Radio Drama · Old Time Radio Researchers · Mystery & crime · Drama
Dragnet
- Networks
- NBC (as its archives name them)
- Heard
- 1949–1957
- Episodes
- 536
- Language
- English
DRAGNET
More about it
Dragnet, the brainchild of Jack Webb, may very well be the most well-remembered, and the best, radio police drama series. From September, 1949 through February 1957, Dragnet's 30 minute shows, broadcast on NBC, brought to radio true police stories in a low-key, documentary style. The origins of Dragnet can be traced to a semi-documentary film, "He Walked by Night" from 1948, in which Webb had a small role. Both employed the same Los Angeles Police Department technical adviser, used actual police cases and presented the case in "just the facts" manner that became a hallmark of Dragnet. It is interesting to note that Webb employed that format in other radio series, some pre-dating the film mentioned above. Dragnet was a long running radio and television police procedural drama, about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from an actual police term, a dragnet, meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects. Dragnet was perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in American media history. The series gave millions of Americans a feel for the boredom and drudgery, as well as the danger and heroism, of real life police work. Dragnet earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers. Actor and producer Jack Webb's aims in Dragnet were for realism and unpretentious acting. He achieved both goals and Dragnet remains a key…
Episodes, in broadcast order page 1 of 6
Where it comes from 6
The archive items its episodes are played from, best first, with each one’s rights as its archive states them. An episode two sets both hold is played from the first.
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Dragnet - Single Episodes
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, as its uploader states it at the Internet Archive.
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Dragnet the 50's radio show
Uploader’s mark: Public domain (Creative Commons dedication): Marked Public domain (Creative Commons dedication) by its uploader at the Internet Archive; the record gives no basis for it.
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Dragnet
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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Dragnet
Uploader’s mark: Public Domain Mark 1.0: Marked Public Domain Mark 1.0 by its uploader at the Internet Archive; the record gives no basis for it.
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Dragnet
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
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Dragnet
the Internet Archive states no licence or rights for it.
10 more sets hold only episodes played here from a set above.
A set by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group (otrr.org), at the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio collection.
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Radio drama, old-time radio and historic broadcasts from the Internet Archive (its Old Time Radio collection with the Old Time Radio Researchers' sets, WWII Era Audio Recordings, the Pacifica Radio Archives, the Radio Haiti Archive, German radio plays and listeners' uploads), Wikimedia Commons (with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision's broadcasts) and the Library of Congress. Every episode plays from its archive, which this site does not copy; rights are as each archive states them. Nothing here is called public domain on this site's say-so. In the United States, sound recordings first fixed before 15 February 1972 have federal protection under the Music Modernization Act of 2018, for most until 2067 at the latest, so most American radio of the 1930s to the 1950s is not in the public domain there. Each set shows the licence, mark or statement its archive gives, and says whose it is. Horror, crime, war and westerns are for teenage and adult profiles, racist caricature for adults only, and children’s profiles hear what was made for children. More about these archives.