an out-of-town ski resort, taking some unscheduled, but badly needed rest and relaxation. Maxwell has started to "hit the bottle." After the untimely death of his wife, as if that weren't hard enough to deal with, the job started getting worse and worse. It's all gotten to be too much. Maxwell is "drowning" in self-pity and needs time to think and sort things out. It takes Friday & Gannon to remind Maxwell that other folks have trials and tribulations too. His career, until now, was on a good track and he has been a good cop. The department needs him ... his son needs him ... don't give it up just for some booze. Friday dishes out one of his fantastic "speeches" (for lack of a better word) and convinces a good man to try one more time.
On a lighter note, watch Gannon enjoy the latest donut from "Champ Ridgely's" coffee shop. Gannon turns down cream and sugar in his coffee to help with his "battle of the bulge." But "The Champ" has no problem convincing Gannon to try his latest creation: a huge chocolate and orange concoction with marshmallow, toasted almonds, and peanuts on top ... all smothered with a generous helping of whipped cream. A rare treat, indeed! (Plot summary written by Tony More)

26-"The Big Neighbor"
Air date: October 12, 1967
Written by: Robert C. Dennis
Cast:
Randy Stuart as Eileen Gannon
Ann Morgan Guilbert as Marnie Prout
John Nolan as Art Bonham
Kent McCord as Officer
Hal Lynch as Sailor
Rhoda Williams as Ruth Walker

Plot:
Bill invites Joe to his home for dinner and a football game, but the game keeps getting interrupted by neighbors wanting to consult Bill on police-related matters. One neighbor complains of overzealous cops who ticket neighborhood people for minor parking infringements, and Bill patiently explains that those things are, in fact, against the law and he advises the neighbor to "Pay the $2." Ann Morgan Guilbert (Millie from 'The Dick Van Dyke Show') is featured as a spousal abuse victim whose complaints are played for laughs. Joe tells her that they can't arrest her husband just for throwing things at her, but if she lets them *hit* her, *then* they can run him in. Finally a neighbor calls to say that someone is trying to break into her house. Joe and Bill make the arrest, and Kent 'Adam 12' McCord assists. The episode ends humorously with Bill receiving a ticket for parking across the entrance to his own driveway, and Joe advises him to "Pay the $2." WALLPAPER ALERT: Bill shows off his wallpaper and teases Joe for not knowing the difference between entryway wallpaper and dining-room wallpaper.

27-"The Senior Citizen"
Air date: October 26, 1967
Written by: Henry Irving
Cast:
Burt Mustin as Charles Smith
Clark Howat as Captain Mack
Robert Patten as Officer Louis J. Sale
Eve McVeagh as Bonnie McKenzie
Natalie Masters as Housewife

Plot:
There's been a series of brazen, daytime burglaries, but these are different than most; this burglar is neat, doesn't ransack, and never leaves finger prints ... or any other clues, for that matter. Something else is odd: Friday "smells" something; he thinks he's got it figured out. Births, deaths, weddings, funerals ... what's the common thread? They're often announced in the newspaper and the burglar has been taking advantage. Well, as they often do, Friday & Gannon hunt down their man. What follows is pure Dragnet-style comedy. First the burglar (Burt Mustin) denies he's a burglar at all; it takes them quite a while just to get past that hurdle. Then the suspect brags about how old he is as well as his not needing to remember when he was born. The problem is that Friday & Gannon "got him" for just one burglary, but they think he's responsible for the entire string of break-ins. Later in the interrogation, the suspect starts to dish out a generous helping of self-admiration for his unusual techniques, while emphasizing that his being caught was a fluke. All this helps Friday figure out how to get his foot in the door: Friday insults the suspect by emphasizing that if he were all that "slick," he wouldn't have been caught. Now the burglar's reputation is at stake and what better way to establish his status in the field of burglary than to boast about all of his past "accomplishments" (burglaries). Gotcha!!! (Plot summary written by Tony More.)

28-"The Grenade"
Air date: September 14, 1967
Cast:
Mickey Sholdar as Gerald Paulson
Michael Vincent (aka as 'Jan...') as Rick Schneiderman
Robert Brubaker as Martin Kirsop
Cathleen Cordell as Lois Kirsop
John Rubinstein (later to appear on 'Family' and 'Crazy Like a Fox,' son of pianist Arthur) as Paul Whidden
Robert Cleaves as George Nash
Heather Menzies (later Mrs. Robert Urich) as Lorean Harper
Barbara Luddy as Maid
Plot:
Joe and Bill are called to a movie theater after a teenager pours sulfuric acid on the back of another who was talking loudly. They bring in the suspect (Sholdar) for an interview and release him to his parents (mother and step-father). While driving, Joe and Bill have a lengthy discussion about everything that's wrong with the 'youth of today,' saying some are 'born sour' and 'pushed to grow up too fast.' Sholdar later has a fight with his parents and leaves home, seemingly with a live hand grenade. Joe and Bill catch up with him at a standoff at a teen party, where Sholdar threatens to explode the grenade as 60's beat music plays loudly. Joe cleverly unplugs the stereo, distracting the boy so he can disarm him. The grenade pin is pulled, but Joe and Bill are able to replace it before it explodes.

29-"The Phony Police Racket"
Air date: December 17, 1967
Written by: Henry Irving
Cast:
G.D. Spradlin as Preston C. Densmore
Del Moore as Wesley Hundorn
Eddra Gale as Ethel Gower
Nydia Westman as Jennifer Salt
Kent McCord as Off. Jim Reed
Robert Knapp as Capt. Lambert
Ben Hammer as Paul G. Fremont
Victor Millen as Salvador Cabo
Stuart Nisbet as Axel Varney
Don Ross as Bart Emerson
Plot:
Angry citizens begin calling the police department, demanding to speak to "Captain Fremont" because they are not receiving the preferential treatment they were promised when they took out advertisements in the National Association for Law Enforcement (N.A.L.E.) journal. After taking out costly ads, they were given a N.A.L.E. membership card by the non-existent Capt. Fremont and told that they would no longer have to pay traffic tickets and other minor offenses. The journal was said to support the Widows and Orphans Fund. After hitting some dead ends, Friday and Gannon get a lead on one of the salesmen. The salesman is arrested after Friday and Gannon go undercover as construction foremen, and he offers to take them to the "boiler room"-- the headquarters where all the phony telephone soliciting goes on. Friday and Gannon pose briefly as would-be salesmen before arresting the entire roomful of con men .

30-"The Missing Realtor"
Air date: November 26, 1967
Written by: Robert C. Dennis
Cast:
Gene Boland as Terry Williams
Ena Hartman as Ida Walters
Juanita Moore as Mrs. Esther Jenkins
Jeff Burton as Carl Keegan
Scatman Crothers as Dave Richmond
Dennis McCarthy as Lt. W.L. Clingan
Plot:
When a woman realtor is missing, Friday and Gannon follow the few clues available and trace her to a vacant house several miles from her office, where her lifeless body is found. Her boyfriend (Boland) is the prime suspect, but a lie-detector test clears him. Then the real estate office receives credit-card bills for purchases made after the woman's death. The credit-card fraud is presented as something new and unusual. An ad placed in a real estate magazine leads to a tip that takes Friday and Gannon to the killer, viewing a home with his next victim. As he is arrested, the killer protests, "You made a mistake and I'm not gonna pay for it!" Friday wryly responds, "You gonna use a credit card?" Episode highlight: Scatman Crothers' very bad toupee.

31-"The Trial Board"
Air date: December 14, 1967
Written by: Sidney Morse
Cast:
Steve Carlson as Off. Phil Waverly
Peter Duryea as Ted Clover
Clark Howat as Lt. Roger Mairs
Art Balinger as Dep. Chief Simon
Art Gilmore as Capt. Merton Howe
Alfred Shelly as Sgt. Hugh Binyon
Plot:
Joe Friday has been picked by an officer named Phil Waverly to represent him at a police department trial board--on charges of associating with a bookie, accepting a bribe from him, and failure to identify himself as a policeman, to officers conducting an investigation. Waverly is testy and awkward when Friday and Gannon question him. It turns out Waverly, and the bookie, Ted Clover (Peter Duryea), were buddies in the Army. Waverly keeps saying "so help me, I'm telling the truth!" Unconvinced, the detectives question Clover--who is smug and unconcerned and shows the officers a bull's ear he was given by a famous matador. They warn Clover that Waverly is facing a prison term for accepting a bribe. Clover asks, "Why would anyone want to be a cop?" Friday asks, "Why would anybody want a dead bull's ear?" At the hearing, Waverly wisely pleads guilty to the charge of failing to identify himself. Clover admits to having a notebook recording his alleged bribe to Waverly--but it's in code. A vice officer helps Friday and Gannon break the code. During the break Waverly explains something he should have said earlier--that he won all of Clover's money in a crap game during their Army hitch; this is the money--the repaid loan--that Clover gave Phil. Phil is acquitted of the charges of association and accepting a bribe, and Clover faces perjury charges. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

32-"The Big High"
Air date: Nov. 2, 1967
Ed Prentiss as Charles Porter
Brenda Scott as Jean Shipley
Tim Donnelly as Paul Shipley
James Oliver as Fred Ludden
Merrie Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Jeff Malloy as Officer #1
Kent McCord as Officer #2
Robert Knapp as Captain Tremblay

AKA "The Dead Baby in the Bathtub". A wealthy businessman's 22-year-old daughter and son-in-law are experimenting with marijuana. He asks for police help. When Friday and Gannon step in, they are met with surprisingly rude resistance. Time passes, and during a routine drug arrest the suspect mentions a pot party now in progress at the young couple's home. Joe and Bill burst in and make the arrest, but the baby is found drowned, forgotten in the bathtub. Bill throws-up at the sight.

