The BEST episodes directed by Jack Webb
#1 - The Big High
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 8
An elderly businessman, concerned about the welfare of his grandchild, informs Friday and Gannon that his daughter and son-in-law are using marijuana regularly. The young couple make no apologies for their lifestyle, which inevitably leads to disaster.
#2 - A.I.D. - The Weekend
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 17
Bill's wife is out-of-town, and Bill invites Joe home for the weekend. They have dinner and play poker with some friends. A woman selling magazines shows up, and Joe and Bill suspect a scam.
#3 - The Shooting Board
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 2
Joe stops at an all night launderette to buy cigarettes and interrupts a burglar working the coin changer. When he shouts "Freeze," the criminal comes up shooting. Joe returns fire, hitting the man, who flees with the help of his girlfriend. He's later found dead. When SID tries to find the bullet fired at Joe, they come up empty and Joe faces a shooting board with no proof the man ever fired at him. A great surprise ending.
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#4 - The Badge Racket
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 3
Three con artists have been swindling businessmen from out-of-town by posing as a prostitute and two policemen. The detectives set a trap as Gannon pretends to be a manufacturer from Lincoln Nebraska.
#5 - The Big Phone Call
Dragnet (1951) - Season 1 - Episode 12
Friday confronts a jeweler with tape recorded evidence that proves he hired someone to rob his own store.
#6 - The Investigation
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 26
Friday and Gannon are screening applicants for the Police Academy. One seems to have all the right qualifications, except that six months are missing from his application.
#7 - The Big Cast
Dragnet (1951) - Season 1 - Episode 5
The police interrogate a suspect whom they believe to have murdered more than a dozen men.
#8 - The Trial Board
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 14
An officer accused of taking a bribe has chosen Sgt. Friday to represent him at his trial board hearing. Witnesses saw the officer accept the money, but he insists it was for the payback of a loan made years ago.
#9 - The Bullet
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 17
A dead man has been found in a locked room, along with a gun that could not have been the murder weapon.
#10 - The Big Prophet
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 18
Friday and Gannon are convinced that "Brother" William Bentley's Temple of the Expanded Mind is just a sham - a front for Bentley to sell LSD to the students of a nearby elementary school.
#11 - Community Relations - DR-17
Dragnet - Season 3 - Episode 13
Joe and Bill are sent to a Community Relations conference at Lake Arrowhead with other police officers. Their task is to discuss ways of improving community relations, and in the process find a few officers that have bigoted views.
#12 - Homicide - DR-06
Dragnet - Season 3 - Episode 6
Joe and Bill review the progress report of a homicide (thus the name of the episode). Joe has invited Bill and his wife to his apartment for dinner. The dinner is constantly interrupted by neighbors asking for advice and complaining about a loud party. One neighbor calls to say that someone is breaking into the coin boxes in the laundry room. Joe and Bill grab their guns and investigate.
#13 - Narcotics - DR-21
Dragnet - Season 3 - Episode 16
The Captain ask Joe and Bill to investigate having dogs trained to sniff out narcotics. They contact a dog trainer to train dogs for the job. Joe and Bill do a demonstration for Judges to prove the effectiveness of using a dog to detect marijuana.
#14 - The Big Ad
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 9
An ex-con named Steve Deal contacts Friday and Gannon when a classified ad that he placed, offering to do "anything" for money, results in an offer to commit murder. Friday goes undercover as Deal.
#16 - The Big Dog
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 11
A purse-snatching dog? This is the case Friday and Gannon must solve. Making things more difficult, victims give different descriptions of the four-legged thief.
#17 - The Big Shipment
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 16
Drugs are found aboard a plane that has crashed in the San Fernando Valley. The pilot is quickly traced, but in order to force him to name his connection, Friday and Gannon ask the press to sit on the story for a few hours.
#18 - Intelligence - DR-34
Dragnet - Season 3 - Episode 27
Joe is invited to a night school alumni party. Joe goes and is approached by one of the alumni to join the Fielder Militia, a right wing group. They want Joe to help one of the Militia’s members get a Federal firearms license. Joe works with the ATM to join the Militia to locate Militia’s cache of illegal automatic weapons.
#19 - Homicide - Who Killed Who?
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 15
There is a multiple homicide at a rooming house. When Joe and Bill arrive, they find two dead in the lobby near a broken TV set and the manager has been shot and is near death. The manager mumbles the words "oft one" to Joe as he is taken away to the hospital. Bill and Joe start searching for clues and what the managers word mean.
#20 - The Shooting
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 11
A police officer is shot while making a routine check on a pair of paroled convicts that are parked near a liquor store.
#21 - The Big September Man
Dragnet (1951) - Season 1 - Episode 11
A secretary is beaten to death and the search for the killer leads police to a religious fanatic.
#22 - A Clinic on 18th Street
Adam-12 - Season 6 - Episode 24
Malloy and Reed investigate the death of an old man wearing an unusual belt, which leads to the case being turned over to Frauds Division, who finds that Dr. Gantman, running a clinic, is treating a blind seven-year-old patient with a pituitary gland condition but his "treatment" is worthless and preventing a real treatment (removal of the gland). Later, a TV repairman who makes oscillator belts for Gantman is busted for bookmaking and agrees to testify against the doctor, but Gantman demonstrates his "treatment" in open court and fails miserably.
#23 - Missing Persons - The Body
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 20
Joe and Bill investigate the identity of a dead 23 year old woman found under the Venice Pier. They check missing person reports to try to identify the woman, and they use a ring she was wearing and a piece of paper found on the body to track down the identity.
#24 - Forgery - The Ranger
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 21
Friday and Gannon question a Park Ranger about some stolen checks.
#25 - I.A.D. - The Receipt
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 23
Two of the department's veteran homicide detectives are accused of stealing $800 from a dead man. Joe and Bill investigate and try to find a missing receipt that would clear the detectives.
#26 - The Kidnapping
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 3
When a ransom delivery goes awry, Friday and Gannon use LA's notorious traffic to ensnare the kidnapper.
#27 - Homicide - Cigarette Butt
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 7
Joe and Bill investigate a dead body found in a rundown apartment building. A half eaten peanut butter sandwich and a knife are found at the scene of the crime. A neighbor says that he saw a man and woman running out of the apartment. The man and woman come back and tell Joe and Bill that it was self defense. Joe looks for evidence that will prove or disproves the alibi.
#28 - The Fur Job
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 9
Gannon goes undercover as a buyer in order to trap fur theives.
#29 - The Jade Story
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 10
Over $200,000 worth of Imperial Jade is reported stolen. Friday and Gannon determine the burglary was an inside job.
#30 - The Hit-and-Run Driver
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 12
Friday and Gannon use newspapers, radio and TV to publicize their clues to the identity of the hit and run driver.
#31 - The Grenade
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 1
A surly teenager throws acid on the back of another student (played by a teen-aged Jan Michael Vincent), then crashes a party armed with a live hand grenade.
#32 - The Bookie
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 13
Friday goes undercover with the Department's chaplain in order to break up a gambling ring.
#33 - The Gun
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 15
A Japanese widow is senselessly murdered, leaving her small daughter an orphan. Friday has a hard time controlling his emotions while seeking the killer.
#34 - The Big Amateur
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 19
Citizens are full of praise for Officer Gideon C. Dengle - they want to bestow him with awards, honors and home-baked cookies. There's only one problem: there's no such officer in the LAPD.
#35 - The Missing Realtor
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 10
A woman real-estate agent is missing and turns up dead in a vacant home. The detectives' one suspect - the woman's ex-boyfriend - is cleared; then credit card bills for purchases made after the woman's death start appearing.
#36 - The Big Departure
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 25
Petty theft from drug and hardware stores leads to a group of four teens who are determined to start their own nation on a remote island off the California coast.
#37 - Personnel - The Shooting
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 1
Joe and Bill are assigned to the Medical Services Division. Two policemen have been shot. Joe and Bill must notify the wives.
#38 - S.I.U. - The Ring
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 3
Joe and Bill are working the Special Investigation Unit. Informant “Black 10” asks for a meeting with Joe and Bill and gives them a tip about a bartender who is fencing stolen jade ring. Joe and Bill set up a sting to recover the ring and other stolen jewelry.
#39 - Burglary - Mister
Dragnet - Season 4 - Episode 5
An old woman has all her possessions including her cane stolen by her grandson, "Mister Daniel Lumis". Joe and Bill try to locate Lumis and find a trail of bigamy and thievery.
#40 - 905-Wild
Emergency! - Season 4 - Episode 22
The title refers to the code word for "wild animal loose, threatening". The show opens with Johnny and Roy on a pre-dawn call to a small grocery store for a man down, bleeding. Searching the back of the store, Johnny is confronted with a Bengal tiger! A big brush fire threatens a suburban canyon area with lots of domesticated animals and things get dicey all around for the fire department and the Animal Control guys. Rampart becomes a veterinary surgical center for a while.
#41 - Log 001: The Impossible Mission
Adam-12 - Season 1 - Episode 1
Pilot Episode: Working out of a patrol car designated "Adam-12," Officers Malloy and Reed perform a typical day's work, which includes a high speed auto-chase, the capture of two robbers, and an emergency call to save a suffocating baby. Malloy decides to turn in his badge after his young partner was killed a few weeks earlier. But at the end of the shift, he comes around and decides that he can't let inexperienced Jim Reed loose on another officer, so he decides not to leave the force.
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#42 - The LSD Story
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 1
Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Bill Gannon are the ultimate party crashers when they get wind that outlawed LSD is being served to teenagers. This is the famous "Blue Boy" episode.
#43 - The Big Explosion
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 2
A psychotic neo-Nazi is threatening to blow up the streets of L.A., and it's up to Friday and Gannon to find the bomb before chaos erupts.
#44 - The Senior Citizen
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 7
A series of daring daylight house burglaries are taking place; perpetrated by an octegenarian who uses the wedding and obituary notices in the paper to select his victims.
#45 - The Little Victim
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 22
When a nine-month old child is beaten, Friday and Gannon investigate the parents, who are more concerned about their failing relationship than their baby son.
#46 - The Starlet
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 20
A teenage runaway, intent on becoming a star, has instead wound up in pornographic films. Acting on behalf of the girl's aunt, Friday and Gannon try to find the young "starlet."
#47 - The Candy Store Robberies
Dragnet - Season 1 - Episode 8
Friday and Gannon try to figure out a pattern to a series of candy store hold-ups. The solution comes when they discover that there are two suspects.
#48 - Internal Affairs - DR-20
Dragnet - Season 3 - Episode 12
Joe and Bill investigate a charge of police brutallity against a patrolman. The patrolman was attempting to stop someone from driving drunk when things got out of hand and the drunk tears the patrolman's uniform. This is a crossover episode with Adam-12, taking place in Rampart Station and featuring appearances by Officers Pete Malloy and Jim Reed.
#49 - The Big Neighbor
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 5
In this lighthearted, well-written episode, Bill invites Joe to dinner and a football game at his home in Eagle Rock. The only problem: Gannon's neighbors keep interrupting the visit with petty, and not-so-petty, problems.
#50 - The Christmas Story
Dragnet - Season 2 - Episode 15
A statue of the child Jesus was stolen from a church. Joe and Bill have to get it back by Christmas. They have less than 48 hours. Briefly appearing in this episode is Barry Williams, best known as Greg Brady on the 1970s sitcom THE BRADY BUNCH.