What a great episode to open the second reprisal of the Dragnet series! Seeing straight-faced suits, Sgt Joe Friday (the incomparable Jack Webb) and partner Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) encountering spaced-out LSD addicts is just hilarious. But the ending has a sobering reminder of the down that can come from the high. This was the Hollywood Los Angeles of the Beatles era so I was getting a kick out of the atmosphere of the streets and youth populating the hunting grounds of Friday and Gannon, in pursuit of a LSD pusher named Blue Boy (Michael Burns), trying to find and arrest him before the product of the new drug would become too widespread to stop. For instance, when Friday and Gannon pick up Benjie "Blue Boy" Carver the first time, the kid is weirded out in the park, chewing bark from a tree (!), with his head buried in the leaves, talking about the wild trip he's on (all the colors!). At this point, LSD was not an outlawed drug, while it carried all the signs of a potentially dangerous narcotic it wasn't as yet recognized and so Friday and Gannon's hands were tied because the law could not be used to stop Blue Boy from distributing and taking his drug. By the end, however, they will have the law to hang on, but can they catch Benjie before he further distributes the drug? Anyway, the show, as some of you probably already know, embodies the specific time in which it takes place to a tee and shows dead serious cops, with monotone, rapid fire delivery (only the facts, few, if any, filler dialogue to pad the running time) working through each case, how the law both handcuffs our cops and allows them to catch criminals. In "The LSD Story", you get to see LSD in its infancy as a popular underground drug starting to reach more and more kids, and that threat is described and established by this show as particularly scary, although I'm sure many viewers now would just laugh and consider such as hogwash. I think this will work mainly as a curio for LSD, its effects, history, and potential to reach children (we see as the show continues how the drug is easy to distribute and cheap to purchase).
13 Reviews
A Dangerous New Drug.
rmax30482321 March 2012
Warning: Spoilers
In the first episode of the new series, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon get right at it. A powerful new drug has been loosed on the streets -- LSD, or "acid", as the kids call it. The first victim they find has his head buried in the dirt and when they pull him up they see his face is painted half blue and half yellow. He struggles against the officers, shouting things like, "I can see the BLUE LIGHT!" Back at Headquarters they tell him to shape up and sit in that chair. "I AM the chair!" And so it goes. The boy's parents are called in and they're resentful because they think it's just some high school initiation or something.
They don't understand because they don't know what Friday and Gannon have discovered about the powerful new drug. The scientist at the lab tells them grimly, "It's a powerful new drug, Joe. There are hallucinations, vomiting, euphoria, transient flashbacks." The kids eat it in sugar cubes and call it a "trip." A sugar cube loaded with "acid" is called a "ticket." We don't know if it's addicting, but habitual users are called "acid heads." They're even putting it on postage stamps.
Most interesting part of the episode is when Friday and Gannon raid an acid party in the dilapidated mansion in the Hollywood Hills. The door is unlocked, so Gannon observes that they must be pretty whacked out to leave the door open. (If you live in Los Angeles, you lock your door -- period -- because a pedestrian might enter.) Inside the bare pink parlor, let me think, there are hippies avant la lettre, sitting around stoned. A girl is climbing the walls, another guy is an artist who is painting a mural and licking the paint off the brush.
A year after this appeared I was involved in a scientific study of illicit drug use in New York and Philadelphia and interviewed several dozen acid heads, some tripping, some between trips. None were nearly so interesting. At any rate, nobody seems to have gotten "hooked" because nobody seems to be using LSD today. The movement lasted less than ten years. It turned out to be more like a high school initiation than a subversive subversive substance that sapped our national will and drove us all crazy.
They don't understand because they don't know what Friday and Gannon have discovered about the powerful new drug. The scientist at the lab tells them grimly, "It's a powerful new drug, Joe. There are hallucinations, vomiting, euphoria, transient flashbacks." The kids eat it in sugar cubes and call it a "trip." A sugar cube loaded with "acid" is called a "ticket." We don't know if it's addicting, but habitual users are called "acid heads." They're even putting it on postage stamps.
Most interesting part of the episode is when Friday and Gannon raid an acid party in the dilapidated mansion in the Hollywood Hills. The door is unlocked, so Gannon observes that they must be pretty whacked out to leave the door open. (If you live in Los Angeles, you lock your door -- period -- because a pedestrian might enter.) Inside the bare pink parlor, let me think, there are hippies avant la lettre, sitting around stoned. A girl is climbing the walls, another guy is an artist who is painting a mural and licking the paint off the brush.