33-"The Big Dog"
Air date: November 12, 1967
Art Gilmore as Captain Howe
Luanna Andrews as Nora Della Deleone/Agnes Hickey
Doodles Weaver as Lars Lowell
Monte Margretts as Cynthia Lowell
Merrie Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Bart Burns as Ingo Burry
Jean Innes as Wanda Kravitz
Maidie Norman as Miss Holmes
Bonnie Hughes as Dee Staley
Phil Arnold as Bert Silver

The Captain gives Joe and Bill an unusual case--a dog stealing women's purses. But their victims can't agree on the breed, size, or even color of the dog. This includes a bickering married couple, a photographer, and a slightly dotty woman who is on welfare. Policewoman Dorothy Miller joins Joe and Bill on a stakeout at bus stops in the vicinity where the purse-snatchings have been reported--and almost immediately a dog approaches and takes the purse of another woman not part of the stakeout. A man hurriedly puts the thieving dog in his car and speeds away. Friday and Gannon get on the air to call for units to intercept the car. They nab the driver a few blocks away, and find out why the victims' reports were so different--the suspect had four different dogs! (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

34-"The Big Shipment"
Air date: December 28, 1967
Clark Howart as Captain Tremblay
Steven Dunne as Fred Robertson
Fred Vincent as Jerome Frank
Elaine Devrey as Pat Wingate
Julian Burton as Wallace Shencklin
John Sebastian as Peter Whitmer
Lorraine Gary as Mrs. Frank
William Boyette as Sergeant Forsen
Bert Holland as Mr. Donaldson

A light plane crashes in a vacant lot in the San Fernando Valley. The detectives find marijuana and heroin in the plane, but no pilot--and an eyewitness says a man who may have been the pilot limped from the scene. Reporters appear at the scene of the crash, but Friday asks them to hold off for one edition. They locate the pilot--who has an artificial leg. He refuses to tell them where the drop is until they point out that if he doesn't make the drop--and there's no story of a crash in the paper--his drug dealer will kill him. Frightened, he tells Friday and Gannon where the drop point is. They stake out the site and arrest two men who appear. One won't talk and claims the other is deaf-mute. The first suspect just says "Talk to my lawyer!" but Friday and Gannon trick his partner into admitting he can hear and speak. He identifies the dealer Friday and Gannon are looking for, and the two suspects, the pilot, and the dealer are all put behind bars. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

35-"The Christmas Story"
Air date: December 21, 1967
Written by Richard L. Breen
Cast:
Harry Bartell as Father Xavier Rojas
Bobby Troup as Claude Stroup
Byron Morrow as Capt. Mack
Ralph Moody as Mr. Flavin
Herb Vigran as Desk Clerk
Barry (Brady Bunch) Williams as John Heffernan
Fernando Vasquez as Paco Mendoza
Plot:
A Christ-child statue is stolen on Christmas Eve from the cracked and worn nativity scene at the Old San Fernando Mission Church. Father Rojas explains the importance of the statue, telling Joe and Bill that his congregation of "simple people" would not "understand" if a different statue took its place. Even though it's out of their area and their captain wants them to work on a different case, Joe and Bill do their best to try to recover the statue by Christmas morning. Father Rojas gets a rare chance to zing Joe: when Joe remarks that "You leave the church open all night so that any thief can get in?" the priest replies, "*Especially* thieves." Bobby Troup portrays a down-and-outer suspect living at a nearby residence hotel, but it turns out that his only crime was to be involved in a hit-and-run fender bender that no one even reported, so he is released, allowing him to attend his hotel's Christmas concert of off-key carolling. Joe and Bill interview a daffy religious-articles store owner (Ralph Moody in an Emmy-worthy performance). Joe and Bill return to the church to tell Father Rojas that all leads have dried up, but just then a small boy wheels a wagon containing the statue down the aisle. Speaking in Spanish to the Father, the boy explains that he received the wagon as an early Christmas present (from a "recycled toys for poor kids" program) and wanted to take the baby Jesus for the first ride.
Dragnet fan Jim Doherty sends the following background information about this episode:
Writer Richard L. Breen, who also wrote most of the scripts for Webb's radio private eye show 'Pat Novak for Hire.' Breen's only other Dragnet work, as far as I know, were the scripts for the 1954 theatrical Dragnet feature, in which Friday and Smith try to nail an organized crime figure for a gang killing, and the special 2-hour Dragnet episode (filmed in '66, but not aired till '69 on NBC's Tuesday Night Movie slot) in which Friday and Gannon trail a serial killer. Breen also wrote the script for the theatrical feature version of Webb's radio show 'Pete Kelly's Blues.' "The Big Baby Jesus" may be the only Dragnet episode that aired on the radio series, the 52-59 TV run, and the 67-70 revival run.

36-"The Prophet"
Air date: January 11, 1968
Written by: David H. Vowell
Cast:
Liam Sullivan as William Bentley
Plot:
Brother William leads a psychedelic cult at his Temple of the Expanded Mind. Friday and Gannon discover that his "religion" is mainly concerned with legalizing marijuana and LSD. Here, Brother William is clearly meant to evoke real-life LSD prophet Timothy Leary. Webb gives him a surprising amount of time to make his case for alternative lifestyles in this highly minimalistic script, which is almost entirely a single conversation among three people.

37-"The Squeeze"
Air date: February 22, 1968
John Sebastian as George Fox

Friday and Gannon convince an arrogant suspect (John Sebastian), whom they believe attempted to extort money from a local businessman, to come in to the station for an interrogation. They show him their evidence concerning the attempted extortion, including recorded phone calls and pictures of another suspect. One of the pictures is of Sebastian and the other suspect together. Friday and Gannon believe Sebastian has attempted extortion; that he killed the other suspect, named Paul Carter; and that a third suspect named Jack Rock was also involved in the shakedown. One call to the businessman involves only a man the detectives believe to be Jack Rock, who growls at the businessman, "An' then it's gonna be hats and horns!" Sebastian claims the recordings aren't admissible in court--but Friday and Gannon point out that the businessman gave the police written permission to record the conversations. "That makes it legal as eating a hot dog at a ball game!" Sebastian also claims the voice on the recordings Joe and Bill attribute to him, are someone else's ("Anyone can make like someone else's voice!") Friday and Gannon play their trump card--they show Sebastian a new device--a voice-printer--that prints sound patterns on paper, and the voice prints of the recordings match those from recordings made weeks earlier with Sebastian's permission. The extortionist realizes he's been bested. He won't identify Jack Rock as involved in anything, and winds up taking a murder rap for killing Paul Carter. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

38-"The Big Amateur"
Air date: January 25, 1968
Del Moore as Tyler Finch
Clark Howat as Captain Lambert
Carol Byron as Ardith Roach
Keye Luke as George Lum
Bert Holland as Harry Wilson
Dave Carlisle as Capt. Dan Packard
Stuart Nisbet as Gideon C. Dengle

"Officer Gideon C. Dengle" wins a businessman club's "All-American Policeman" award, but headquarters has no record of the man. Friday and Gannon go looking for him but find nothing but grateful citizens. Eventually he turns up again, posing as a fire captain, and Friday and Gannon arrest him.

39-"The Starlet"
Air date: February 1, 1968
Amzie Strickland as Thelma Wade
Joanne Harris as Joelle Murphy
Susan Seaforth as Eva Graham
Robert Patton as Wes Zayble
Leonard Stone as Don Shaidell
Lyle Talbot as William Cornelius
A runaway girl named Patty Lee Bundy is the subject of this story. According to an aunt (Amzie Strickland), whom Friday and Gannon interview about Patty, the girl, not much loved at home, left her family in Oregon and came to Los Angeles to break into the movies. Joe and Bill find another teenager who gives them a lead. They also find a bit actress named Eva Graham (Susan Seaforth), and the information she gives them leads into the world of sleazy, independent porno-film makers. Vice officers give Friday and Gannon stills of Patty--from a nudie movie. They find and arrest a shooter named Cornelius (Lyle Talbot), who insists Seaforth has always known where Patty is. And Seaforth herself was in nudie movies, but shows little remorse, claiming Patty will clean up financially as a porno actress. Seaforth gives them a phone number; they locate the apartment and find Patty there--dead from an overdose of reds. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

40-"The Little Victim"
Air date: February 15, 1968
Written by: Robert Soderberg
Cast:
Brooke Bundy as Louise Marshall
Kiel Martin as Walter Marshall
S. John Launer as Dr. Wingate
Elizabeth Rogers as Mrs. Bradley
Jean Howell as Mrs. Ruth Fowler
Gavin Mooney as Dr. Frederick Martin
Cathleen Cordell as Mrs. Newton
Louise Lorimer as Mrs. Walters

Plot:
A 9-month-old child is injured, and the parents claim the child fell downstairs. Friday and Gannon discover that the father is a child-beater and he is sent to prison. The action skips to one year and five months later, when the father has returned and started beating the child again, only this time it dies. Brooke Bundy plays a great hysterical scene. Kiel Martin was considered for the part of Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy" (but of course, it ended up going to Jon Voight).

41-"The Suicide Attempt"
Air date: February 29, 1968
Written by: Robert C. Dennis
Cast:
Jill Donohue as Nina Draper
Luana Andrews as Anna Marie Harmon
Don Ross as Eugene Dickson
Art Balinger as Capt. Brown
Quinn O'Hara as Tami Avalon
Herb Vigran as John Hagen
Dee Carroll as Jean Wagnall

A man calls his mother in New York from an undisclosed L.A. location, announcing his intention to kill himself with an overdose of pills. Friday and Gannon trace him to the Hollywood Elsinore hotel, and a tip from a go-go dancer the man drank with that afternoon helps pinpoint his room out of the 1209 rooms in the hotel. They get there in time, and the man is saved (but he's then committed to a psychiatric ward).

42-"The Big Clan"
Air date: February 8, 1968
Written by: Michael Donovan
Cast:
Virginia Gregg as Dallas Andrews
Don Dubbins as Billy Catcher
Lillian Bronson as Fay Sager
Clark Howat as Capt. Lambert
Merry Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Lillian Adams as Mother Maria
Margaret Rich as Madame Mona
Alma Platt as Katy Wilson

Friday and Gannon dispel the notion that Gypsies are a carefree and innocuous group of people, though their view of the matter would certainly sound discriminatory today. But they track down a Gypsy matriarch and her sideckick (Virginia Gregg and G. D. Spradlin), who try to bribe Friday to obstruct the investigation. And the investigation exposes various tricks, including substituting cut-up newspaper for money innocent victims had entrusted to Dallas Andrews (Gregg). Friday and Gannon enlist the help of Policewoman Dorothy Miller to expose a crooked reader. Gregg and Spradlin innocently visit Friday and Gannon and their captain (Clark Howat) at the police station--and wind up under arrest for attempting to bribe Joe. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

43-"The Big Departure"
Air date: March 7, 1968
Written by: Preston Wood
Cast:
Kevin Coughlin as Paul Seever
Roger Mobley as Charles L. Vail
Lou Wagner as Dennis J. Meldon
Howard Culver as Nathan Vollmer
Ed Deemer as Off. Jim Edwards
Lindon Crow as Off. Wilson

Plot:
A gang of 10 juvenile hippies burglarize grocery, hardware, drug, and electrical-supply stores to steal provisions so that they can create a utopian, self-sufficient society on an offshore island. One of the victims notes that "they coulda used a bath." As evidence of their radical nature, it is noted that the criminals flagrantly discarded a package of three "choice Porterhouse steaks." When three members of the gang are caught, they give their address as "the universal refuge of human kindness and love." Joe's response: "A little tough getting mail, isn't it?" They explain that they have "renounced your materialistic society" to create "a perfect order where nobody owns anything." Friday and Gannon try to straighten them out with some great speeches. (See Words of Dragnet.) This story was also chronicled in Jack Webb's late 1950's book, "The Badge."

