A very serious intro to this week’s oldie.

Dragnet was a radio and TV series in the 1950’s about two Los Angeles police detectives. It also was a TV series in the late 1960’s. Actor Jack Webb created both the radio and TV versions.

Here’s a brief clip form a September 1969 episode where Joe Friday (Webb) and Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) appear on a TV panel. The topic: “The Police—Who Needs Them?”

TV Guide wrote that the “voice-over narration became the stuff of parody.” That’s where this week’s oldie comes in, the parody.

I used to hear this oldie on the radio, though very infrequently, decades ago. Hosts that had certain programming freedom to incorporate this longer, non-conventional recording would pop it on the air as something special and out of the ordinary. It’s not the typical TOP 40 single, hymn or a carol.

The comic genius of Stan Freberg is highlighted in this 1953 recording, a spoof of the “Dragnet” radio/TV series. Freberg plays the character of Joe Wednesday, which is a take-off on the name of Jack Webb’s Joe Friday character from “Dragnet’. The name of the Frank Jones character is a take-off on Frank Smith, who was Joe Friday’s partner for most of the original “Dragnet” series.

Performers:

• Stan Freberg (voice of Joe Wednesday)
• Daws Butler (voices of Frank Jones, Grudge, & the brownie)
• Nathan Scott (orchestra conductor)

Written by:

• Stan Freberg & Daws Butler (script)
• Walter Schumann (music)

You can find “Christmas Dragnet” on this CD: