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Dragnet 1968
"The Big Shipment"
Originally aired December 28, 1967
Xfinity said:
When a plane crashes, a large amount of narcotics is found aboard--but the pilot is missing.
Sgt. Joe Friday said:
This is the city: Los Angeles, California. With less than 3 percent of the nation's farms, California produces 25 percent of the nation's table food. There are only a few crops that cannot be grown in California. One of them is marijuana. Another is the opium poppy, the source of heroin. They're imported from Mexico. When they are, I go to work. I carry a badge.
Tuesday, September 26 (1967): Friday and Gannon are working the night watch out of Narcotics Division following a failed sting operation involving a heroin sale when Captain Trembly (Clark Howat) gets a call about the crashed plane, which is said to be carrying 150 pounds of marijuana and $100,000 worth of heroin. At the scene they're filled in on the situation by a uniformed sergeant played by William Boyett, who uses the word "weed" without making it sound like it's in quotation marks. Friday wants to turn the scheduled delivery of this shipment into a new sting operation, so he sign-o-the-timesily convinces the gathered reporters to sit on the story for six hours.
The pilot of the plane is identified by the rental agency and the detectives investigate an address that he'd given, but it's obviously a false one when Friday and Gannon knock on the door at 1:45 a.m. to wake up a married couple. Some further investigation turns up a tip from a cab driver who dropped off a man with a limp in the area that they're searching based on the false address. Evidently scouring apartment lobbies, they find an name and address that match the ones given by the pilot after a couple of transpositions, his actual name being Jerome Frank rather than Frank Jerome. They go to the apartment and speak to his wife (Lorraine Gary), who says that she hasn't seen him, wasn't aware of the true nature of the cargo that he was smuggling, informs them that that he lost a leg in Vietnam and has a girlfriend, and gives them her address.
They go to the address and bust in to find Frank (Fred Vincent) with his prosthetic leg off. They arrest both him and his girlfriend (Elaine Devry). He thinks he's got his bases covered with the people he was smuggling for because he's the one who called the reporters about the crashed plane, but when Friday informs Frank that he killed the story, he persuades Frank to cooperate and give him details about the scheduled drop. The detectives set up a multi-team stakeout with the shipment planted at the location, an obviously fake but very elaborate vacant field set. They arrest the two men who arrive to pick up the shipment (John Sebastian and Julian Burton, the former not the one from The Lovin' Spoonful) and take them downtown. One of them pretends to be deaf and dumb, but Friday conveniently finds a receipt from a record store in his wallet and he squeals about the identity of the big man they were working for.
The Announcer said:
On Thursday, November 30, trial was held in Department 180, Superior Court of the State of California, for the County of Los Angeles....The suspects were found guilty of conspiracy to violate Sections 11501 and 11531, Health and Safety Code, State of Caliornia, which makes it a crime to illegally transport, import, sell, or furnish any narcotic. The penalty described by law is imprisonment in the state prison from five years to life.
The radio callsign of the car that Friday and Gannon are using is 1-Kay-80.
And so the
Dragnet marathon reaches payoff, as we've finally caught it up with...
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The Wild Wild West
"The Night of the Arrow"
Originally aired December 29, 1967
Wiki said:
Jim and Artie are out to find Strong Bear of the Sioux Indians, who is threatening to break the territorial peace treaty.
Jim and Artie have been assigned to look into worsening Indian relations, with the obvious obstacle being General Baldwin (Robert Wilke), an outspoken Indian hater whose victories have made him a presidential contender, such that President Grant (Roy Engel)--who actually shows up at the train a couple of times to talk to the boys, because sitting presidents get around that easily--doesn't dare touch him. Baldwin's daughter, Aimee (Jeannine Riley, formerly of
Petticoat Junction), seems to have eyes for West as well as a knack for showing up where the trouble is. There's an ambush at the fort that quickly appears to be a set-up; during the ambush, Jim fires a flare projectile from his pistol. Disguised as a cavalry lieutenant, Artie uses a wind-up lockpick to break into the office of Col. Rath (Frank Marth) and finds evidence that the Indians were cavalry officers in disguise.
It sounds like Conrad had a cold in at least one scene. When Jim returns with Aimee from a hostile but non-lethal encounter with some Indians while trying to find Strong Bear, her clothes all cut up and Jim not wanting to tell the General about the incident for fear of escalating the situation, Jim is placed under arrest. Artie gets himself arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct to compare notes with Jim, who escapes by using thermite on the bars of his window to make a rendezvous arranged by Oconee, the "half-breed" liaison (Robert Phillips) who's been making a big show of being disgruntled with white men, but it's a trap to make it look like Jim killed Strong Bear. Jim falls into a pit but survives because it has a ledge not too far down, and escapes with the help of his ever-handy piton pistol, but not before Aimee wanders into the scene and causes him to fall back in by stepping on his fingers.
In the meantime, Artie has effected his own escape by changing disguises in his cell, pretending to be a down-on-his-luck trapper type who wants to stay for free grub. It turns out that Rath, Oconee, and Aimee were in cahoots to underhandedly help the General to get elected. Artie turns the tables on them by pretending to be Strong Bear rising from the dead for the benefit of the Indians whom Oconee has been manipulating, which in retrospect wouldn't be Artie's finest moment.
Chronological note: It's said to be 1874.
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I think it was Pigpen, sir.
Are you doing a Marcie there?
Well, that's pretty sad. Also unusual, as it implies that hubby got custody, which was practically unheard of in those days.
I hadn't been listening to the lyrics that closely, but looking into it, it seems there was a reason for that. The song was written by Bobby Goldsboro and originally performed by male artists (Johnny Darrell's version having been a hit on the Country chart in 1968). Carr was doing a gender-swapped version of the song.
Richie Havens was one of my all time facorite '60's singers.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of him at that festival thing that's happening in August....
I'm just going by the fruits on the website.