44-"The Big Problem"
Air Date: March 28, 1968
Written by: Michael Donovan
Cast:
Roy Glenn as John Erickson
Maidie Norman as Elsa Erickson
John McCook as Off. Nick Jeffries
Charles Brewer as Off. Ron Braven
Clark Howat as Capt. Shannon
Georg Stafford Brown as Billy Jones
Ed Deemer as Sgt. Charles Park
Richard Van Vleet as Off. Martin
Celia Lorsky as Rita Goldstein
Victor Millan as Sam Gonsalvez

Plot:
Friday and Gannon address a group of citizens about the importance of communication between police and regular folks. Friday says he doesn't like the term 'police brutality' because it's used as a catch-all that doesn't mean much. A young black man storms out of the meeting and an older black couple apologizes for his actions. The next day, however, they file a complaint because they were stopped as burglary suspects on the way home from the meeting the night before. Friday determines that the officers made the mistake of never explaining that the couple were stopped because their vehicle (a green Mustang) matched one suspected of being used in home burglaries. That, plus the newly repaired TV set in the back set made them look like suspects. Soon after, the young black man from the meeting is stopped and checked for warrants, and when a traffic warrant turns up he panics and barricades himself in his apartment. Friday and Gannon intervene to avoid another police brutality incident, and eventually talk the man out by promising to go easy on him. (The episode ends with a pleas for understanding from then-Chief Thomas Redding, reading from a telepromter with a monotone voice and glassy eyes.)

45-"The Investigation"
Air date: March 14, 1968
Gene Boland as Howard Digby
Herbert Anderson as Professor Carl Schumley
Dennis McCarthy as Leonard Robbins
Stuart Nisbet as Mayor of Mintville
Bert Holland as Ed Swift
Susan Seaforth as Virna Lanham
John McCook as Wyley Police Chief

In the process of screening prospecting candidates for training at the Los Angeles Police Academy, Joe Friday, with two volunteer civilians, first interviews a young man who seems callow and timorous to the others, but whom Friday senses will be a good policeman. Harry Lanham is another story. In the process of checking out his whereabouts Joe and Bill find a six-month period of his life he did not account for in his application. They travel to the area around Lake Tahoe, and talk to Lanham's ex-wife, among other people. They find out he worked six months as a policeman in Wiley, CA, but failed to mention this on the application. This stands to reason--to him--because, as the Wiley officer they interview tells them, "Harry was kicked off our force...he had a lot of muscle and liked to use it..we got so many complaints we had to get rid of him...should never have hired him in the first place." Because of this omission Lanham's application is rejected. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

46-"The Gambler"
Air date: March 21, 1968
Robert Brubaker as Edward Loring
Virginia Vincent as Sally Fisher
Julian Burton as George Barnes
Vic Perrin as Henry Pendleton
Buddy Lester as Nick Gerber
Virginia Gregg as Norma Pendleton
Don Ross as Jim Barlow

A large company has a $100,000 shortfall; Friday and Gannon talk to the company president and interview three of his executives, including a woman who is constantly short of money because of her invalid mother; a rather salty warehouse manager who pays alimony and has a girlfriend who always wants money; and the purchasing agent, Henry Pendleton (Vic Perrin). They talk to Henry and his wife; she says Henry works a second job at a gas station to make ends meet. But when the detectives inquire at the filling station the people there know nothing of Pendleton. So Joe and Bill follow Henry one day after work--and he goes to another city that allows gambling (Los Angeles does not permit any sort of gambling); as it turns out, Henry is a compulsive gambler and has been embezzling company funds to pay for his losses. He finally breaks down and confesses when the officers return him to the LAPD building for interrogation. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

47-"Juvenile"
Air date: September 26, 1968
Merrie Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Gary Tigerton as George Fuller
Ed Deemer as Officer Beck
Robert Clarke as William Fuller
Alfred Shelley as Officer Girowski
Stefan Angrim as Danny Merriten
Jenny Sullivan as Mrs. Patrick Brenner
Clark Howat as Lieutenant Bongard
Cliff Sales as Officer Henderson
Jeff Malloy as Officer Rowley
Joy Ellison as Sharon Malden
Eve Brent as Mrs. Fuller

Friday and Gannon work the night watch on a rainy evening, which Bill moans will disrupt his gardening plans for the next day. Meanwhile they get: a report of a runaway boy coming on a bus from New York City; a teenager found in a park under the influence of dangerous drugs; an abandoned baby; and two teenagers--one is from Costa Rica and working as a maid--who get married, to the dismay of her employer. The runaway boy is brought in and sheds tears as he speaks to his mother on the phone. The teenager drug user (Gary Tigerton) is given a severe dressing-down by his father (Robert Clarke), but Friday convinces Clark to take the boy home. Friday points out to Policewoman Miller that the employer should petition to void the immigrant girl's marriage. The abandoned baby's mother wanders into the office--and admits she doesn't seem able to take care of her baby, who has been taken to McLaren Hall. She is directed to undergo psychiatric treatment. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

48-"Homicide - DR-06"
Air Date: October 24, 1968
Written by: Robert C. Dennis
Cast:
Randy Stuart as Eileen Gannon
Virginia Vincent as Edie Augburn
Del Moore as Roy Sellick
Dee Carroll as Virna Sellick
Julian Brown as Wheeler
Stuart Nisbet as Lokin
Sam Edwards as George Haller
Art Balinger as Capt. Brown

Plot:
Friday invites Gannon and his wife to a dinner of steaks grilled on a hibachi in his fireplace-- only to have the evening interrupted by neighbors and a pair of burglary suspects. One elderly neighbor calls Joe every night to hear about his day and talk police lingo. Another neighbor complains of a noisy party above her, but she eventually joins the party and brings the noisy musical-instrument-playing conga line down to Joe's place, resulting in a noise complaint to Joe. Bill and Joe catch two men breaking into the washer-drier coin boxes in the laundry room. Joe's girlfriend is supposed to attend the dinner party and bring dessert, but she gets delayed at work and cancels. WALLPAPER ALERT: Bill criticizes Joe for living in an apartment where little redecorating is done and wallpaper is not an option

49-"Public Affairs - DR-07"
Original air date: September 19, 1968
Written by: Burt Prelutsky (Also see Burt's article about his Dragnet writing assignments, called "Just the Facts, Ma'am.")
Anthony Eisley as Chuck Bligh
Stacy Harris as Prof. Tom Higgins
Don Sturdy as Jesse Chaplin
John Gilgreen as makeup man
Don Ross as director
Lou Wagner as John Dietz
Sidney Clute as Harry Wilson
Charles Brenner as Charlie Varco
Richard Anthony Williams as Mondo Mabamba
Speedy Zapata as Jay Herrera
Penny Gaston as Diane Newcombe
Chuck Bowman as announcer

Friday and Gannon are chosen by their superior (Dennis McCarthy) to appear on the L. A. talk show Speak Your Mind, hosted by a man named Chuck Bligh (Anthony Eisley). Opposing them are Professor Tom Higgins (Stacy Harris) and underground newspaper publisher Jesse Chaplin (Don Sturdy, later known as Howard Hesseman). The topic for the show is "The Police--Who Needs Them?" Harris and Sturdy give their case against the police; Gannon and Friday provide well-thought-out rebuttals. Then the audience is invited to speak. A teenager (Lou Wagner, later the motorcycle mechanic on CHiPs) asks "why smoking pot is illegal and drinking booze ain't"; a black man named "Mondo Mabamba" wants to know why the police are always in cars or motorcycles instead of on foot beats as they are back East; a veteran (Sidney Clute) wants to know why we need gun laws; a short Hispanic man (Speedy Zapata) claims he was discriminated against because he was turned down when he applied to join the force; a housewife commends the policemen (the audience boos her) because policemen prevented two holdups in her husband's supermarket. Joe and Bill give reasoned answers to all. A more thoughtful young man suggests people are justified in disobeying "bad" laws and advocates the "majority-of-one" concept, which Friday and Gannon deem unsupportable in a democracy. Harris, Sturdy, Friday, and Gannon give closing statements, and the show segment ends. FASHION NOTE: Eisley, the dapper detective in the early 60s series Hawaiian Eye, wears a black judge's robe and several silver chains around his neck; on one chain hangs a silvery peace sign. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

50-"Community Relations - DR-10"
Air date: October 3, 1968
Written by: Alf Harris
Cast:
Don Marshall as Officer Dave Evans
Rafer Johnson as Lt. Ed Henry
Bill Elliott as Alec Harper
Mittie Lawrence as Elinor Evans
Bert Holland as Carl Rogers
Joel Fluellen as Tom Foster
John C. Johnson as Dick Roberts
Don Newsome as George Lower
Reveta Lynn Franklin as Betty Jewell
ALSO FEATURING A CAMEO BY O.J. SIMPSON (and possibly Samuel L. Jackson, although this is unconfirmed).

Joe and Bill are assigned to help increase the number of minority men who become police recruits. They enlist the aid of black officer Dave Evans (Don Marshall) to come and talk with potential recruits at an East L.A. school. O.J. Simpson, in a cameo as one of the potential recruits, asks "I got a question: Are the exams tough?" Dave Evans then decides to quit the force due to the harrassment he is suffering in his neighborhood because he is seen as serving the white establishment. Then he breaks up a fight between two blacks in a florist's shop, defusing the tense situation, and he realizes that he is meant to be a cop.

51-"Management Services - DR-11"
Air date: October 10, 1968
Art Balinger as Captain Brown
Mark Hannibal as Earl McNevin
Ed Deemer as Sgt. Andy Blakely
Marco Lopez as Officer Mack
Clark Howat as Inspector Hagen
Jeff Malloy as Officer Botty
Cliff Sales as Officer Kennedy
Lew Brown as radio operator
Alfred Shelley as Ward
Robert Patten as Sgt. Joe Gun
Yvonne Lime as Officer Gloria Harper

Shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968, an emergency Command Center is organized at the L. A. Police Department. TV news shows frightening scenes of rioting, fires, and looting in cities in the eastern part of the country--and memorial services are planned for Dr. King in Los Angeles, including at the L. A. Memorial Coliseum. As Friday and Gannon, among other officers stationed at the ECC, settle in, rumors fly about arrests, fires started with Molotov cocktails, and militants motoring toward Los Angeles with weapons, among other things. But the rumors are found to be just that. Besides, it's noted that the streets are pretty much deserted. Bomb threats come in, including for the memorial services at the Coliseum. But as it turns out there is no rioting, no bombs--nothing goes off except the service itself. Friday and the others mull this over, watching scenes of rioting elsewhere--and conclude that Angelenos didn't want a riot (three years after the Watts rioting in August 1965)--they were too busy honoring a friend. NOTE: This is the first Dragnet appearance of Marco Lopez, who later appeared in Webb's Emergency! series. In Dragnet, Lopez is named "Marco Antonio." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

52-"Public Affairs - DR-12"
Air date: November 14, 1968
Lew Brown as Agent Robert Frank
Clark Howat as Captain Shannon
Douglas Kennedy as Inspector Mills
Olan Soule as Ray Murray
Byron Morrow as Inspector McAllister
Robert Clarke as hotel roomer
Art Gilmore as Captain Caldwell
Edward Faulkner as Jim Shepard
Ed Deemer as Sergeant Sherman
Vincent Williams as Harry

The President of the United States plans to visit Los Angeles in 24 hours. Friday and Gannon work around the clock with the Secret Service making precautionary arrangements. The presidential suite in a local hotel is combed, and a slightly radioactive (but harmless) eagle plaque is found. The chief SS man, impressed by Friday's incredible efficiency, keeps trying to offer Friday a job, but Friday refuses. The episode ends just as the President arrives, as Air Force One is taxiing down the runway.

