The Dragnet presented in My Name’s Friday is not only the crisp, campy color television series that played from 1966 to 1970. It also is the radio series of 1949-1957 and the television series of 1951-1959, which became television’s best-known, longest-running, and most-acclaimed police drama. Because he was so devoted to the show, Hayde’s narrative also looks at Jack Webb, but this is not strictly a biography of the show’s actor, director, and producer, except to the extent that the one defined the other.

Here the narrative follows the ebb and flow of the Dragnet show from radio to television, detailing every awkward moment and production feature that refined the drama throughout the 1950s. From the beginning Webb had an idea of what the show should be, but it was an evolving idea, a refinement that My Name’s Friday chronicles as the show matured from radio to television. Webb emphasized realism, basing scripts on cases from the Los Angeles Police Department and enlisting law enforcement professionals to advise on the show.

Hayde goes beyond just the facts to offer readers a comprehensive look at the show that defined an entire genre. Harry Morgan, an actor who worked with Webb off and on for almost twenty years, offers a foreword and a tribute to the man audiences knew best as Joe Friday. Also included are program guides of the radio and television episodes, a collection of Friday’s most well-known speeches, and a glossary of police terms used in the series.