Things you learned from Dragnet

That being a policeman is an endless, thankless, glamorous job that's gotta be done.

That L.A. obviously has an epidemic of people with multiple personality disorders. How else can explain why a left-wing professor would impersonate a police detective one week and a forest ranger the next week; or how a comic book freak who lives with his mother one week could be married to a pot-smoker and loose his daughter the next week; or how a florist from a Viceroy commercial could be an eye doctor one week, a computer expert the next week, a crooked bartender the next week, and back to being a florist the week after that?

I agree with you about learning about people in general. I always thought even tough Dragnet sometimes oversimplified people you got a good cross reference what society was all about.

I also agree with you about learning about the police and legal system. I do not know if it is still used, but for many years in Virginia, police jurisdictions used the show as a help in training their new recruits.

What else I have learned....

That the youth of L.A. in the 1960's grew up too fast. They had all grown up on Instant Orange Juice. Flip a knob: Instant Entertainment. Turn a key, push a pedal: Instant Transportation. Dial seven digits: Instant Communications. Flash a card: Instant Money. Shove in a problem, press a few buttons: Instant Answers.

I learned....

....The LAPD only pulled over that black couple because they had suspects fitting their description in the area.

....that every urban legend that I'd ever heard about drugs are true. Kids went blind staring at the sun while on LSD, kid on LSD jumped out a window thinking he could fly, parents high on pot let their child drown in a bathtub.

....With the latest hairstyles it's hard to tell the boys from the girls these days. "You've got to get a look from up front, if he needs a shave it's a boy." - Officer Bill Gannon

....“What it boils down to is the new morality, doesn’t it? A whole new set of values. The kids see it on television, in magazines, and even hear from the pulpit. God is dead. Drug addiction is mind expanding. Promiscuity is glamorous, even homosexuality is praiseworthy. How are you going to fight that?”

....Everything that my Mom criticized my generation (born 1980) for, Joe Friday had criticized her's for 20 years earlier.

- Marijuana's the match, LSD's the fuse, Heroin's the bomb.

- The best time to give your kid a bath is when you're having some friends over to smoke weed.

- LSD makes paint delicious.

"Adolph Hitler is still alive. I slept with her last night."

"A crooked cop fishes from a lonesome pier" (season 3, episode 17")

- that if you have an old refrigerator in your yard, remove the door
- that little dogs will lead you to missing children
- that if you travel with your dog, always keep the paperwork proving he's had all his shots with you
- what a Clumber Spaniel is and that they won't go into fancy castle dog houses unless you toss in a dog biscuit
- that J.J. Abrams didn't invent the re-use of actors
- that it's not dumb or at all limiting to put the year in the title of a series
- *always* look under shelves for bullet 'tracks'
- detectives never stay in the same division from one week to another
- policemen at home are never left alone by their neighbors

On a serious note, it did teach me what a 'Pyramid Scheme' was...to this day, I still look for a tambourine and chant, "Free Money, Free Money!" whenever I hear about one.