53-"Police Commission "
Air date: October 17, 1968
Art Gilmore as Capt. George Milemore
Nydia Westman as Phoebe Kensington
Eve McVeach as Margaret Chance
John Dennis as Perry "Fats" Chance
Pilar de Rey as Maria Aruba
Marco Lopez as Danny Galindo
John Sebastian as Eddie Jones
Larry Pennell as John K. Anzo
Vincent Williams as Gary Houston

Captain Milemore tells Joe and Bill about "wildcatters"--tow drivers cruising freeways and surface streets to drum up business. Milemore mentions 16 Official Police Garages--but in L. A., even in 1967, sixteen were not enough. He assigns Friday and Gannon to investigate several complaints about one tow driver, John K. Anzo (Larry Pennell, known to TV viewers as "Dash Riprock" from "The Beverly Hillbillies.") They speak to an old woman who let Pennell overcharge her for work on her car she didn't need and couldn't really afford; a woman who speaks only Spanish and still signed a contract--in English--for Pennell's services; a woman whose half-drunk husband, whose car hit a telephone pole, paid Pennell $250 lest he face a drunk driving charge. They go to Pennell's garage, where they notice a police radio being used. They talk to a surly mechanic (John Sebastian), who claims Pennell started the business from scratch. They talk to Pennell himself; his records show he started the business with $2000. They run a make on Pennell--supposedly he's clean. Then a strange turn of events--Sebastian, driving the tow truck, slugged another driver at the scene of an accident. It turns out that the driver of the towed auto was rendered unconscious at the moment of impact, and Sebastian faces a charge of grand-theft auto. Friday and Gannon again talk to Pennell--and confront him with the evidence, including his failure to list Sebastian--who furnished the $2000--on his application as a "silent partner." He winds up losing his business permit. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

54-"Public Affairs"
Air date: November 28, 1968
Cast:
John Hudson as Lt. Bob Kennedy
Herb Vigran as Pete Gulka
Del Moore as Charles Dalton
Howard Culver as Harold Wilson
Virginia Gregg as Lisa Ruby

Friday and Gannon organize a citizens action committee in a high-crime neighborhood. They walk in on a robbery in progress, capture the robbers, and win the support of local businessmen. Bill purchases a snazzy vest from a men's store to "brighten up" his wardrobe and tries to get Joe to do the same.

55-"Robbery"
Air date: October 31, 1968
Written by: James Doherty
Cast:
Robert Patten as Sgt. Jack Williams
William Boyett as Sgt. Bill Pailing
Don Ross as Sgt. Dick Reed
Alfred Shelly as Sgt. Hank Seret
Jeff Burton as Sgt. Mac Johnson
Elaine Devry as Irene Gorman
Lillian Bronson as Bird Lady
King Moody as Truck Driver
Jon Shank as Hippie Suspect
Chet Stratton as Clarence Beach
John Nolan as Mr. Rogers
Carlos Romero as Juan
Don Stewart as 1st Patrolman
Kenneth Washington as Off. Bill Bray
David N. Crawford as Teenager
John Bryant as Ray
Marco Antonio as Sgt. Al Fuentes

Friday and Gannon work the robbery daywatch desk. As the day progresses, they monitor a stakeout at the home of a truck hijacking suspect. They also have encounters including an old lady who says that birds near her home are plotting a bank robbery; a hippie who robs a corner store; a man who wants a gun permit (but is declined when he tells Friday and Gannon that he wants the gun to scare a neighbor who has been X-raying him through the floor); a bank teller who colluded with some bank robbers; and a teenage jogger who accidentally gets involved in a ransom case. Gannon provides the usual comic relief, producing a fishing tackle box which he has converted into a voluminous lunch box containing such 'gourmet delights' as a jar of quail eggs.

56-"Narcotics"
Air date: December 5, 1968
Written by: Burt Prelutsky (Also see Burt's article about his Dragnet writing assignments, called "Just the Facts, Ma'am.")
Howard Culver as Robert Squire
Clark Howat as Captain Tremblay
Heather Menzies as Ann Flynn
Thomas Bellin as Al Bertino
Lex Wilson as 1st Patrolman
Russ Caldwell as Stanley Sorrell
Judy Jensen as Martha

The episode starts with Friday and Gannon involved in the rescue of a kid high on LSD, on a roof, seeing snakes that aren't there. Later, they talk with a local businessman (Howard Culver) who proposes starting an organization called Smart Teens, to get kids actively involved in discussing the dangers of drugs. Meanwhile, Bill's plan to take his wife to a movie are cancelled because of a drug raid they were supposed to make. Bill first claims, "A house is like a ship--and there's only room for one captain." When Joe repeats this to Bill, he answers, "That's what every captain says just before the mutiny!" The night the Smart Teens are to meet with Friday Gannon, and Culver, hardly any show up--and the meeting is half an hour late. Then the kids come in; one girl explains they had a meeting elsewhere first, to ensure the kids would know what the formal meeting with the police was for. They wind up running their own meeting, and Friday and Gannon leave--"They don't need us here." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

57-"Community Relations - DR-17"
Air date: January 2, 1969
Written by: Alf Harris
Cast:
Leonard Stone as Sgt. Keith Barrett
Morris Erby as Sgt. Tom Benson
William Boyett as Sgt. Sam Hunter
Walter Brooke as Capt. Carl Fuller
Art Fillmore as Capt. Larry Walton
Ray Montgomery as Lt. John Rule
John Hudson as Sgt. Tom Wallen
Sid McCoy as Sgt. Ron Nelson
Marshall Reed as Lt. Phil Johnson
Don Ross as Sgt. Scott
Robert Cleaves as Lt. Jurgens

Plot:
Friday and Gannon are assigned to attend an LAPD conference at Lake Arrowhead. They're told that it's "a chance to let your hair down." The purpose of the meeting is to "improve the department's relationship with the public ... resulting in less crime in the streets and ... helping the line officer put community relations into practice." One white officer makes frequent reference to the LAPD "playing favorites to minorities" while a black officer reveals moderate racist attitudes of his own. Both realize their mistakes by the end of the conference. Gannon makes a big production of his hay fever allergy and his homemade remedy, but at the end we learn that a doctor has given him pills to take because he is allergic to his own home remedy.

58-"Training - DR-18"
Air date: November 21, 1968
Virginia Gregg as Dorothy Lee
Susan Seaforth as Joyce Anderson
Don Stuart as Russ Landa
Eve Brent as Sgt. Connie Speck
Clark Howat as Capt. Vernon Hoy
Marco Lopez as Sgt. Callam
Judy Jordan as Carol Winters

Joe and Bill are assigned to the L. A. Police Academy. Gannon is teaching a class on procedure to women recruits. Joe is assigned by his captain to introduce a magazine writer (Virginia Gregg). Gregg picks a young cadette, Joyce Anderson (Susan Seaforth) as her "typical" woman recruit. Seaforth is bright, dedicated, and willing to learn. But there is one big obstacle--her fiance, who doesn't want a cop in the family. And he apparently convinces Seaforth to abandon her plans.This gives Gregg a great topic for her article: "Cop Turns In Badge for Love." Friday makes an effort to speak to the fiance, who has a personal grudge against police. Seaforth resumes her studies at the Academy and graduates at the top of her class, and the engagement is broken off, much to Gregg's dismay. Friday and Gannon assure her that they like the new ending better. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

59-"Juvenile - DR-19"
Air date: February 27, 1969
Elizabeth Knowles as Marian Devon
Logan Harbaugh as Chris Devon

Friday and Gannon show a group of visitors some gruesome photos of battered babies and toddlers. Then they get a real case--a grade-school boy who is missing and possibly beaten. His back shows welts raised by a whipping with an electric cord. He claims he was hit with a stick by older boys--and Friday and Gannon criticize his mother for telling him to lie. They also find the boy's father--the parents are divorced--and the father has lost patience with the matter and is leaving town. They take the mother to court, however. Unfortunately, the judge, who speaks privately to Friday after the decision, has few choices. The mother sees Joe with the judge and angrily jumps to conclusions. Friday warns her that from now on he will keep a close watch on the situation with the injured boy--and makes good his promise, as the mother is later ordered to undergo therapy. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

60-"Internal Affairs - DR-20"
Air date: December 12, 1968
Martin Milner as Pete Malloy
Kent McCord as Jim Reed
Peter Duryea as John Meadows
John McCook as Ed Hillier
Annie Whitehead as Mrs. Hillier
Jack Sheldon as Ted Nichols
Art Gilmore asw Lieutenant Moore

Officer Ed Hillier (John McCook) investigated a loud party at 2 o'clock in the morning. In the process he had a brief and angry encounter with a man named John Meadows (Peter Duryea), whom, McCook admits, he "backhanded." Friday and Gannon question Hillier, who himself realizes he is in trouble. The detectives also question other people who were at the party; their statements don't jibe with each other or with those of McCook or Duryea. Friday and Gannon also talk to the officers from Adam-12, Reed and Malloy (Kent McCord and Martin Milner), who were the back-up unit but did not see anyone hit anyone. McCook is found to have used excessive force and is relieved of duty temporarily. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

61-"Narcotics"
Air date: January 30, 1969
Don Dubbins as Bob Busing
Clark Howat as Capt. Al Tremblay
John Gilgreen as Gene Galberg
Vinson Hayworth as Judge #1
Lew Brown as Officer Mason
Robert Patton as Officer Young
Jack Sheldon as Leon "Pork" Hardy
Buddy Lester as Charlie Anderson
Marshall Reed as Whitney
Don Stuart as Ellinson
S. John Launer as Judge #2

