Saturday, January 12, 2013

"The LSD Story" or "A classic trip with Blue Boy"

Aired 46 years ago today, the season opener of Dragnet shuffles us through a seemingly implausible, though supposedly true tale.


I confess my fondness for one Blue Boy declaration I always dig: 

MY HAIR IS GREEN. 

I'M A TREE.


Come on back to the station. 
We have some sugar cubes to examine.


And the twerp even tore Gannon's sleeve.



Nice repair with safety pins.


MY HAIR IS A FILE FOLDER.

I'M A FILE.




OK, let's check out the rest of the episode.

This is the city.



The zoom diptych of the golf course gets recycled many times:



Driving by the bars triptrych - Boss, The Scene, & Strip Combers - we'll see this sequence again in future episodes. 







And - college:



Move your arm, Joe, we want to see that old fire extinguisher:


Thanks!


Off to pick up Blue Boy along the 1200 Block of Loma Linda Avenue.



They get him, and take him to Central Receiving Hospital

It was located at 6th and Loma, and was built in 1957.

It was closed to the public in 1970.

It was torn it down the first week of October in 2005.


HEY GUYS WELCOME TO THE POLICE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING



Our first view of the LA Police Administration Building.

American high modern by Welton Becket.


Ray Murray tells us the story of the invention of LSD-25

(He is my favorite character from the first season.)


Click on the photos and you can see them all at once in your browser window.
Left and right arrow keys make for easy navigation.



Driving sequences - These are more about the surroundings of LA, documenting the scale of the city.





Texaco!



BENJIE WOULD NEVER!



That is one shiny, modern Juvenile Courts Building.



Driving back to Georgia Street Juvenile.


Acid makes these teenage girls throw up.



The camera pans along the eaves. 

Georgia Street Station was deactivated & No. 15 was assigned to North Hollywood.



BOOM 
ACID IS ILLEGAL NOW




Driving up to blue boy's mother's house.


OK, now off to the Sunset Strip.

Friday describes the Strip as going from Doheny to Laurel Canyon along Sunset Boulevard:


(Image sourced from Google Maps in 2012, red areas indicate the Sunset Strip as described in the show.)



Stock footage?


The Onion's A.V. Club also gives us a rock & roll celebration of the Sunset Strip.


Extras blending the stock footage?




Pandora's Box - We'll see this one three or four more times.



They use the snaps and mug of Benjie Carver to ascertain where he might be.




Hey girls, thanks for the tip about the acid party in the Hollywood hills.


We'll see this facade again, it's a set!


They will repaint it when it becomes The Temple of the Expanded Mind.

Right now, it's masquerading as a house in the Hollywood Hills.


OK ACID PARTY TIME


This set is meant to represent a house that has seen better days.

Multicolored light bulbs seem to represent shady dealings in the series.


Acid makes this girl snap her fingers.



Oh no! The fuzz is here to ruin our acid party!


Acid makes this girl climb the walls.


Acid makes this guy eat paint right off his brush!


Hold the phone!


Acid makes this girl sit on a stool and lean against the wall.
Her handbag is pretty classic, though.




Druggist's where Blue Boy got his number five capsules.


After waking up Blue Boy's landlady, Joe comes on in.

This set is meant to represent an apartment east of downtown along West Beverly Boulevard.


Once inside, this guy recants how Blue boy ate tons of pills on a quest to get extremely far out.


Neat modern painting behind Joe's shoulder.

The recessed ceiling is neat, too.



Benjamin John Carver - - Deceased.



Starred

Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday
Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon
Michael Burns as Benjie "Blue Boy" Carver
Art Balinger as Captain Lou Richey
Olan Soule as Ray Murray
Robert Knapp as Mr. Eugene Carver
Eve Brent as Mrs. Carver
Jerry Douglas as Sergeant Eugene Zappey
Alfred Shelly as Sergeant Dominic Carr
Johnny Aladdin as The Painter
Shari Lee Bernath as Sandra Quillan
Heather Menzies as Edna Mae Dixon

Art Direction - Russell Kimball
Set Decor - John McCarthy & Ralph Sylos
Written by Jack Webb as John Randolph

Aired 12 January 1967

19 comments:

  1. This episode is extremely popular.

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  2. I used to live a block away from the intersection in image 28! I haven't seen that in about 30 years. I used to buy Wacky Packages, Pixie Stix and Razzles at that liquor store. That area of Silverlake has changed so much in 30 years but the Sun-Lake Pharmacy and the Tropical Bakery is still there.

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  3. This episode is the best example of the biased programming that this show is famous for. It lead you to believe that LSD can kill you. It can't. Not to say that it's good to use. It isn't.

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  4. This is just one example of what this show was best at--biased stories. Pot is evil according to them. There is nothing wrong with Pot, and in many ways, it's better than alcohol. Alcohol kills and pot doesn't. LSD is wrong to take, but it too doesn't kill you.

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    Replies
    1. There is nothing wrong with pot. Unless you have to drive, supervise children, operate heavy machinery, power tools, or do anything else that requires focus.

      It also, at minimum, dulls brain cells for a period of time. And harms your lungs if you smoke it.