A year after this appeared I was involved in a scientific study of illicit drug use in New York and Philadelphia and interviewed several dozen acid heads, some tripping, some between trips. None were nearly so interesting. At any rate, nobody seems to have gotten "hooked" because nobody seems to be using LSD today. The movement lasted less than ten years. It turned out to be more like a high school initiation than a subversive subversive substance that sapped our national will and drove us all crazy.
Coming on Like a Full-Blown Acid Trip
darryl-tahirali19 March 2023
Revived after its 1959 demise, "Dragnet" returned to television, in color and impressively contemporary, nearly eight years later. This archetypal police procedural, which began as a radio serial in 1949, became instantly recognizable--and in time extensively parodied--through its no-nonsense, deliberately deadpan and often colorless approach along with its four-note musical calling card that signaled "gotcha!" to countless perpetrators.
Jack Webb was the impetus and guiding force for "Dragnet." Having had a bit part in the excellent 1948 film noir "He Walked by Night," based on a true story, Webb was inspired by the police procedures depicted in the movie to create a half-hour show, based on actual case files, that traced the investigation and solution of an array of both felonies and misdemeanors. Launched as a midseason replacement for the sitcom "The Hero" in January 1966, "Dragnet 1967" opened with a story truly ripped from the headlines, "The LSD Story."
A rock-ribbed conservative, Webb, who served as the series' producer, director, occasional writer, and star Sergeant Joe Friday, had long spotlighted illegal drug abuse on "Dragnet," and although the show's depictions--and Webb's diatribes--would soon become strident, "The LSD Story" is comparatively subdued.
Granted, Friday and his partner Officer Bill Gannon soon encounter teenage acid tripper Benjie "Blue Boy" Carver (Michael Burns) with his head buried in the dirt after having chewed bark off a tree (seemingly predating Euell Gibbons), but Webb's script makes it clear that the scourge of LSD, a powerful psychedelic drug derived from ergotamine, has taken the Los Angeles Police Department by surprise as it doesn't know much about the drug, which along with marijuana epitomized the Sixties counterculture.
Accordingly, Blue Boy, despite his erratic behavior, is able to beat the rap with help from his parents (Eve Brent, Robert Knapp). But when other youths, including a pair of teenage girls (Shari Lee Bernath, Heather Menzies), begin freaking out after hooking down "number five capsules" containing LSD, the trail leads quickly to Blue Boy.
Depictions of the big bust suggest Webb's unfamiliarity with the burgeoning psychedelic scene; the party Friday and Gannon crash seems more like heroin junkies nodding out than the kinetic kaleidoscopes soon to become pop-culture staples in portrayals of the acid culture; moreover, at the climax, LSD is not the drug to blame for the inevitable tragedy.
Decades later, we have the luxury of knowing a fascinating secret about LSD, which "Dragnet 1967" had seized upon as a public menace to inaugurate its return to television. Webb and the general public could not have known this at the time of production, but LSD had been the centerpiece of MK-ULTRA, an extensive mind-control program conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s--a decade before the 1960s counterculture discovered LSD--to find either a "truth serum" or a debilitating agent as a weapon in the Cold War. CIA agents who, wittingly or not, had been dosed with acid were known as "enlightened operatives."
Indeed, one such witting CIA operative was Al Hubbard, whose LSD experiences were so enlightening that he became the drug's earliest large-scale advocate, known as "the Johnny Appleseed of LSD." He made psychiatrists aware of the drug; in turn, they prescribed it as a therapeutic agent ("The LSD Story" notes that acid was still legal) to high-profile patients such as actor Cary Grant. One such doctor was Timothy Leary, soon to become a notorious LSD proselytizer.
The CIA also used agencies such as the Veterans Administration to solicit volunteers for LSD experimentation. One such volunteer was writer Ken Kesey, whose experiences working at a VA hospital informed his novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and whose LSD experiences at the hospital inspired his own proselytizing: Kesey hosted a series of "acid tests"--"The LSD Story" uses his line, "Can you pass the acid test?"--that also featured a rock band called the Warlocks; they later became famous as the Grateful Dead, the archetypal exponent of acid rock.
Again, we have the benefit of hindsight into circumstances unknown to the then-contemporary public at large, although had Joe Friday known of them, he might note sardonically that it was "your tax dollars at work" as, irony of ironies, the CIA was indirectly but ultimately responsible for introducing LSD to the unwashed masses. But we do view these "Dragnet" episodes retrospectively, with a fuller context informing the environment in which they were produced, and "The LSD Story" remains fascinating for its cautious establishment reaction to a (counter-) cultural phenomenon about to come on like a full-blown acid trip.