Friday and Gannon and some other detectives mull over heavy marijuana traffic in the Los Angeles area, generated in particular by two suspected traffickers named Hardy and Anderson (Jack Sheldon and Buddy Lester). Gannon gets the idea to use trained dogs to sniff it out and they go to a kennel, where they choose a German Shepherd named Ginger. With the captain they work out tests to see if she can do the job. She passes with flying colors. Meanwhile the other detectives give Bill and Joe dog food and a bone as a joke. Friday and Gannon also take Ginger and her trainer (Don Dubbin) to an airport cargo terminal to let Ginger prove her mettle--to a group of judges. Not only does she find all the marijuana the policemen have hidden, but she further impresses the judges by finding another that even the detectives didn't know about! Next they "put the frosting on the cake" by taking her to the home of Hardy and Anderson--where the other detectives already have a search warrant. Despite jeers from their suspects they bring Ginger in--and she locates the marijuana inside a light-switch plate in a wall. The other detective now asks for the dog food and the bone and says "I'm ready to eat 'em." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

62-"Homicide - DR-22"
Air date: January 9, 1969
Burt Mustin as Calvin Lampe
Jill Banner as Eve Wesson
Art Balinger as Captain Brown
Len Wayland as Officer Dave Dorman
Alfred Shelley as Jack Swan
Don Ross as Medical Examiner Glen
Marco Lopez as uniformed officer

Friday and Gannon are interrupted in their investigation of a young woman found dead in her apartment, by the 91-year-old apartment manager (Burt Mustin). He doesn't interfere, but seems to know all about the case, including suspecting that the murderer is a cowboy (the victim was hog-tied); the place was ransacked; a glass of water is nearby ("Hypes get thirsty when they need a fix," Mustin adds). Among other things the detectives prepare to lift fingerprints from the wall by the chemical ninhydrant process. They find one print--Mustin's! And one page of a letter is missing; Joe and Bill had gone through the victim's purse looking for identification. Suspicious of Mustin, the detectives run a make on him and find he is a retired deputy chief from Chicago! As for his print and the letter, he had painted in the apartment and touched the wall to see if it was dry, and the victim had asked him to add some lines in the letter for her. Joe and Bill locate the murderer's girlfriend, who turns state's evidence. The murderer, who wanted money and jewelry from the victim, worked in a traveling rodeo. Bill asks Mustin why he has no memorabilia in his apartment from his police career; he says he doesn't want the tenants making him their private cop. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

63-"B.O.D. - DR-27"
Air date: January 25, 1969
Written by: James Doherty
Cast:
Grant Williams as Father Barnes
Len Wayland as Capt. Stanley
Vic Perrin as John Franklin
Nydia Westman as Mrs. Morrison
David Bond as Henry
Roy Glenn as Mr. Farrell
Tim Donnelly as Mr. Morris
Robert Carricart as Mr. Diedrich
Robert Carricart, Jr. as Ray Diedrich
Ed Deemer as Sgt. Jim Slagle
Judd Lawrence as Male Hippie
Pamela McMyler as Female Hippie
Susan Seaforth as Policewoman Olson
Rhoda Williams as Mrs. Maynard
Charles Brewer as Officer Iddings
Pilar del Rey as Mrs. Alvarez

Friday and Gannon find swing-shift life in the Business Office Division very busy indeed: they stop an attempted suicide in the office; alert Los Angeles to an expected tidal wave (which turns out to be, thankfully, a non-event); help a lost child find his parents; help a drunk get some 'MT' (medical treatment) for his diabetes; keep a group of hippies from shutting down the BOD office; and more! Through it all, a journalist-priest observes....

64-"Frauds"
Air date: February 20, 1969
Bert Holland as Harvey Peterson
Jack Sheldon as Howard Levin
Sidney Clute as Mr. Ferber
Howard Culver as Mr. Grange
Florence Lake as Elvira Norton
John Gilgreen as Paul Nichols
Herb Vigran as Mr. Ferguson

Joe and Bill find out that at least one person receiving disability benefits from the state, has been dead for several months. They discover that someone has been renting apartments just to take mail, including benefit checks, and they speak at a meeting of apartment managers to ask them to watch for suspicious tenants. Several of them describe various tenants, who have unusual physical descriptions. Friday notes the similarity of the descriptions--aside from ears, glasses, bad legs, beards, etc., the people are very much alike and concludes someone "got a makeup kit for his birthday." They also suspect someone on the inside--working in the very department issuing the checks--is giving the computer misleading information on claimants' death notices. They finally locate the suspect (John Gilgreen) who blows his cover by wearing one mutton chop. Confronted with the evidence--benefit checks in his possession--the suspect admits his guilt. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

65-"Administrative Vice - DR-29"
Air date: February 9, 1969
Anthony Eisley as Lt. Christopher Drucker
Elaine Devrey as Maggie Hinton
Clark Howat as Captain Nelson
John Dennis as bookie agent

When a hard-drinking fellow officer (Eisley) tries to include Friday in a gambling operation, he works with the Internal Affairs Division to break up the ring. Friday pretends to be playing along, while collecting the necessary evidence to trap the crooked cop.

66-"Vice - DR-30"
Air date: March 13, 1969
Cast:
Chanin Hale as Dorothy Taylor
G. D. Spradlin as Tom Arbyrd
Len Wayland as Captain Nelson
John Sebastian as Nate Calvin
John Gilgreen as 2nd player
Ira Cook as 3rd player
Bert Holland as Robert Warren
Ed Prentiss as Mr. Greene

Gamblers are victimizing delegates to a farm-equipment convention. Friday and Gannon go undercover to find the illegal poker game. The game, run by a gun-toting tough guy, turns out to be fixed (marked cards). Complication: the beautiful shill (Hale) seems attracted to Friday, at least until he busts her. This episode features a rare opportunity to see Joe Friday flirting with a woman.

67-"Burglary -DR-31"
Air date: March 6, 1969
Tim Donnelly as Stanley Stover, the Crimson Crusader
Mickey Sholdar as Bob Snow
Stuart Nisbet as George Gurvey
Robert Brubaker as Mort Kelly
Vince Williams as Lieutenant Murrow
Don Nolan as Dave Breslin

Friday and Gannon search for an odd burglary suspect who dresses in a bright green cape and a Napoleon hat and who steals pictures of Captain Midnight, an old comic-strip hero and movie-serial character. He calls himself the Crimson Crusader, and he turns out to be a very sad and lonely individual. Tim Donnelly later appeared on Webb's "Emergency" series.

68-"Juvenile"
Air date: March 27, 1969
Written by: Jack E. Barrett & James Doherty
Cast:
Shannon Farnon as Dorothy Wickersham
Virginia Gregg as Mrs. Smith
Harry Bartell as Chief Wayne Johnson
Morris D. Erby as Dr. Carl Felton
Howard Culver as Dr. Larry Fields
Stuart Nisbet as Thaddeus White
Ed Deemer as Sgt. Fred Norton
Lou Wagner as Caretaker
Alfred Shelly as Mike
Plot:
A five-year-old girl is bitten by a dog while at a restaurant in the mountains east of L.A. Once back in the city, it is determined that the girl is allergic to rabies vaccine, so Friday and Gannon are called in to find the dog and determine whether it is rabid before the 5 p.m. deadline. The action culminates as a veterinarian must be paged at a football game at the Colosseum. The vet is found and confirms that the dog was non-rabid, so the child is saved. At the end of the episode it is noted that no criminal charges were filed but that civil action was taken against the dog owner.

69-"Forgery"
Air date: March 20, 1969
Written by: Burt Prelutsky (Also see Burt's article about his Dragnet writing assignments, called "Just the Facts, Ma'am.")
Cast:
Gary Crosby as Blake Thompson
Angel Tompkins as Sarah Phillips
Julie Bennett as Angela Tigley
Don Ross as Officer Roy Kiser
Jill Banner as Sondra Thompson
Clark Howat as Capt. Frankel
Milila Saint Duval as Lisa Anderson
James Oliver as Ralph Harmon

Plot:
A young woman starts passing forged checks around L.A., with credit cards and I.D. stolen from another young woman who works at a movie studio. The victimized woman's roommate is the first suspect, but Friday and Gannon soon rule her out after a handwriting analysis. A long-haired man (Crosby) calls the detectives to say that he has information about the forger, asking them to meet him in a local mausoleum. He turns out to be the forger's husband, and he says that his pot-smoking wife (Banner) has been drawn into the crime spree by a pair of hippie masterminds. The husband gets his wife to turn herself in, and Friday and Gannon raid the hippies' pad and arrest the ringleaders during a pot party. Just before the trial, the hippie man visits Friday and Gannon to say that he's cleaned up his act-- so much so that the detectives don't recognize his new clean-cut look. The duped woman gets a suspended sentence and three years of probation, and the ringleaders are convicted of forgery.

70 - "Intelligence - DR-34"
Air date: April 17, 1969
Written by: James Doherty
Cast:
Stacy Harris as Frank Baker
Len Wayland as Jack Courtney
Peter Duryea as Paul Reed
Clark Howat as Captain Brooks
Plot:
At a night school reunion, Joe meets Frank Baker, a member of the Fielder Militia, a patriotic extremist group who claim to believe in law and order. Frank, a man rarely seen without a drink in his hand, asks Joe to join and then help him get a federal license to sell firearms. Joe pretends to help him, in order to entrap him and capture the militia's stash of stolen government weapons.

71-"Juvenile"
Air date: April 3, 1969
Written by: Burt Prelutsky (See Burt's article about his Dragnet writing assignments, called "Just the Facts, Ma'am.")
Cast:
Michelle Grumet as Donna Halpern
Virginia Vincent as Sylvia Crystal
Peggy Webber as Mrs. Mary Tucker
Jack Sheldon as Ted Patterson
Mickey Sholdar as Paul Sutherland
Heather Menzies as Lisa Bogart
Speedy Zapata as Rudy Herrera
Stacy Harris as Dr. Robert Corley
Dee Carroll as Diane Conway
Don Ross as Don Hale
Plot:
A four-day-old baby is found in a trash can behind an apartment building. Friday and Gannon interview the tenants as well as teenagers at a local soda fountain. Someone asks them how often this type of thing happens, and they reply, "More frequently than we'd like." (Begging the question: just how often *would* they like to find abandoned babies?) After a tip they return to the building and confront "Fat Donna," who was known to have a boyfriend in Vietnam. She breaks down and admits leaving the baby because she found out her boyfriend was planning to marry a Vietnamese woman. Joe gets in a few good digs at the woman: In one exchange she asks, "You don't think much of me, do you?" and Joe replies, "Let me put it this way-- You'll never make mother of the year." Shortly afterwards she asks, "What's going to happen to me?"and Joe replies, "That's up to the court, and your conscience. Or did you throw *that* away, too?"

