Was it really like this in the late 1960's early '70's?

If you know what the 60's were about and are aware how many young people were against the establishment, inlcuding police, isn't kind of obvious?

I watched daytime soap operas in the 80s and 90s and what I suddenly noticed was very odd was when a child was missing, a baby even, and the insinuation was the teen-aged father may have taken the kid, when someone says 'call the police' the reaction is 'ABSOLUTELY NOT!' to the point of taking the phone away from the person and slamming the receiver down.

Now compare this to the I Love Lucy episode when Lucy has the loving cup stuck on her head. When the cop approaches and says 'would a policeman help?' Lucy goes into her own '50s rant. "always sticking their nose in, asking nosey questions' bit.

I've compared this to the latter reactions and as you noted here with Adam-12, which that episode just went off on Me TV.

Dragnet likewise has an interesting episode guest-starring Howard Hesseman, the old hippy himself from WKRP in Cincinnati.

What's interesting there is his episode of Head of the Class with him now having all the answers to William-Buckley-conservative played by Kevin McCarthy.

Compare this to what we just had with the Occupy Wall Street movement. EVERYBODY was caught up in it, according to the coverage.

I've always suspected this was how the hippie era went down.

There have been a lot of good replies to Jim_Marks but how about one from the son of a police officer (I was born in 1960.) We lived in a small town in MT. but my father had to deal with many of the same problems as you see on Adam-12. I can tell you for a fact that some episodes were used in police training classes. My dad used to refer shows like A-12 as his "training films!" Even in our small town in the 1960's and 70's my father was called "pig" on a regular basis by a few of the towns kids and less than upstanding citizens of our fair community. He used to say that it stood for "Pride, Integrity and Guts!" I remember one time when he came to my Jr. High civics class and gave a talk on drugs. Of course some kids were ecstatic that he brought a little tablet that could be lit and smelled like marijuana when it burned. (It was smell only not the real stuff) but he talked about the danger of drugs were and it did remind me of an old Dragnet episode. There was also an episode of Dragnet where Sgt. Friday was taking some community college class and had to arrest a fellow student who had some marijuana cigs. The instructor and the class wanted Joe to be kicked out since he was a " dirty pig" But he stood up for himself and another student turned out to be lawyer and threatened to sue the school if he was kicked out. Adam-12 was a well written and acted show that showed police work for what it really was mundane, boring, repetitious and as my Dad used to say "Hours of mind-numbing boredom mixed in with a few seconds of heart racing action!"

I truly believe that PROFESSIONAL, DECENT COPS like Reed and Malloy DO exist in real life LAPD- I've had experiences with the type....HOWEVER the dirty corrupt lying VIOLENT LAPD THUG tarnishes them- and I've experienced those types as well. They are more criminal than the "criminal"...

Another thing that's often depicted on Adam 12 were upper middle class and wealthy citizens who would tell Malloy and Reed that they pay their salaries and expect excellent service. Which is so rude and arrogant. Do police officers encounter this often--back then and now?

Sometimes I wish one could rate comments on here. Meaning if they liked or disliked one's comments, or if the comment was helpful or not.

To that end, I want to especially thank "censorshipsucks06", " prothero", " richard.fuller1" & "bigkdr" for their responses, as well as everyone who contributed.

I have no idea how old "mactach" is, but his immaturity and lack of respect shows. I have seen other posts by him elsewhere on IMDB and his responses here are par for the course.

I, too, was a child of the '60s and watched Adam-12 regularly. It did reflect the times fairly accurately (well, the times as seen by Jack Webb). Episodes (along with Dragnet and Emergency!) kept to a standard format with a lesson learned in 24 minutes.

Enjoy!

Well, these late-'60s TV shows are, obviously, a simplistic and smugly conservative version of what was going on then and the attitudes of the youth movement.

Yes, it was a turbulent time, but the kids are generally shown as being spoiled and horrid with the authorities noble and blameless.

The programs of the time are not so much a reflection of the '60s generation gap but of the older generation's dismissive view of that generation gap.

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The most profound of sin is tragedy unremembered.