History Radio / Dragnet

Archetype of the PoliceProcedural, this first installment in the ''Franchise/{{Dragnet}}'' franchise followed the exploits of Sgt. Joe Friday and his various partners as they investigated crime in Los Angeles. The radio series ran on Creator/{{NBC}} from 1949-1957. Barton Yarborough portrayed Friday's original partner, Sgt. Ben Romero, from the start of the radio show until his death in December 1951. He was briefly succeeded by a few different partners, most prominently Barney Phillips as Detective Sgt. Ed Jacobs, before Ben Alexander took over as Officer Frank Smith from late 1952 to the end of the radio run.

** "The Big Kid" had a gang of teenagers who started a turf war by going to another gangs house party, pulling out a shotgun and firing. [[spoiler:One of the victims was a young boy who lived next door to the house party, a stray bullet killed him when he went outside to see what the noise was about.]]

** In "The Big Fall Guy", [[spoiler the fall guy goes to jail but the mastermind walks, even after confessing to Friday.]]

* DownerEnding: The series doesn't shy away from these cases. In "The Big Fall Guy", [[spoiler: the fall guy goes to jail but the mastermind walks, even after confessing to Friday.]]

* UnbuiltTrope: As the first real PoliceProcedural, it's not like most of them. Mainly due to how realistic it is. There aren't too many Police Procedurals that are willing to show the detectives having to spend over a week going from hotel to hotel trying to find the one their suspect was staying at in order to find the stolen jewelry.

* RichBoredom: In "The Big Cut", the mastermind behind the medical robbery [[spoiler:was a wealthy woman who was bored with her life. After her divorce, her husband paid a huge amount of alimony where she no longer had to work and could keep full time servants. She admitted she did it because she was bored with the money and wanted to do something different. She was even trilled about going to prison as it gave her something different to do.]]

* BittersweetEnding: Some cases are this.
** In "Quick Trigger Gunmen", [[spoiler: Friday and Romero are able to capture one of the gunmen, but his partner escapes and was never caught.]].

* DownerEnding: The series doesn't shy away from these cases.
** In "The Big Fall Guy", [[spoiler: the fall guy goes to jail but the mastermind walks, even after confessing to Friday.]]

* TheManBehindTheMan: Happens a few times
** In "The Big Convertible", a man has been going around time passing bad payroll checks with his wife. [[spoiler: While the man was guilty, his wife, in reality his girlfriend, was the mastermind behind it. She had convinced him to go along with the scam and had pulled the same scam with other men in different states, he was just the latest victim.]]

* ParentalNeglect: Several episodes involved this, including some where one of the children was too far gone with an illness or injury to save.
** Another episode had 4 children living in a run down house with no gas, running water or electricity. The oldest child explained that their mother had gone off to look for work a few weeks ago. [[spoiler:The mother went to elope in Mexico with a stranger she met at a bar. The stranger took her to Mexico and after they got into a fight, the guy left the mother and she had to walked back home. However, from Friday's investigation, this was not the first time this happened as the mother was an alcoholic after the father passed away.]]

* AttentionWhore: A woman claimed to have been robbed and had money stolen from her purse in her apartment. When her sister (who was out of town) confronted her, she confessed that she had made up the story as she wanted her name to be in the paper and people talk about her.

* AlwaysMurder: Despite being one of the PoliceProcedural, they focus on almost every type of crime police detectives investigate. [[spoiler: Even when working the Homicide desk, sometimes it turns out the victim actually died from natural causes in a manner that looked suspicious.]]

* {{Padding}}: Here and there. In "Big Mailman" Ben spends almost a minute trying to get a plastic raincoat back into its packaging.

** In "The Big Eavesdrop", 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.

* ItsPronouncedTroPay: Archaic pronounciations for "Los Angeles" (Los ANG-el-ess, with a hard "G" sound compared to a soft "G" or "J" sound that comes out "Los An-jel-ess") and "California" (Cal-i-forn-ee-a) are often heard.

* RadioDrama

* SocietyMarchesOn: "The Big Book" is all about Joe Friday and the LAPD trying to bust an erotic literature ring in a high school. Nowadays with TheInternetIsForPorn, people would be surprised that the kids have an actual physical copy.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: One of Dragnet's claims to fame, though as the origin of the PoliceProcedural they covered the much less famous and mundane cases.
** The Sulivan Kidnapping episode is almost beat for beat the hunt for William E. Hickman. With just enough details changed [[OnceAnEpisode to protect the innocent]].

* {{Padding}}: Here and there. In "Big Mailman" Ben spends almost a minute trying to get a plastic raincoat back into it's packaging.