Every day, I take a 4-mile walk past Lake Mansfield, turn left onto Christian Hill Road to the nursing home and then back again. I am always searching for distraction, so I listen to old radio shows that bring me back to my childhood so many years ago. For example, I listened to every “Highway Patrol” I could get my hands on through YouTube. Now I search for Jack Webb’s “Dragnet.” It turns out that “Dragnet” is a museum of sorts. You could never learn in a history class what I have learned listening to these old shows.
Let’s start with the ads. The shows that I listened to were sponsored by Chesterfield and Fatima cigarettes. Thanks to the hindsight of history, we know that cigarettes will kill you. We also know that the cigarette companies knew that they had a real credibility problem on their hands. So, we had the spectacle of “Mr. Dragnet” himself, Jack Webb, offering personal testimonials as a smoker about the companies that were paying the bills. If these cigarettes hadn’t been so potentially lethal to so many people, a current listener might have been amused. But just think of all those people who are dead as a result of smoking. The ads weren’t just Webb offering his own personal assurances, but they exposed all kinds of other despicable things. The geniuses behind the advertising sanctimoniously talk about having assembled panels that studied people who smoked and assured us that these folks showed no troubling signs. So now we know. Jack Webb must be turning on a spit somewhere. In other words, he took the money and ran.
Of course, as a historical marker, “Dragnet” did more than hawk so-called mild cigarettes to people: It also gives us insight into the cultural norms of the times. One episode was really interesting. Sgt. Friday and his colleague were called to a movie theater where the kids in the place went nuts. The kids turned violent and caused chaos. When Friday got to the theater, he discovered that one high school senior had dropped a little box. You know what was in that box? I’ll bet you do. Yes, in the box was marijuana. You should not be surprised — marijuana was being blamed as THE curse of American youth. No one was envisioning a time when little Great Barrington would have multiple pot shops making a fortune for themselves and for the town itself. All of the anti-marijuana tropes of the time accepted the logic that the weed caused social chaos and led to the corruption of American young people, to say nothing of leading to other drugs like heroin.
When the kid was caught by Friday and partner, he broke into paroxysms of tears, including apologies to his 1950s father. Of course, without YouTube, we would not be in a position to watch this stuff. It is terribly important to understand how things have changed, and really, it was not until recently that they actually did change. On the other hand, it is hysterical to think that the American people were being exposed to this propaganda. Within the show itself, everyone is always asking the cops whether they had an extra cigarette. Maybe I’m imagining things, but is it possible that the tobacco companies viewed marijuana as a potential competitor for their product? In any case, it’s another chapter in the “Dragnet” history book.
“Dragnet” was very careful to keep the Los Angeles Police Department happy. The police chief was always mentioned in a fawning way at the beginning of the show and we certainly didn’t see anything that hinted at future corruption scandals in that department.
Jack Webb was also largely responsible for “Adam-12,” a TV show that showed cops in a very good light. I loved it but you will never find any of those officers behaving badly. I can only recommend that you go to YouTube and get your own history lesson.
