"The Shooting Board" or "The One Where Joe Drops The Hammer"

We begin this week's episode with the "white roof" pan:

"This is the city-- Los Angeles, California. It sprawls over 467 square miles and three million people call it home.

It's the biggest police beat in the world, yet it has fewer policemen per thousand population than any major city in the United States.

On paper, one policeman must protect and serve more than six hundred citizens. It's a big job-- and a big responsibility.

Every police officer carries a gun. Once a month on the pistol range, he has to prove he knows how to use it. Some day, he may have to. When that day comes, I go to work. 

I carry a badge."

Ok! The guys are safely back at Parker Center, well, the soundstage version of it, and everything is familiar and institutional green.

Smokin' Joe - He needs that smoke since he didn't smoke in the previous episode.

He notices that he was out of cigarettes at 2:35 and goes to the coin-op laundry to procure more in this sequence:

Zooming in closer, following Joe in - see how dirty? That's how you know it's a location and not back lot. 

331 East Vermont lines up with where Joe is depicted as living.

I couldn't manage to get a snap of him turning around and trying to shoot at Joe with a long rifle revolver, but he totally does shoot  first. (Not unlike a certain Han Solo.)

He shoots at him, misses, and then throws two big trash cans at Joe.

In a world without Red Bull, people. A WORLD WITHOUT RED BULL.

Looking a bit like Tai Chi, but with a Smith & Wesson revolver:

*Name That Getaway Car! - Some kind of 1964 Dodge convertible.

Yep, Joe had a near-death experience and then called me in the future, first thing.

This shot has a subtlety - Joe's reflection in the cigarette machine (far left) - very clever, even if accidental:

From reflection to irony - alas, the machine is out of order. And a pack of smokes was only thirty cents, even.

Check out the coin op machines on the wall - this has to be a location. I can't see the swing crew scaring up twenty washers and commercial dryers.

Hey! It's that guy that looks like a muppet and his friend...

...to investigate that paint you spilled on the marmoleum.

Damn artists.

Same shot of the stop sign from season one and last week's episode.

*Name that car! - It's Joe's personal car. What does he drive?

Who played Arthur Ashton? It's a mystery.

"That's him! That's the crumb that murdered Art! I saw him! He did it! He did it! He did it!"

Good job, Anita Eubank.

Strolling around that creepy green hallway where we were when we interrogated Kent McCord.

This episode is loaded with recycled actors!

Hi, Dennis McCarthy, I see you've traded in your press pass in order to protect and serve!

Art Balinger is back - my second favorite Dragnet captain - to get all sappy and poetic about working as a police officer. 

Badge 714 was retired when Jack Webb died.

Exiting the PAB & turning right sequence:

The lead slug made a mark and the shelf lifted up slightly, obscuring the slug when it was all over.

Sgt. Joe Friday

Returned to duty

Arthur Ashton

Deceased

 "Marianne Smith was again made a ward of juvenile court and later placed in another foster home."

Art Balinger as Captain Hugh Brown
Leonard Stone as Lieutenant Danny Bowser
William Boyett as Lieutenant Pierce Brooks
Harry Bartell as Department Chief Roger Murdock
S. John Launer as Department Chief R. A. Houghton
Dennis McCarthy as Inspector John Powers
Anita Eubank as Marianne Smith
Jeff Malloy as Officer Vincent
Gary Brown as Officer Paul

Art Direction - Russell Kimball
Set Decor - John McCarthy & John Sturtevant
Written by David H. Vowell

Aired 21 September 1967.

Same day:

United States does more nuclear testing in Nevada.

The Dean Martin Show featured Rosemary Clooney, Buddy Hackett, Minnie Pearl, and David Steinberg. It was penned by Harry Crane, who shares a namesake with a certain someone.


"The Letter" by The Box Tops on top of the Billboard charts. Does that singer look drug-addled? I think he does. His band is pretty funny hamming it up.

The late sixties were a time of upheaval, worldwide. September 1967 saw Swedish drivers change to the right side of the road, even.

The Saturn V rocket was tested successfully by NASA and Jerry Lewis hosted his second Muscular Dystrophy telethon. Uganda gave the UK the finger in a big way. Debra Dene Barnes was the reigning Miss America until season three of Dragnet. The Beatles were filming Magical Mystery Tour.
Just the day before this episode aired, Hurricane Beulah killed 38 people. All sorts of things were afoot.

In terms of the Dragnet vs. Mad Men time line, we are still between seasons five and six, as six picks up in December of 1967.

You'll drop in next week for more of Joe's stylish and zany antics, 

but you'll stick around for the con artists! See you then.