History YMMV / Dragnet

** The aforementioned "City of Crime" music video. While it is a catchy tune, it's pretty odd to see a full-scale techno/rap video that would have more in common in a work like ''Film/{{Xanadu}}'' than a semi-serious police procedural. Especially when you have actors like Tom Hanks and Dan Ackyroyd, who are, to a modern audience, more straight-laced actors absolutely [[ChewingTheScenery hamming it up]] in more traditional, reserved roles like Sergeant Joe Friday.

* NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize: Averted on the '60s show. Creator/JackWebb used a regular group of actors to play various roles, (see YouLookFamilar on the main page) and in such a way that even if you did recognize that person from a previous episode, it was just as likely as not that the character would turn out to be the episode's perpetrator. However, most of the actors had a 'type' of character they were known for playing, and you could reliably depend on the knowledge that if a character had played a cop before, he was playing a cop again, or if he had been a non-cop, he wasn't likely to be a cop this time out.

** Julius from ''The Big Boys'' was Creator/{{Leonard Nimoy}}'s television debut, though it's chiefly the voice that's recognizable.

* WeirdAlEffect: ''Mathnet'', to some.

** This might have been horrifying back when the first episode premiered, but the introduction of the first perp (of the 60's revival show) they bring in might invoke humor. They find a young man with his head buried in the ground, but clearly alive. Friday and Gannon bring his head up...to shockingly reveal one side of his face is blue and the gold with a dramatic scare chord!
** The aforementioned "City of Crime" music video. While it is a catchy tune, it's pretty odd to see a full-scale techno/rap video that would have more in common in a work like ''Film/{{Xanadu}}'' than a semi-serious police procedural. Especially when you have actors like Tom Hanks and Dan Ackyroyd, who are, to a modern audience, more straight-laced actors absolutely [[ChewingTheScenery hamming it up]] in more traditional, reserved roles like Sargent Joe Friday.

* NightmareFuel: The giant anaconda used for the VirginSacrifice in the 1987 movie. It doesn't help that it's in a dimly-lit tank of sewer water.

* EarWorm: ''BUHMM-ba-DUM-DUM...''

* MagnificentBastard:
** The sweet little old lady from "The Big Grandma", whose half-professional, half-amateur MO for check forging made her very hard to identify, let alone catch.
** The swindlers in "The Phony Police Racket" who successfully produced a swindle that appealed to the selfish and selfless alike. For the selfish, there was a card that supposedly entitled the bearer to preferential treatment from police nationwide. For the selfless, all monies spent were supposedly to help the next of kin of cops killed in the line of duty.

** In the intro to "The Big Kidnap", when Friday is talking about how most people work to earn a living, one shot is of Ed White's spacewalk. The day after the episode aired, White and his two crewmates for a pending mission, Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee, died in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 tragic fire]].

* AcceptableTargets: Gypsies. Played with as it's only gypsies that commit an actual crime, just like anyone else.

* ValuesDissonance: Some of the police procedures used in the original series, while acceptable at the time, don't carry over to well in current society. The DarkerAndEdgier 1954 movie includes two examples. When investigating a mob killing, the LAPD pulls in a large group of gangsters, holds them in a local hotel, and questions them for hours without legal representation. Later, Friday and Smith employ a "rolling stakeout" against one suspect. It involves them using tactics that would today be considered police harassment.

* MemeticMutation: Aside from the implacable deadpan police investigator archetype, there is of course [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome BUHMM-BA-DUM-DUM]].

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome

** Julius from ''The Big Boys'' was Creator/{{Leonard Nimoy}}'s television debut, though it's the voice that's recognizable.

** In the intro to "The Big Kidnap", when Friday is talking about how most people work to earn a living, one shot is of Ed White's spacewalk. The day after the episode aired, White and his two crewmates for a pending mission, Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee, died in a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 tragic fire]].

** In the intro to "The Big Kidnap", when Friday is talking about how most people work to earn a living, one shot is of Ed White's spacewalk. The day after the episode aired, White and his two crewmates for a pending mission, Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee, died in a tragic fire.

** The rock-and-roll StandardSnippet that plays at most teen parties in Sixties Dragnet (and early seasons of ''Series/Adam-12'')

* {{Narm}}: This might have been horrifying back when the first episode premired, but the introdction of the first perp (of the 60's revival show) they bring in might invoke humor. They find a young man with his head buried in the ground, but clearly alive. Friday and Gannon bring his head up...to shockingly reveal one side of his face is blue and the gold with a dramatic scare chord!

** It's a Jack Webb production, so... yeah, though decidedly less in the 50s version compared to the 60s version.

* NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognize: Averted on the '60s show. Jack Webb used a regular group of actors to play various roles, (see YouLookFamilar on the main page) and in such a way that even if you did recognize that person from a previous episode, it was just as likely as not that the character would turn out to be the episode's perpetrator. However, most of the actors had a 'type' of character they were known for playing, and you could reliably depend on the knowledge that if a character had played a cop before, he was playing a cop again, or if he had been a non-cop, he wasn't likely to be a cop this time out.

** In the movie, Streebeck has a hamburger phone in his apartment. Twenty years later, the hamburger phone would make an appearance in ''{{Juno}}'' and became a small meme for a while (even leading to a spike in hamburger phone sales). However, Streebeck's phone seems to work much better.

** Creator/TomHanks performing the 1987 film's ThemeTuneRap "City of Crime" alongside Dan Aykroyd is humorously prescient of his son Chet Hanks' own rap career.

* RetroactiveRecognition: [[TheBradyBunch Greg Brady]] is an altar boy in the third and final version of the 'red wagon for Christmas' episode (which was done on radio and both TV versions).

** The music at the PAGAN rally in the AffectionateParody. As well as the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcZwiVbZ4Kw theme music]].

** In the intro to "The Big Kidnap", when Friday is talking about how most people work to earn a living, one shot is of Ed White's spacewalk. The day after the episode aired, White and his two crewmates for a pending mission died in a tragic fire.

* HarsherInHindsight: Remember Goldman from "The Big Hammer"? Well, his call sign is 1-Adam-12, which means he's Malloy's partner who was KIA not long after.
** In the intro to ''The Big Kidnap'', when Friday is talking about how most people work to earn a living, one shot is of Ed White's spacewalk. The day after the episode aired, White and his two crewmates for a pending mission died in a tragic fire.