72-"Frauds"
Air date: April 10, 1969
Written by: James Doherty
Cast:
Anthony Eisley as Fred Wayman
Chanin Hale as Helen Zimmerman
Bert Holland as David Williams
Natalie Masters as Landlady
Chet Stratton as Henri
Sam Edwards as Steve Houseman
David Carlile as Robert Weston

More than $100,000 in merchandise is stolen from a department store chain through an elaborate internal scam using forged credit cards and the destruction of charge receipts. Friday and Gannon check out seven supervisors and 60 other employees before solving the near-perfect crime. One supervisor (Eisley's Wayman) masterminded the scheme, using threats and intimidation to coerce his fiancee and fellow supervisor (Hale's Zimmerman) to help him. Zimmerman turns state's evidence to convict the arrogant Wayman.

73-"Juvenile -- The Little Pusher"
Air date: October 25, 1969
Eve McVeach as Mrs. Shore
Don Dubbins as Thomas Shore
James McEachin as Dr. Collins
Robert Clarke as Dr. Robert Pines
Sara Selby as Mrs. Rogers
Robert Brubaker as Lee Daniels
Kevin Tate as Tim Freeman
John Rollin as David Freeman
Ira Cook as Officer Green

A young boy is found wandering across a freeway and is fortunately taken to safety before he can get hurt. At the hospital he's found to have taken some kind of illegal drugs. In the process of tracking down the drug supplier, Friday and Gannon question two other boys at the junior high school the first one attends. The second one turns out to be the supplier. Joe and Bill, and several other officers, go to the boy's home to serve a search warrant. The householders panic and run, but they don't get far. The entire house is a filthy mess, and two small illegitimate children are found in the kitchen, eating out of cans. Worse than that, the boy's older sister is found in an upstairs bedroom--dead of an overdose. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

74-"Burglary-Mister"

a.k.a. "Mr. Daniel Lumis"
Air date: October 16, 1969
Written by Burt Prelutsky (See Burt's article about his Dragnet writing assignments, called "Just the Facts, Ma'am.")
Cast:
John Hudson as Mr. Daniel Lumis
Amzie Strickland as Amanda Tucker
Virginia Vincent as Janice Lumis
Jack Sheldon as Chester Albertson
Michele Grumet as Doris Tucker
Alma Platt as Mrs. Kandell
Plot:
The episode opens after Lumis, who insists on being called "Mr. Daniel Lumis," has just stolen everything from his blind grandmother-in-law's house. During the investigation Joe and Bill learn that Lumis has also forged checks, jumped bail, and married another woman. He is also engaged to be married to a third woman, with a plan to steal their joint honeymoon bank account after the wedding. Lumis displays a complete lack of remorse for his crimes.
JARGON-WATCH: Use of "hinky"

75-"D.H.Q. -- Medical"
Air date: October 9, 1968
Del Moore as Fred Pick
Grace Albertson as Nurse Bradley
Cyril Delevanti as Basil Jennings
Ed Deemer as Officer Quinn
Morris Erby as George Brownlea
Olan Soule as Dr. Mackin
King Moody as John Murphy
Marco Lopez as Officer Sanchez

Joe and Bill are on duty at the hospital, where, among other things, they try to get a dying declaration from a shooting victim; deal with a disturbed man who threatens to shoot a radio personality; question an aged rest-home resident (Cyril Delevanti), who claimed he was lost and did not know who he was or where he lived; and question a man (Morris Erby) about a woman he brought in (he claims at first not to know her, then relents and admits he does--and that she was an alcoholic). Worse still, he's on parole. The disturbed man is sent to the hospital in Camarillo; Delevanti leaves with a cheerful "See you next month!" to Friday; the parolee is cleared of responsibility for the woman's death. Then a spaced-out young woman is brought in with signs she was using to direct traffic--"STOP" and "GO-GO." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

76-"Homicide -- The Student"
Air date: September 25, 1969
Cast:
Virginia Gregg as the Mother
Kevin Coughlin as Jeff Buckram
Virginia Gregg as Ada Beale
Emily Banks as Ann Tipton
Jill Banner as Nancy Morton
Peggy Webber as Alice Philbin
James McEachin as Jake Mahler

Two people have been shot dead in a printing plant. The prime suspect turns out to be a part-time employee named Jeff Buckram (Kevin Coughlin). He is orphaned and lives with his pious Aunt Ada (Virginia Gregg). His aunt bemoans his love for "the cesspools of French literature," as he himself calls it; he reads Flaubert and Baudelaire. He says he was injured in baseball practice and that's why he's at home that day. Friday and Gannon talk to his English teacher at the college; she says he's into existentialism. They also talk to the baseball coach (James McEachin) who tells them Coughlin wanted to earn money to buy a rifle! They take an overdue book the kid has torn a page from, to the library. The librarian (Peggy Webber) finds another copy with the missing page in it; from a Flaubert story about a boy who likes to kill things. Now armed with an arrest warrant, they return to the library and there he is--and they take him in. The librarian asks "Do you think Flaubert was the reason?" Friday answers, "Not the reason, just the excuse." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

77-"S.I.U. -- The Ring"
Air date: October 2, 1969
Jimmie B. Smith as Lt. Dan Bowser
Stephanie Shane as Policewoman Rita Handley
Marco Lopez as Deputy D.A. Paul Limas
Louise Lorimer as Eloise Shearing
Anthony Eisley as Al Baylor
Julie Bennett as Jan Petrie

Investigating a rash of jewelry thefts, Friday and Gannon talk to a man known only as Black Ten (Larry Levine), an ex-con and now a police informer. He doesn't charge for this information, about a bartender (Anthony Eisley) wearing a ring, whose description matches that of a ring a householder reported stolen. Joe and Bill have the information they need and get their search warrant. They find Eisley wearing the ring that was described by Levine and the householder and arrest him. They go to his home and search it thoroughly--and find nothing. Eisley gets a call from a waitress at the bar where he works, who is coming over to take car of the place while he's gone at the police station. Friday and Gannon decide to wait with Eisley and watch what the waitress does. They watch her use a long-handled metal tool to pull jewelry out of Eisley's fish tank, where piranhas protect it. The waitress denies responsibility and is in fact not charged; Eisley is convicted of burglary. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

78-"Burglary - Courtroom"
Air date: November 20, 1969
Stacy Harris as Dan Mongrell
Dick Whittinghill as Dr. Jack Patterson
Maudie Prickett as Mrs. Chambers
Don Ross as Don Hale
Olan Soule as Judge Burch Donohue
Brian Avery as Marvin Williams
Marco Lopez as Raymond Acosta
Lew Brown as Bob Simmons
Morris Erby as 1st Bailiff

Friday and Gannon testify in court against three burglary suspects, but their case is in jeopardy over technicalities and the delayed appearance of the state's key witness. The suspects are eventually set free by the judge.

79-"Juvenile Genius"
Air date: December 4, 1969
Bert Holland as Alexander Middleton
Howard Culver as Donald Enquist
Buddy Foster as Jimmy Chambers
David Gruner as Timmy Michaels
Michael Tanner as Horace Thornton
Len Wayland as Capt. Ken Green
Don Ross as John Bingham

Friday and Gannon, on the night watch, are assigned to solve a series of business burglaries with no clues--including no fingerprints and no pattern on the stolen items. During their investigation they check out a small chemical supply store, and find a note with chemical formulas, which the shopkeeper (Bert Holland) says represent ingredients for explosives. He also finds out his burglar alarm didn't ring because it itself was stolen! The next place the officers check out is a safe store; nothing seems to be missing there until the company official (Howard Culver) Joe and Bill talk to, notices a 120-pound safe has been stolen. Since Holland told them that items on the burglars' "shopping list" were not missing from his store, they stake out the place and sure enough, two people break in--two eight-year-old boys. The kids identify their "Brain" as a twelve-year-old Fagin named Horace Thorton (Michael Tanner). Joe and Bill confront Tanner, in a clubhouse in his back yard, with their evidence. He believes crime pays and tries to prove it by disabling the stolen burglar alarm with a chemical--but the alarm resumes sounding. Tanner is ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

80-"Homicide -- Cigarette Butt"
Air date: October 30, 1969
Vic Perrin as Jack Burke
D. J. Anderson as Francine Burke
Henry Cordon as Ned Jeffries
Than Wyenn as Rahmond
Don Ross as Officer Freeman
Charles Brewer as Officer Ken Phillips
Alfred Shelley as Steve Nelson

Joe and Bill go to an old apartment house to investigate a shooting. The dead body is in a bed, and a man in the apartment (Vic Perrin) admits killing the victim but insists it was in self-defense: The victim had come at him with a knife. Gannon questions the dotty apartment manager (Henry Cordon) while Friday talks to a Hindu man (Than Wyenn) who lives next door. A photographer and print man arrive; Perrin insists this is unnecessary after his confession. But Friday notices a cigarette butt in the dead man's hand, making it unlikely he would have a cigarette and a knife in the same hand. The photographer takes pictures of it while Friday interrogates Perrin again--and Perrin rejects Friday's suggestion that it was in fact a murder. Perrin protests, "No. I'm telling the truth!" Friday snaps, "That cigarette butt says you're lying!" Perrin confesses. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

81-"Bunco -- $9,000"
Air date: December 11, 1969
Written by: Don Kilburn
Dave Willock as Charlie Feeney
Nydia Westman as Myrtle Perriwinkle
Buddy Lester as Frank Bevonna
Stanley Adams as Paul Bakeman
Davis Roberts as Rev. Martin
Sidney Clute as Al Roth
Clark Howat as Capt. Frankle

Plot:
Friday and Gannon investigate the claim of Charlie Feeney (Willock), an ex-vaudevillian-turned-wino who says he was cheated out of $9,000 he found on the street. He flashed his money at a local bar while buying a round for the house. Later that night he was visited by a tough guy (Adams) claiming to be a private dick representing a gambler who had lost the money. The 'detective' threatened Feeney into turning over the money. Friday and Gannon locate the bogus private eye, 'Paul Bakeman,' and get the remaining money back, but they then have to find the original owner. The reverend at a local mission reports that one of his contributors mentioned losing $9K, so Friday and Gannon pay her a visit. She turns out to be a well-off widow who doesn't believe in banks, preferring to keep her funds in her Bible. She seems unconcerned with the money she lost (while walking to the mission), but agrees to come and collect it the next day. Bakeman ends up doing time for grand theft, while Feeney goes free after turning State's evidence.

