dragnet tv retro free downloads of elisodes Radio Shows – Free to Listen or Download. Dragnet, the brainchild of , 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. Dragnet was a long running radio and television police procedural drama, about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant , 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. The ominous four note introduction to the brass and tympani theme music, titled Danger Ahead, is instantly recognisable as well as the shows opening narration: “Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” [amazon_link asins=’B01C45OHKC,B004IB04S0,B000094YTQ’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’zonwebsea-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’f5f8f0aa-b973-11e8-9fc9-f3bb8fb515be’] The original Dragnet starring Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday ran on radio from June 3rd, 1949 to February 26th, 1957; and on television from December 16th, 1951 to August 23rd, 1959, and from January 12th, 1967 to April 16th, 1970. All of these versions ran on NBC. There were two Dragnet feature films, a straight adaptation starring Jack Webb in 1954, and a comedy spoof in 1987. There were also television revivals, without Webb, in 1989 and 2003. episodes of Dragnet. Jack Webb at the NBC mike Unmistakeable theme. Unmistakeable voice. Unmistakeable style. Dragnet was such a bombshell -- "the true story of your police force in action" -- that it is hard to appreciate the original impact so many decades after it first premiered (June 3, 1949 on NBC). Today, realistic police procedurals are the rule. In '49, shows like "Boston Blackie" or "Broadway's My Beat" were the norm, and while they certainly convey the flavor of the period in which they were produced, "realistic" is not a word you would apply. Dragnet was a different combination: from the "actual police files" that the Los Angeles Police Department provided as inspiration for the scripts, to the low key dialogue and underplayed line readings, to the hyper-realistic sound effects and Walter Schumann's phenomenal musical theme. Jack Webb truly created a new mature style for the radio drama. It was so recognizably unique that it only took a few years before it was the stuff of spoofs by comedians like Stan Freburg. Dragnet lasted on radio from 1949 to 1957, although the TV version took most of Webb's attention starting in 1952. How much did Dragnet enter public consciousness? Even today, kids who've never heard nor seen the show, still recognize those opening "Dum- de-dum-dum" musical notes. Dragnet tv / retro free downloads of elisodes. A lot of us grew up watching the 1967-1970 revival of Dragnet , either first-run or in syndication. It’s known informally as “the color Dragnet,” to differentiate it from the black-and-white original, which aired from 1951 to 1959. Both incarnations were NBC shows. (Radio buffs will scowl and remind you that the true original Dragnet was the radio series, and they’re right, but let’s stick to TV.) “The color Dragnet” is a pretty good show overall. Episodes from the first one-and-a-half seasons are often terrific. The third season falls into a rut of showcasing tedious police administrative procedurals, but the show recovers somewhat afterward. And of course, even if a particular episode isn’t anything special, you still get to enjoy Jack Webb’s performance as Sgt. Joe Friday, with that voice of his and the way he delivers his lines. So yes, it’s a pretty good show, but what’s really good is the black-and-white original Dragnet . It’s got a very film-noir feel to it, full of dark nights, heavy shadows, staccato dialogue, fedoras, overcoats, dangerous losers and cynical dames. The Sgt. Friday of these years is lean, terse and somewhat haunted. He can relax a little bit while bantering with sidekick Frank Smith (), but soon it’s right back to the exhausting grunt work of a police detective: following up on leads, dealing with dullard civilians and surly punks, and piecing together a case, one clue at a time. And the cases are often very grim. There are rapists and violent psychotics on Dragnet , even child molesters. Many episodes in the early years recycled the superb radio scripts of James Moser, which lost none of their impact in the transition. There’s stark, dramatic lighting and unusual overhead camera shots. It’s very compelling television. Dragnet was one of the few hit radio dramas to become even bigger on TV, placing in the Top Ten throughout