      I use cannabis sometimes. It's better than alcohol when used in the right context, but it's wrong to say there's *nothing* wrong with it.

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  5. This episode is the best example of the biased programming that this show is famous for. It lead you to believe that LSD can kill you. It can't. Not to say that it's good to use. It isn't.

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  6. The Trip marquee lists the Teddy Neeley Five; Ted played Jesus in the movie version of "Jesus Christ Superstar", and on stage for decades.

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  7. SuzY !!!!!!! Are you going to pick this up again? I sure hope so. Started rewatching the whole thing again night before last. Blue Boy and the Neo Nazi episode. Please respond and let us know how you are and if you will continue with season 3 where you left off. Kenny P.

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  8. “It’s up in the hills somewhere!” *looks around in an upward direction*

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    Replies
    1. Haha! I was hoping for a photo of the gals randomly looking up for the hills. Awesome character acting!!

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  9. Does anyone know where that Juvenile Courts Building is located, or if it still exists?

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  10. He took a lethal dose of lsd and consumed barbiturates which that combo kills if one takes enough of. That's what the coroner said lsd/barbiturates combo

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  11. LSD trip is a classic the guy eating the paint the girl climbing up the wall I have seen it more than once it's still very interesting to watch

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  12. LSD trip is a classic the guy eating the paint the girl climbing up the wall I have seen it more than once it's still very interesting to watch

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  13. Who can forget Benjie Carvers protestations when they pulled his head out of the ground that he could, "See the earth's pilot light?" Classic.

    But I was thinking, it would be really interesting if someone would take the time to visit the locations seen in the episodes, (real ones at least) and get modern day photos of the the camera perspective used in Dragnet, and as it looks today. I suspect most all of LA is a dump these days.

    As I recall, the State of California outlawed LSD before the federal government did, by about a year or so. But as someone noted above, a good part of the show was not above a bit of propaganda, and in this case how evil LSD is, or was. and as the poster noted, LSD in and of itself is not lethal, but these days, most street drugs are a witches brew of everything from PCP to fentanyl. I guess you could trust your "dealer" in the 60's. .Not so much for street drug users today. No doubt Jack Webb would have soiled himself if he saw what California and her larger cities have degenerated into today.

    So sad. Politicians have ruined California. I suspect had Reed & Malloy, or John and Roy were real, they would have bugged out years ago.

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  14. Virginia Gregg was one of the very most often used character actors over the seasons of Dragnet: 1967 - 1970. My favorite episode is, "The Grenade", from 1967. Gerald Paulson, (played by Mickey Sholdar) is a troubled teen with several hand grenades. Gerald becomes totally unhinged and assaults a classmate in a movie theater before ultimately crashing a house party. Jan Michael Vincent has a prominent role as the popular classmate who gets caustic chemicals thrown on him by Paulson at the movie theater - likely due to intense jealousy for being The "popular" boy at school. It is interesting, if not impossible to avoid taking note of the fact that this story preceeds tragedies like Columbine by about 3 decades. So while there were comical aspects like the 60's lingo and the generic music, etc. - There were also precursors calling out as harbingers of horrors still yet to come for us as a nation. The house party scenes were quite comical and kooky in retrospect. After All, it WAS Dragnet! ; )

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  15. "Dirty unbelievers!", "Hallow-cya-na-gen", saving the youth of LA from an "Idle, immoral or dissolute life" But I think my favorite will always be Webb's awkwardly stilted pronunciation of "Califor-knee-a". Not until the governator will anyone come close to a more unique take on the word.

    What an even handed take on drug education. The nonsense about dealers lacing stamps with acid to give to little kids was still making the rounds when I was in elementary school in the early 80s, and has been rightly identified as yet another example of bogus (see snopes) fearmongering that so often surrounds ilicit substances. Remember, if you're protecting "the children", it's ok to make stuff up, just to scare the crap out of the little bastards.

    I first watched the whole series back in 2012, and although I found it pretty hard to take seriously, I adored the opening voiceover scenes, as well as all the driving footage of 60s era LA. After that, I was hooked (like a blue and yellow teenager). Seriously, I could watch a re-edited version of the show that's just all the establishing shots and driving scenes, set to Webb's voice over.

    One of the coolest ideas for a blog I've come across. Too bad, it looks like I've discovered it at least seven years after you started it! All the same, I still plan to rewatch the series again and follow along here. Thanks for all the wonderful work! -ANMouse

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  16. this is the most popular and famous episode in dragnet rev 2. the 50s dragnet is a totally different thing: noir and expressionist. one of the best scenes is jack's twisted reflection in the glass of a jukebox as we watch the machinery pulls out a record and begin to play it. i think the episode is called "funny man" after the edgy jazz tune the murderer plays on jukeboxes in dive bars all over downtown,

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  17. Blue Boy was a real kid ... read up on when the Grateful Dead Played in L A (and stayed a while in the recording studio). They stayed in a rented house adjacent to that man made Giant metal tower, (Watts Tower ?) and they brought down a bunch of LSD and gave A LOT away. Some of the books talk about the real Blue Boy and some even mention this Dragnet episode.

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