History Radio / Dragnet

* BadBadActing: Oddly averted in "The Big Actor". At the end of the episode they're interrogating the suspect on a movie set. They have to keep redoing scene, not because the actor is bad, but because he abbreviates or uses synonyms in the line he's supposed to be saying. Something that even good actors have trouble with.

* MommasBoy: Middle-aged bachelor Friday still lives with his mother. Also a case of slight ValuesDissonance,as back in the day it was perfectly normal for an unmarried man to live with his parents until married.

* PocketProtector: A rather realistic example. A cab driver had been shot in the chest by the criminal gang of the episode. However he had placed a few silver dollars in his shirt pocket. He still wound up in the hospital but the silver dollars were enough to slow the bullet.

** In "The Big Grifter" a con man pretends to be an old friend of a recently who, by coincidence asks for money for a medical emergency.

* DeathOfAChild: Dragnet refused to shy away from such cases:

* ScammingTheBereaved: A gang uses this con in "The Big Betty," albeit with cheap watches and other bits of useless junk rather than Bibles.

* DeathOfAChild: The February 2nd, 1950 episode "Claude Jimmerson: Child Killer" featured a double homicide (and implied rape) of a 7 year old and an 11 year old.

* BiblesFromTheDead: A gang uses this con in "The Big Betty," albeit with cheap watches and other bits of useless junk rather than Bibles.

* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: Different episodes put Friday and his partner in different departments — whichever one is appropriate for the case being investigated, basically — but within each episode jobs are delegated as normal. But in almost every episode, Friday and Romero will be the first to investigate, discover the critical clues and the ones to arrest the perp, even if half the LAPD is on the case with them.
** In 'The Big Eavesdrop' this is taken further. Friday, an undercover narcotics officer waiting for a buy, overhears two men discussing a murder they committed in San Fransisco. Of course he is assigned to investigate further.

* ByTheBookCop: Now only does the show go into what the book entails, it shows why a cop should be by the book. A couple times cops get into trouble because they go against protocol to do someone a favor. The book not only protects the public, but the police as well.

* AllForNothing: Pretty much when they bust a criminal, they go to jail with nothing to show for it.
** [[spoiler: In Big Jump, Fridays risked life and limb to save a jumper in the middle of a paranoid episode. Seven months later he managed to hang himself in the Mental Hospital.]]

* ByTheBookCop: Now only does the show go into what the book entails, it shows why a Cop should be By the book. A couple times cops got into trouble because they went against protocol to do someone a favor. The Book not only protects the public, but the police as well.

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: A couple of cases had cops doing people a favor by going against protocol. So the people they did the favor for accused them of police brutality as there was no one else to say otherwise.

* StrikeMeDownWithAllOfYourHatred: Yes really. Friday was trying to talk a man out of jumping who was heavily in the middle of a Paranoid Episode. Eventually Detective Friday played into his delusions and goaded him into trying to kill him because Friday was one of the people harassing him.

* ChocolateBaby: Used in Big Mother. The couple was black and the baby was very blonde. [[spoiler: The twist is that she stole the child. Trageically it was because he own baby had been still born and she had no idea what to do.]]

* TragicVillain: Some cases have the perpetrator be very sympathetic.
** In Big Mother [[spoiler: the woman had what only be called a psychotic break after her child that she had been trying to have for 11 years was a still born.]]

* ChocolateBaby: Used in Big Mother. The couple was black and the baby was very blonde. [[spoiler: The twist is that they stole the child.]]

!!''{{Radio/Dragnet}}'' provides examples of:

* TropeMaker[=/=]UrExample: The first-ever PoliceProcedural. Its success spawned a host of imitators and established the genre.

* WhatDidIDoLastNight: The suspect in Big Elevator was so drunk that he honestly wasn't sure if he killed the victim. [[spoiler: As it turned out the victim had a brain tumor that had been slowly growing for years. It was just horrible luck on his part that he was in her apartment when a blood vessel in her brain finally ruptured from the pressure.]]

* TechnologyMarchesOn: Downplayed. Any modern listener will notice that the usual Police Procedural techniques and forensics literally haven't been invented yet. Also in one episode an elevator operator has to give Friday a crash course on how to use the non-automated elevator.

* TheCharacterDiedWithHim: Sargent Ben Romero died of a heart attack the next episode after his actor, Barton Yarborough, died. The episode, Big Sorrow, was dedicated in his memory and they talked about him during it.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The radio show was written in the Late 40's/Early 50's and it shows. For starters, the main sponsor of the show is a cigarette brand. It was written years before DNA was even discovered and decades before DNA tests became a thing. The interrogations usually happen without a lawyer as Miranda rights weren't codified. A plot point hinges on the fact that a bar actually had a TV in it in one episode. An elevator operator has to tell Friday how to work the elevator as they have to evacuate the building due to a bomb, and he needs to leave.

* VillainsWantMercy: Quite a few of the suspects. The best example is the suspect in Big Girl who literally asks for medical help for his self inflected leg wound right after shooting at Friday.

* MommasBoy: Middle-aged bachelor Friday still lives with his mother.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The radio show was written in the 50's and it shows. For starters, the main sponsor of the show is a cigarette brand. It was written years before DNA was even discovered and decades before DNA tests became a thing. The interrogations usually happen without a lawyer as Miranda rights weren't codified. A plot point hinges on the fact that a bar actually had a TV in it in one episode. An elevator operator has to tell Friday how to work the elevator as they have to evacuate the building due to a bomb, and he needs to leave.

* InfantImmortality: Averted on with the February 2nd, 1950 episode "Claude Jimmerson: Child Killer" which featured a double homicide (and implied rape) of a 7 year old and an 11 year old.

* PocketProtector: A rather realstic example. A cab driver had been shot in the chest by the criminal gang of the episode. However he had placed a few silver dollars in his shirt pocket. He still wound up in the hospital but the silver dollars were enough to slow the bullet.

* LyingToThePerp: Downplayed example in ''The Big Knife''. They only lied to the perp about what the LAPD's Mass Spectrometer was capable of as they were walking him to the police station.