most of its first six seasons (not surprisingly, it was especially popular in its home base of Los Angeles). A Warner Bros. movie version was also a hit, arriving pretty much right at the peak of Dragnet mania in late 1954. Things began unraveling three years later. Maybe audiences felt the show was getting a bit stale. Certainly, Webb himself was getting a little winded by this time. Besides starring in every episode, he was producing and directing them as well, while developing other film and TV projects on the side. In spite of a very strong lead-in (Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life , the most popular Thursday show of that 1957-58 season), Dragnet ’s ratings began falling steadily. It was beaten in its timeslot by ABC’s The Real McCoys , prompting a move to Tuesdays the following season. But even more viewers were lost, and Webb turned in his badge. Dragnet was over, at least in prime time, but the show was already a staple of the syndication market, and would remain so well into the 1960s, under the title Badge 714 . Oversaturation is as good an explanation for the show’s demise as any, but it should be noted that by the time these later seasons were produced, the well of old James Moser radio scripts had run dry. Given Dragnet ’s popularity and prestige, why hasn’t it been given an official DVD release? Unlike the fabled anthology shows of the era that were aired live, Dragnet was shot on 35mm film. So why doesn’t someone just transfer it to video? That’s a question I’ve been asking for years, and I’ve been given different answers. I’ve heard that it’s a simple matter of no one having gotten around to it yet, but that’s ridiculous. Dozens of Dragnet episodes never had their copyrights renewed, and some people believe that ’s why no one’s produced an official DVD release — after all, why spend a lot of money restoring public domain shows for DVD when anyone could legally copy your work and sell it themselves? But official releases of the early seasons of One Step Beyond and The Beverly Hillbillies have come out— material that’s largely public domain— so why can’t that be done with Dragnet ? Michael J. Hayde, in his book My Name is Friday (2001), says that “the negatives have been placed in storage,” but if so, nobody seems to be able to find them. I’ve heard that one of the more prominent video labels has tried to do a comprehensive release of the show, but that the project blew up on the launch pad when very little quality material could be obtained. The bitter truth is that most of Dragnet is missing. Like Lon Chaney’s London After Midnight , it’s simply lost, possibly forever. Many of you will scoff at that notion, since people like to think that every movie and show ever produced is resting patiently on a shelf somewhere. That’s just not the case. In 1953, Jack Webb and two partners sold the Dragnet franchise to MCA, the company whose Revue subsidiary was a prodigious producer of prime-time TV material. Revue’s stuff was filmed at Universal’s movie studio, and in the course of time MCA gobbled up Universal as well. Today the amalgamation is known as NBCUniversal. For years, there’s been some confusion about what this means for Dragnet . Universal has a very spotty record when it comes to preserving the camera negatives of its vintage TV material. Timeless has released many of these shows on DVD— everything from M Squad to State Trooper to Medic — which had to be mastered from 16mm collector prints rather than the far-superior original elements, because no one at Universal can seem to find them. In case after case, Universal has retained the rights, but not the negatives. (In this case, Universal also forgot to renew the copyrights on dozens of episodes.) There are a number of explanations for why this is so. Simple incompetence is one. The sheer size of the company’s holdings is another. And accidents do happen. Vault fires have destroyed more material than incompetence ever did, and Universal had a devastating one as recently as 2008, though the 35mm elements for Dragnet seem to have gone missing well before then. The suggestion has been offered that Jack Webb’s estate must be sitting on them. But Webb and his Mark VII Productions sold the early Dragnet material to MCA, as noted. The later seasons were produced as a work for hire, and neither Webb nor Mark VII ever had those originals. Is there a chance that the Webb estate has copies? Dupe negatives, maybe? Webb did indeed maintain a film vault, and