User Reviews

Friday and Gannon are at it again. This time somebody's been going around, posing as a police officer, "Captain Fremont," of whom there is no trace in the LAPD's files, and selling cards for the National Agency of Law Enforcement (NAEL) or something like that. The National Federation of Monitors, the International Semi-Goon Squad. Something.

Some of the townsfolk are righteously indignant, having paid for their cards entitling them to simply rip up traffic tickets, then finding out that they owe ten million dollars for traffic tickets.

Well, Friday and Gannon are determined to get to the bottom of this. It not only deprives honest but stupid tax payers of their hard-earned dollars but reflects badly on the LAPD.

They manage to track down one of the salesmen, a hail-fellow-well-met Pecksniffian who sells the dynamic duo a card denoting membership in the Native American Elocution League. Money changes hands and -- BANG -- the jig is up for Spradlin, who melts into unctuousness like the politician he was in real life. He'll sell everybody else out for a lighter sentence.

Friday and Gannon emerge victorious. Yes, it was a dirty job but somebody had to do it.

Los Angeles citizens are being swindled by con artists posing as members of a police organization, giving those duped cards with "NALE" on them, feeding them falsities about showing their card to law enforcement expecting to get away with minor tickets and other small penalties if they purchase an ad in a specific newsletter/magazine (a magazine that doesn't really exist) supposedly sponsoring a "widows and orphans" club. So Sgt Friday and partner Bill Gannon (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan) go after those responsible for this bunco scheme that continues to gain new victims. The plot is simple as that. Not an overly complex story to follow and the results are unsurprising. Not sure what it was, but this particular episode of Dragnet 1968 just wasn't that exciting or fulfilling in any way and had this "been there, done that" feel I never could shake. Sure seeing Friday and Gannon nail the bad guys is always gratifying, but bunco-themed episodes all kind of operate on the same pattern: ordinary citizens are being tricked by con artists, our cops listen to testimony from victims, and they go undercover, posing as potential new dupes, only to catch their suspects during the big salespitch/scheme, arresting them when the criminals fall into the trap. Part of this episode's charm is the numerous colorful victims who testify to Friday and Gannon about how they were conned, truly expecting to get away with penalties by flashing a card. Seeing one travel agency businessman attempt to get out of a ticket for giving Friday and Gannon evidence needed for their investigation and a loudly contentious bar owner who wholly believes all of the police are in on the swindling racket provide highlights that keep "The Phony Police Racket" from being a total hum-drum experience. I think the real personality of this show is the supporting parts/characters who enter investigations conducted by our plainclothes detectives, their opinions, lives, difficulties, and varying status in the city kind of inject life into what could be just a solemn, by-the-numbers police procedural.