July 7
DUM-DE-DUM-DUM DAY
Jack Webb’s Dragnet was first heard on NBC radio this day in 1949. The program was the first to dramatize cases from actual police files. Each episode on radio and TV began with the announcement, “The story you are about to hear (see) is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”; and ended with the somber sentence handed down to the criminal.
Dragnet went to television in January 1952 after a successful TV preview on Chesterfield Sound-Off Time a few weeks earlier. The show actually ran simultaneously on radio and TV from 1952 - 1956, continuing on television through 1959. After a seven-year hiatus, it returned as Dragnet ’67 to distinguish itself from its own reruns. This first major real-life police drama series was so successful that it remains in syndication some 30 to 40 years later.
The show went to the movies in a 1980s spoof with Dan Aykroyd in the lead role of Sgt. Joe Friday -- the role Webb played on both radio and TV.
The original sponsor of the radio series was Fatima Cigarettes and, later, Chesterfield Cigarettes. The composer of the original Dragnet theme was Walter Schumann, which included “dum-de-dum-dum,” possibly the most famous four-note introduction since Beethoven’s 5th.
Sgt. Friday’s sidekick was originally played by Barton Yarborough both on radio and TV. His untimely death shortly after the first TV telecast opened up the role to Barney Philips. Herb Ellis picked up the part in the first fall season, followed by Ben Alexander, who played officer Frank Smith for 7 years. Harry Morgan was Jack Webb’s sidekick in the 1967-1970 series as Officer Bill Gannon.
And those are “just the facts, ma’am.”
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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