he did hold original camera elements for other shows he produced. Unfortunately, he disposed of the contents of that vault, for tax and insurance reasons, around 1976. The late film historian Robert Birchard was just out of college at the time, and had the unhappy assignment of overseeing that destruction. Lost were the original 35mm elements for the Mark VII shows Noah’s Ark (1956-57) and Pete Kelly’s Blues (1959), along with a set of 16mm Dragnet episodes, among other things. All of those prints are now long gone. Webb works through lunch with assistant director Sam Roman, October 30, 1953. How about other 16mm prints? This is a real puzzler for me. Considering how successfully Badge 714 played in syndication, the collectors’ market ought to be swimming in those prints. But it isn’t. In thirty years of collecting 16mm, I can’t remember ever seeing a single episode advertised in The Big Reel or Film Collectors World . Why are they so rare? I have no idea, but about the time the 1967 “color Dragnet ” appeared, Badge 714 was pulled from syndication to prevent oversaturation. This likely prevented a lot of prints from slipping into collectors’ hands in the first place. They’re not completely gone, of course. A few dozen episodes are available on YouTube and the DVD collectors’ market, transferred from stray 16mm prints. (Wikipedia says there are 52 episodes in circulation, but I’ve got 64 myself and I’m sure there are at least a few more out there.) That’s a fair sample, but considering there were 267 episodes produced, the survival ratio is pretty miserable for such an iconic series. In terms of image quality, some of these 64 look very good, but a great many circulate only as copies-of-copies-of-copies, so if you’re shopping around, lower your expectations accordingly. One edition I like is a five-disc, 25-episode set released in 2004 by Madacy, easy to find on Amazon and eBay. For diehard collectors, a much larger set is available from Randy Narramore (randyn (((at))) earthlink (((dot))) net). I’ve bought this set and others from Randy in the past. He’s reputable and his prices are very fair, but unavoidably the image quality in the Dragnet set varies from beautiful to blecch. A show as popular, compelling and influential as Dragnet deserves better, but unfortunately this is as good as it’ll ever get. I hope to be proven wrong. Dragnet. (1951-59) "The story you are about to see is true. " "Just the facts, ma'am. " "We were working the day watch. " Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and his partners methodically investigate crimes in Los Angeles. The show emphasized careful police work and the interweaving of policemen's professional and personal lives. The Big Human Bomb 12/16/1951. Sgt. Friday and Sgt. Romero track down a maniac with a bomb tied around himself. The Big Actor 1/3/1952. Friday and Romero track down a drug ring through a small-time television actor who is hooked on heroin. Sgt. Friday and Sgt. Romero look for stolen drugs. The Big Light 3/26/1953. Friday and Smith must decide between accident or murder when a crewman working on a movie set is killed by a falling light. The Big Sorrow 9/25/1952. Friday must cope with the sudden death of his partner as he and his new partner track a pair of escaped convicts. With Jerry Paris, Cliff Arquette. The Big Shoplift 3/11/1954. Friday and Smith catch a wealthy house wife shoplifting, then discover she is a kleptomaniac. The Big Producer 8/26/1954. A man claims to be a big Hollywood producer, but really leads a pornography ring. The Big Hit-and-Run Killer 3/18/1954 A woman and her grandson are run down by a bakery truck, but the driver has an airtight alibi. The Big Girl 4/1/1954. A tall, blonde, beautiful woman beats and robs her victims. The Big Bar 10/14/1954. A murderer is on the loose who orders the same drink and plays the same song in every bar. The Big Pair 9/16/1954. An old man and his granddaughter are burglarized, leaving them broke and starving. The Big Crime 9/9/1954. Twin girls are missing! The Big War 4/10/1958. Friday and Smith crack down on teenage gangs. The Big Hands 5/21/1953. Friday and Smith find a woman with a broken neck in a hotel room and suspect a psycho killer. The Big September Man 5/8/1952. When a secretary is beaten to death the search leads to a religious fanatic. The Big Seventeen 11/6/1952. Friday and Smith investigate a group of teenagers who are using and selling drugs. The Big Show 1/22/1953. A seven-week-old baby is found