82-"Personnel - The Shooting"
Air date: September 18, 1969
Cast:
Virginia Gregg as Virginia Miller
Veronica Cartwright as Melissa Stevens
Harry Bartell as Dr. Linsey
William Boyett as Sgt. MacDonald
John Sebastian as Lawrence Shafner
Dennis McCarthy as Father Thomas
Mac Hannibal as 1st Officer
Robert Swan as Off. Frank Miller
Marco Antonio as Off. Rich Stevens

Two officers, a veteran and a recent recruit, are at Central Receiving Hospital in serious condition after being shot by a hood (John Sebastian), who is also brought in. another suspect was involved but Sebastian refuses to identify him. The older officer's wife (Virginia Gregg) is philosophical about the situation; the younger wife rants bitterly about her husband's "wrong choice" of a career. The surgeon (Harry Bartell) who talks to Joe and Bill says about the injured officers, "These are as bad as I've seen in 37 years." The wives wait in anguish; then the doctor comes out and gives them the news: The younger officer recovers; the older one has died. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

83-"A.I.D. -- The Weekend"
Air date: February 12, 1970
Written by Richard Neil Morgan
Cast:
Judy McConnell as Betsy Nichols
Jack Sheldon as Robert Bass
Herb Ellis as Dan Patrick
Rhoda Williams as Rhoda Bass
Plot:
Joe stays at Bill's Eagle Rock home for a weekend of "R&R" (rest & recreation) while Bill's wife is in San Diego. The first night features a pinochle game with two male neighbors that is soon aborted when the men have to leave to attend to family obligations. Bill demonstrates how to make a Garlic Nut-Butter Sandwich. Bill tries to make a gift of some ugly synthetic-fiber pajamas to Joe. On the next night, their dinner of Lemon-Glazed Duck is interrupted by a door-to-door saleswoman ostensibly selling magazines so that she stay enrolled in West Coast Nurses Training in El Monte. Bill and Joe smell a con, so Joe excuses himself and calls HQ to find out that the young woman is lying. After they lead her to believe that they are buying subscriptions and money changes hands, they arrest her. By that time, though, their duck is completely dried out and inedible. The episode closes as Bill proposes making Duck Hash. WALLPAPER ALERT: Bill tells Joe that "wallpaper is out" as he teases Joe for not noticing that they have taken down all their wallpaper in favor of painted walls.

84-"D.H.Q. -- Missing Person"
Air date: November 13, 1969
Joy Ellison as Barbara Cook
Peggy Webber as Mrs. Atkins
Eve Brent as Mrs. Cook
Andrea King as Faye Wallace
Marco Lopez as uniformed policeman
Bert Holland as Dr. Duman
Dee Carroll as Mrs. Lawson
Jill Banner as Shirley Lawson
Howard Culver as Dr. William Harper

A girl in a local high school disappears after being summoned to the school offices. Friday and Gannon talk to the registrar and to a girl who claims to be a friend of the missing girl (Jill Banner). They are visited by a young woman, supposedly a model, who claims to be Banner's older sister and assures them they need not look any further. Friday is suspicious and continues with the investigation; he talks to a woman who is supposedly the older sister's employer. Then they find out the "model" was married about a week before up north and now wonder who the woman was who said she was Banner's older sister. So they talk to the friend again, in the presence of her mother -- and get better answers this time. The girl gives them a glasses case Banner had; Joe and Bill get lucky--the optometrist's office is right next door to a restaurant where the girl's mother works. Friday and Gannon talk to the girl's psychiatrist, who urges them to take care with the matter. Banner appears at the mother's home, and finds Friday and Gannon waiting for her; she had found the model's identification and tried to pass herself off as a girl enrolling in high school. Indeed, the girl returns to college. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

85-"Homicide -- Who Killed Who?"
Air date: January 29, 1970
Jimmie B. Smith as Captain Brown
Herb Vigran as Paul Woods
Dennis McCarthy as Phil
Marco Lopez as Pedro Martinez
John Gilgreen as deliveryman
Ed Deemer as Officer Bob Arnold
Chuck Bowman as Sgt. Doherty
Alfred Shelley as Sgt. Smith
Marshall Reed as Sgt. Higbie

There's been a multiple shooting in an old rooming house. Witnesses say one man, apparently a resident, was going around shooting--not only people, but the TV set in the lobby. And the manager of the rooming house, named Mort Baker, is carried out on a stretcher and croaks, "Oft One" several times. As Baker is carried away, Friday and Gannon and their captain (Jimmie B. Smith) try to decipher the message. Meanwhile, the detectives find more clues, including bullet holes in the TV and blood stains on the banister of the inside stairway. A little later, a neighbor (Marco Lopez) is found; apparently he doesn't speak English, but other detectives have his statement: He saw the shooter on the stairs, and struggled with him. Reporters and photographers converge on the site; one photographer has already taken a picture of the two bodies in the lobby; Friday asks him not to use it. Friday is criticized by a reporter (Herb Vigran) who claims he is used to getting everything he wants in terms of information from the police. He also invokes the First Amendment--but Friday points out that the Sixth Amendment--guaranteeing a defendant an impartial trial--must be heeded as well. Vigran accepts this. Finally Bill suggested that "Oft One" means "Loft Apartment #1." Sure enough, there is a loft access; Friday, Gannon and the others go in and there's a dead man on the bed. They find clues in the loft apartment, including the gun and a shirt--part of which was in the lobby. Joe and Bill hold a press conference and tell the press what they've found and what they figure happened--including that the shooter, fatally shot during the struggle with Lopez on the stairs, returned to his room, changed clothes and lay on the bed to die. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

86-"Parolee"
Air date: November 27, 1969
Clark Howat as Capt. Ron Frankel
John Dennis as Tony
Tom Batch as Richard Burns, Jr.
Robert Brubaker as Richard Burns, Sr.
Alice Backes as Bertha
Louise Lorimer as Wentworth's secretary
Howard Culver as George Wentworth

A man named Lyle Thompson has just become eligible for parole from prison in Colorado. Friday and Gannon's captain (Clark Howat) assigns them to investigate local crimes the man had committed 14 years before, because the Colorado parole board won't proceed until the Los Angeles charges have been disposed of. Thompson had embezzled a rental car; passed a bad check for $300 at a local jewelry store; and stolen a valuable commemorative coin from his former employer (Howard Culver). The car rental agency is gone, replaced by a gym owned by a daffy man named Tony (John Dennis). And the rental agency's proprietor has died. No victim, no case. As for the jewelry store, that is still in business, but the original owner is retired. His son runs the place, and son and father are mature and reasonable. The retired proprietor refuses to press charges, saying "I think that man's debt to society has been paid with interest." But Culver, Thompson's former employer, is not reasonable--he says he'll see Thompson stay in prison. Culver's sobbing, angry secretary remembers Thompson and says Culver has ulterior motives for refusing to clear Thompson. But Culver appears at the police building and shows Friday and Gannon the coin--which, it turned out, was merely lost. Culver admits his conscience had been assailing him all these years. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

87-"Robbery -- The Harassing Wife"
Air date: April 2, 1970
Peggy Webber as Jean Sawyer
Herb Ellis as John Sawyer
Sidney Clute as Sam Golden
Julie Bennett as Susan Fowler
Marco Lopez as 1st officer
James McEachin as 2nd officer
Don Ross as Freeman
Art Balinger as Captain Brown

A store owner (Sidney Clute) can give a perfect description of a man who had just held it up, But as Friday says, "The description could fit almost anybody." This includes Clute. Then Friday and Gannon get a call from a woman (Peggy Webber) who claims to know who help up Clute's store. They visit her; she's soused and wearing sloppy clothes. She says the holdup man is her estranged husband, who has done time in San Quentin for armed robbery and is on parole. Several times during the episode, Webber phones Joe and Bill or goes to the police building to belabor them for not arresting her husband (Herb Ellis)--even though they have arrested Clute's actual holdup man with the goods. Next a dry-cleaning store is held up; the young woman says the holdup man wore a stocking mask and had a distinctive tattoo on his wrist. They talk to Ellis and question him intensely--and he admits he did stick up the dry cleaner's. Now Webber storms into their office area again and bleats, "Why did you lock my Johnny up? He's innocent--let him go!" They tell her they got the goods on Ellis and she groans, "You should never have believed me!" (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

88-"Burglary -- The Son"
Air date: February 15, 1970
Dorothy Morris as Mrs. Haven
Robert Brubaker as Howard Haven
Howard Culver as pawnbroker
John Gilgreen as Albert Maddox
Robert Heinz as Ross Haven
Sam Edwards as Henry Lipsom
Luanna Patten as Cheryl Randall
Lew Brown as St. John Odom
Len Holliday as Officer Pete Stedman

A married couple old enough to have young adult children have had a burglary, including jewelry, a gun, golf clubs, and money. The woman claims the burglar was a skilled professional but Gannon uses his LAPD ID card to open the door of the house. Their investigation leads them to a local pusher (John Gilgreen) and a pawnshop, where the burglar had taken the gun. There's a problem: The pawnbroker (Howard Culver) looks at various pictures Joe and Bill show him and none of them look familiar. Joe says, "One of these is a man named Albert Maddox [Gilgreen]." As it turns out, a young man located by narcotics officers, is the burglar; he used Gilgreen's temporary Driver's License--which had no picture on it. Friday and Gannon take the young man to the burglarized couple--and he's their son! He's hooked on heroin and broke into his parents' home to steal stuff to sell to buy heroin. The father is angry and wants to disown the son, until Friday tells him the police will petition the court to send him to a hospital. The boy says "They won't have to do that--I'll volunteer for it." Now the boy's contrition and remorse wins back his parent's love and concern. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

89-"Narco - Missing Hype"
Air date: January 8, 1970
Len Wayland as Walt Aldrich
Virginia Vincent as Shirley Aldrich
Kelly Siebern as Nancy Harris
Vic Perrin as Prof. Paul Thursdon
Mickey Sholdar as Pete Randolph
James McEachin as Officer Tim Miles
Don Ross as Don Jones

Joe and Bill look for a former addict, a boy in his late teens named John Aldrich. They talk to his parents, who are quite concerned that he's gone back to his old habits despite college, a promising future, and a nice girlfriend. They are horrified to find a hype kit inside John's dresser. The girlfriend introduces the detectives to a professor at the college (Vic Perrin), whose ivory-tower ideas have apparently ruined everything John's parents and friends have done to get him off drugs. Perrin claims marijuana has nothing to do with addiction to hard drugs; Friday, learning that the professor's whole life has been inside an academic environment, says, "It seems John had a taste of that real world and he called you on it." Friday also talks to a beat officer (James McEachin) who must deal with a pusher who has apparently reconnected with John. Finally, in the process of arresting the pusher, they find John dead from an overdose of heroin. At the hospital, with John's parents crying in anguish, Friday suggests to a reporter (Don Ross) that the education about drugs should start "at birth! It might make life better...and a damn site longer!" (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

90-"Burglary -- Helpful Woman"
Air date January 22, 1970
Dick Whittinghill as Himself
Julie Bennett as Evelyn Gentry
Ralph Moody as Chester Anderson
Nydia Westman as Martha Anderson
Art Balinger as Capt. Ken Green
Ed Deemer as Sgt. Bert Crane
Don Ross as Carl Freeman
Ann Morgan Guilbert as Bessie McDermott
Lillian Powell as Edna Kissinger
Dorothy Morris as Betty Matthews

L.A. radio personality Dick Whittinghill (Himself) meets with Joe and Bill, who ask him to mention a problem they have had lately: a woman who gets into elderly victims' homes and steals their money. She claims an employment agency sent her, and feigns surprise when the householder knows nothing about it; she usually asks to get to the telephone. And while she's there, she always offers to help the householder in some way--moving something heavy, getting a glass of water, fluffing a pillow, and so on. Meanwhile, Joe and Bill interview an elderly couple (Ralph Moody and Nydia Westman) whom the "helpful" woman robbed. And some of Whittinghill's listeners call the LAPD. One lead goes nowhere--the visitor is from the Red Cross. But then they get a call from another listener (Ann Morgan Guilbert, Yetta from "The Nanny") who was approached by a woman matching Friday and Gannon's description; they show Guilbert some mug shots. She picks one out and says, "Oh, I wanna see you get that weasel!" Guilbert had told them that a neighbor of hers was an invalid (she saw a wheelchair in the house). Friday and Gannon are able to use the home of Guilbert's absent neighbor. Bill gets into the wheelchair, posing as a disabled veteran, and Joe hides; they have a long wait but finally the suspect (Julie Bennett) shows up, speaking in a soft Southern drawl and claiming she was sent there as a maid. Gannon doesn't know anything about this, he tells her; she goes to the phone. Meanwhile, Bill says he needs medicine; while she goes to get it she steals money from the wallet Joe and Bill planted. She's about to leave when Joe and Bill approach her to arrest her with the evidence. Her Southern accent is replaced by a harsh, brassy "Well, you've certainly got your nerve!" Joe answers, "Why not? You've had yours long enough!" (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

91-"Auto Theft -- Dog-Nappers"
Air date: February 26, 1970
Art Gilmore as Captain Green
Bert Holland as Myron Bentley
Luana Andrews as Eula Van Meter
Tim Donnelly as Harry Jennings
James Minotto as Carl Barth
Don Ross as Charlie King

In a local shopping center, dogs left in cars have been disappearing, later returned to their owners who pay rewards in hundreds of dollars. Friday and Gannon suspect criminal activity in this and try to convince their captain to agree. The captain (Art Gilmore) first says No, the police don't look for lost dogs. But when Joe and Bill tell him what they suspect, he agrees--in fact, his own love of dogs is stirred up by memory of a loving dog his family owned. They talk to a dog owner (Bert Holland) whose Clumber Spaniel is missing. He can't believe someone would steal a dog from a car; they just jump out. He mentions a friend of his wife's who had the same thing happen and paid a reward. The friend (Luanna Patten), a rather goofy woman, says her Afghan hound "jumped out" of a car; she paid a man a reward. She gives the detectives a description of the man and a partial license plate number of their car. The police identify the man, and a friend; Joe and Bill go to their house--full of barking dogs. One of the suspects (Tim Donnelly) shows up with another dog; Joe and Bill arrest him and nail him with fingerprints, from a car the dog was in, to boot. They return to Holland's house for a stakeout when another man calls to say he's bringing Holland's dog back. After this man accepts the reward money, Joe and Bill arrest him--and find the dog's collar in the suspect's coat pocket. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

92-"Narco -- Pill Maker"
Air date: February 19, 1970
Maudie Prickett as Thelma Benstead
Don Ross as Officer Tim Evans
Sam Edwards as Fred Watkins
Stacy Harris as Michael Cooper Smith
Felton Perry as Howie Frazer
Lew Brown as Lt. Bob Kennedy

A teenager gives Joe and Bill information about a house when he had bought some illegal amphetamines. They go there and find the owner trying to pry the door open. She has not made contact with the tenant for months--her letters were ignored. They get in and find it's a pill factory. The license number of the car the teenager saw is that of a car belonging to the tenant. The checks for the rent were made out by another man, not a tenant, named Michael Cooper Smith (Stacy Harris). At the real home of the "tenant" they find amphetamines inside an antique radio he owns and arrest him. Harris is not helpful when Joe and Bill go to question him. But two important clues appear when Friday and Gannon go back to the house: a torn-up note found in the trash, and some obvious recent repairs made to some of the pill machines, along with the names and locations of the companies. The handwriting and the communications identify "Michael Cooper Smith"--and now the detectives can go arrest him for masterminding the drug operation. (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

93-"Missing Persons -- The Body"
Air date March 5, 1970
Virginia Gregg as Mrs. Campbell
Olan Soule as Ned Harris
Don Ross as Sgt. Wayne Wolfer
Howard Culver as Matt Levecque
Anthony Eisley as Thomas Dutcher
Luanna Patten as Ruth Dutcher
Ben Wright as Paul Overbeck
John Nolan as Walter Wright

Friday and Gannon are working in Missing Persons. Often a missing person report is matched with a report of a found person--including a dead body. Jane Doe No. 37 jumped off the Venice Pier and drowned; her face, battered by seawater and pilings all night, is unrecognizable. Joe and Bill try to match Jane Doe No. 37 with missing-persons reports. One is a young blond woman whose mother (Virginia Gregg) reported her daughter had run away, Then, to her delight, the daughter phones her with Joe and Bill present. Two other leads fail to identify the woman, but two items found on her body--a fancy ring and a wad of paper--just might. Friday and Gannon publish a picture of the ring in the newspaper with the caption, "Who Sold Me?" A jeweler contacts them, and they follow up the leads on two rings of the nine, the only ones that they can trace. One involves a married couple named Thomas and Ruth Dutcher (Anthony Eisley and Luanna Patten); the wife, with an attitude, says her ring was mangled in a garbage disposal. The wad of paper is examined next, and it turns out to be a boarding pass for Royal German Airlines. Apparently the woman was going to board the plane but went to the pier instead of the airport. Joe and Bill talk to an official of the airline (Ben Wright) and learn the woman's unclaimed luggage did get on the plane, and was being held in Frankfurt, Germany. The police there send a photograph, that was in her luggage, to the LAPD. It's a group of people and Joe and Bill figure the dead woman is one of three blond women. Then they recognize a man in the picture--Eisley. They show him the picture and he admits his indiscreet fling with the woman, a Swede named Inger Halstrom. She was apparently crushed by Eisley's decision to break up with her. Eisley's parting shot: "Young woman like that--jumping off a pier--how bright was she?" Joe answers, "How bright were you?" (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

94-"Forgery -- The Ranger"
(air date March 12, 1970)
Stacy Harris as Barney Regal alias Clifford Ray Owens
Judy McConnell as Karen Fields

A forest ranger (Stacy Harris) is arrested with credit cards and an automobile that don't belong to him. It's a weekend so many federal agencies they could check on him through, are closed. Friday and Gannon persist in questioning him despite his constant insistence that his possession of other people's cards is a coincidence; and his endless store of trivia about nature, forestry, and wildlife. He even asks for water--bottled water. Joe and Bill figure he's probably psychotic. They finally trip him up when he says he visited a wildlife preserve that was in fact recently devastated by fire; and they find out his name is not Barney Regal but Clifford Ray Owens, which he at first denies. The woman he says is his girlfriend says she had not permitted him to take her car; she also pities him--perhaps in a Chaplinesque way. With the evidence mounting, Harris confesses he is not Barney Regal, and admits to taking the car--the police will find it soon, intact; and he claims he always returned the credit cards to the company after a few days. He is on the verge of tears as he ends his tirade with "I don't owe anybody anything for what I did!" Joe disagrees: Harris owes "a big apology to the U. S. Forest Service." (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

95-"I.A.D. - The Receipt"
Air date: March 26, 1970
Marshall Reed as Sgt. Norm Bivins
Len Wayland as Officer Earl Malone
Virginia Gregg as Agnes Emerson
Art Balinger as Captain McTighe
Marco Lopez as garage attendant
Don Ross as Carl Beeson

Two veteran officers, named Sgt. Norm Bivens and Officer Earl Malone, are accused by a woman named Agnes Emerson (Virginia Gregg) of stealing the burial funds of a dead man whose business affairs she handled. Bivens and Malone had handled a dead-body report on the victim, and Norm wrote out a receipt, on a page in his police notebook, that he gave to Gregg. She says she threw it away. And she signed a duplicate receipt Norm kept in his notebook. What's more, now Norm can't find the notebook. Friday and Gannon repeatedly subject Bivens and Malone to intense questioning about the matter--and they give consistent stories. Norm never could find the notebook, but Joe has a hunch and goes to the unmarked car the two drove. He finds the notebook--slipped down in the defroster hole at the back of the dashboard. "You should have brought it [the defroster] with you--it may get cold in there," Bill comments as he and Bill question Gregg again. They subject her to a lie-detector test--and she's cool as a cucumber. They have a complaint, and she wants to sign it, and does so insistently. "There--that's truth for you!" she snaps. Joe shows her enlargements of pages from Norm's notebook--including a page with print-through impressions on the page underneath, recovered by the crime lab. Gregg admits she took the money but says she had a right too--and "I'm not ashamed to tell that to the whole world!" "Fine," snaps Joe, "Suppose you start with those two police officers!" (Summary written by Doug Montgomery.)

96-"D.H.Q. -- Night School"
Air date: March 19, 1970
Written by: Dick Morgan
Cast:
Leonard Stone as Prof. Grant
Harry Bartell as Carl
J.C. Curtiss as Jerry Morgan
Shannon Farnon as Barbara
Sidney Clute as Norm Cavanaugh
Robert Clarke as Bob
Tim Donnelly as Jack
Marion Charles as Kelly
Plot:
Joe signs up for a night class in "sensitivity," where people "let their hair down" (Joe's hair, of course, is too short to have anywhere to go), such as by talking about how people have the right to take drugs if they want to, since they do not harm anyone else. No one knows that Joe is a police officer, and when he sees a packet of marijuana in a classmate's notebook, he arrests him after class. This infuriates the professor, who accuses Joe of being a "narc" and has the class vote to expel him. Joe goes into a funk, and at the next class he insists on telling his side of the story. After a few more complications, he's voted back in, after a lawyer points out that "policemen have constitutional rights, too."
Romance Watch: Joe gets a date for coffee with a pretty nurse, but she ditches him when she finds out about his arrest of the classmate.

97-"Burglary -- Baseball"
Air date April 9, 1970
Virginia Gregg as Mrs. Mascall
Chuck Daniel as Officer Charles Edwards
Jack Sheldon as Darrel Walton
Jill Donohue as Clair Revis
G. D. Spradlin as Arthur Tyson
William Boyett as Sgt.