No contest!
Jack Webb, who also made a more realistic D.I. than the “pseudo gunny” of later years!
Semper Watching!
*****
I’m a Dragnet fan!
I’m a Dragnet fan!
They were both pretty good but I liked Dragnet a little bit better.
They were both pretty good but I liked Dragnet a little bit better.
Dragnet! No contest..I can’t stand Broderick Crawford..
What ... no ‘Car 54, where are you?’?!?! Heh.
Dragnet.
SnakeDoc
Yeah, I’m with you. I like Dragnet lots, but Highway Patrol really evokes the era like nothing else can.
Dragnet: pretty much watched it every day after school.
"How 'bout some Vanilla Gold? Heh heh."
HP had better theme music, but Dragnet/Badge 714 had Colonel Potter/Harry Morgan.
Hard to forget Brodrick Crawford in his Mercruiser.
Dragnet for me!
(Adam-12 a close second though)
HP
One thing I never could figure about “Highway Patrol” was, at the end of each episode, Broderick Crawford would give a little speech about safe driving on the set and in the character of Dan Mathews, even shuffling papers or hanging up the phone, but would end the spiel with “this is Broderick Crawford saying, see you next week”. It was like “I’m Broderick Crawford, actor, but I also do real police work.
Highway Patrol.
Recently, it was shown 5X a week at 5 AM on the THIS channel, and I got to revisit the series.
The theme music...the old cars...Broderick Crawford keeping his unnamed state protected from crime...
I liked Dragnet, but no fleets of old cars and California open spaces before things went bad. I also appreciate that Highway Patrol’s preaching was more subtle.
Love them both. But I choose “Highway Patrol.” Like most Ziv shows, it was filmed out and about in real locations (not Hollywood studio bound), and serves as a marvelously visual cultural document of the mid-to-late-1950s. Season One is out on dvd, and next month, seasons 2,3 and 4 are coming out (and at a very reasonable price, too).
I love the unpretentious, no-nonsense attitude and approach to storytelling of “Highway Patrol.” It’s almost the polar opposite of everything we see in modern culture nowadays. Take HP’s fellow Ziv hit, “Sea Hunt” as well. Those are unapologetically ‘guy’ shows. No bravado, no whining, just steel-nerved competence. That whole era was brimming with such fare.
I think if I were locked in a room for 24 hours and had to choose which one to watch, it would be HP, but I never missed Dragnet in its 1950s iteration. The later series (in color) shows were not as good.