abandoned in a bus station. The Big Boys 1/21/1954. The cops stake out a hotel lobby for juvenile armed robbers. The Big Trunk 1/7/1954. Burglaries in new housing projects. The Big Oskar 10/14/1958. An old man named Oskar brings in stolen property he claims he found. The Big Betty 9/24/1953. Friday and Smith track down a confidence ring that is selling defective watches. The Big Break 3/19/1953. Friday and Smith track down an escaped convict who is armed and dangerous. The Big Thief 12/17/1953. A doctor is slugged in a downtown hotel and narcotics are stolen from his bag. The Big Little Jesus 12/24/1953. A statue of baby Jesus is stolen from a church, and Friday must find it before Christmas. The Big Frame 4/22/1954. A man’s body is found in the gutter and the only clue is a pair of skid marks found nearby. The Big Cast 2/14/1952. The police interrogate a suspect, played by Lee Marvin, whom they believe to have murdered more than a dozen men. The Big False Make 5/27/1954. A store manager identifies a robbery suspect, but Friday and Smith think that the suspect is the wrong man. The Big Casing 6/5/1952. A man claims that his wife committed suicide right in front of him, but the evidence suggests otherwise. The Big Phone Call 5/22/1952. Friday confronts a jeweler with tape recorded evidence that proves he hired someone to rob his own store. The Big 55 Rifle for Christmas 12/18/1952. Two small boys are missing, there are blood stains on the ground and a gun meant as a Christmas present is gone. The Big Grandma 1/8/1953. An elderly woman is passing bad checks, but no one suspects her because she looks harmless. The Big Hands 5/21/1953. Friday and Smith must find out the identity of a woman found strangled in a hotel room. The Big Present 10/21/1954. Stores have been broken into and robbed from, but the thief only takes a few merchandise items and cash and leaves an empty bottle of milk at the scene. The Big Dance 6/25/1953. Detectives Friday and Smith are assigned to apprehend a pair of thugs who have been identified by their victims through photos but seem to have disappeared. The Big Hate 2/12/1953. Friday and Smith charge a man with the murder of his fiance, though he claims he's innocent. The Big Jump 9/11/1952. A man stands upon the ledge of a tall building and threatens to jump to his death below. The Big Threat 5/13/1954. A man is beaten and robbed, then the thieves intimidate him and his family so he'll refuse to testify against them. The Big Ham 1/28/1954. Joe and Frank investigate the suicide of a young girl. The Big Lease 5/14/1953. The case of the apparent suicide of wealthy retiree Chester Dillon. The Big Lamp 6/19/1952. Friday and Jacobs are out to catch a safe burglar who has been on the loose for seven months. The Big Winchester 3/4/1954. An elderly man appears to have killed himself with a rifle, but the cops soon learn that it was no accident. With Fess Parker. Back to Detective TV Shows. Our Service. The RetroTV Vault offers broadcast quality public domain television shows to media professionals and television broadcasters. We do not sell to the general public. For price quotes, send an email with your title list and the delivery format you require or call us at (310) 622-7267 during business hours below. Public Domain TV Library. About Public Domain Movies. Public domain TV episodes can be broadcast on television, streamed, sold on home video, and used as stock footage in other productions. About The Retro TV Vault. Dragnet - 298 Mp3 Downloads Available. This series was broadcasted from June 3, 1949 to February 26, 1957 on NBC at various times and days, starring Dragnet starred Jack Webb as Detective Sergeant Joe Friday. Various partners throughout the show's run were Sergeant Ben Romero (Barton Yarborough), Ed Jacobs (Barney Phillips), and Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander). Webb was the creator/Director of the series and wanted everything to be as authentic as possible, down to the last sound effect. The stories were based on actual police files and "the names were changed to protect the innocent". Dragnet broke a few radio taboos as well, such as dramatizing sex crimes. Children also were killed on occasion as in the episode "Twenty-Two Rifle For Christmas". The series eventually went to television and ran there for many years. The familiar DUM DE DUM DUM, the first four notes of the opening theme composed by Walter Schumann, became a pop culture legend and was forever associated with Dragnet.