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
Jack Webb was the impetus and guiding force for "Dragnet." Having had a bit part in the excellent 1948 film noir "He Walked by Night," based on a true story, Webb was inspired by the police procedures depicted in the movie to create a half-hour show, based on actual case files, that traced the investigation and solution of an array of both felonies and misdemeanors. Launched as a midseason replacement for the sitcom "The Hero" in January 1966, "Dragnet 1967" opened with a story truly ripped from the headlines, "The LSD Story."
A rock-ribbed conservative, Webb, who served as the series' producer, director, occasional writer, and star Sergeant Joe Friday, had long spotlighted illegal drug abuse on "Dragnet," and although the show's depictions--and Webb's diatribes--would soon become strident, "The LSD Story" is comparatively subdued.
Granted, Friday and his partner Officer Bill Gannon soon encounter teenage acid tripper Benjie "Blue Boy" Carver (Michael Burns) with his head buried in the dirt after having chewed bark off a tree (seemingly predating Euell Gibbons), but Webb's script makes it clear that the scourge of LSD, a powerful psychedelic drug derived from ergotamine, has taken the Los Angeles Police Department by surprise as it doesn't know much about the drug, which along with marijuana epitomized the Sixties counterculture.
Accordingly, Blue Boy, despite his erratic behavior, is able to beat the rap with help from his parents (Eve Brent, Robert Knapp). But when other youths, including a pair of teenage girls (Shari Lee Bernath, Heather Menzies), begin freaking out after hooking down "number five capsules" containing LSD, the trail leads quickly to Blue Boy.
Depictions of the big bust suggest Webb's unfamiliarity with the burgeoning psychedelic scene; the party Friday and Gannon crash seems more like heroin junkies nodding out than the kinetic kaleidoscopes soon to become pop-culture staples in portrayals of the acid culture; moreover, at the climax, LSD is not the drug to blame for the inevitable tragedy.
Decades later, we have the luxury of knowing a fascinating secret about LSD, which "Dragnet 1967" had seized upon as a public menace to inaugurate its return to television. Webb and the general public could not have known this at the time of production, but LSD had been the centerpiece of MK-ULTRA, an extensive mind-control program conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s--a decade before the 1960s counterculture discovered LSD--to find either a "truth serum" or a debilitating agent as a weapon in the Cold War. CIA agents who, wittingly or not, had been dosed with acid were known as "enlightened operatives."
Indeed, one such witting CIA operative was Al Hubbard, whose LSD experiences were so enlightening that he became the drug's earliest large-scale advocate, known as "the Johnny Appleseed of LSD." He made psychiatrists aware of the drug; in turn, they prescribed it as a therapeutic agent ("The LSD Story" notes that acid was still legal) to high-profile patients such as actor Cary Grant. One such doctor was Timothy Leary, soon to become a notorious LSD proselytizer.
The CIA also used agencies such as the Veterans Administration to solicit volunteers for LSD experimentation. One such volunteer was writer Ken Kesey, whose experiences working at a VA hospital informed his novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and whose LSD experiences at the hospital inspired his own proselytizing: Kesey hosted a series of "acid tests"--"The LSD Story" uses his line, "Can you pass the acid test?"--that also featured a rock band called the Warlocks; they later became famous as the Grateful Dead, the archetypal exponent of acid rock.
Again, we have the benefit of hindsight into circumstances unknown to the then-contemporary public at large, although had Joe Friday known of them, he might note sardonically that it was "your tax dollars at work" as, irony of ironies, the CIA was indirectly but ultimately responsible for introducing LSD to the unwashed masses. But we do view these "Dragnet" episodes retrospectively, with a fuller context informing the environment in which they were produced, and "The LSD Story" remains fascinating for its cautious establishment reaction to a (counter-) cultural phenomenon about to come on like a full-blown acid trip.
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
Sgt. Joe Friday is BACK -and he's gonna fix all those whacked-out 60's characters, starting with BLUE-BOY
UNOhwen1 March 2012
The kick-off episode to the last DRAGNET series, with the inimitable Jack 'Joe Feiday' Webb, is the legendary 'blue-boy' episode. I'm not going to discuss the entire 4 years this incarnation of DRAGNET, just this episode.
And what a way to start!
This episode starts, with Joe and his newest partner Bill Gannon, respond to a call. And literally 'pick' Benjie'blue-boy' Carver's head (attached to his living body) out of the ground.
With a tight, single shot, 'blue-boy' gets right at it:
'Reality, man, reality! I can see the centre of the earth!'
And, with those immortal words (and more to follow) we're into the 60's man - tagging along with Sgt. Joe. And what a trip this will be.
This episode includes some of my - and, many others - favourite trippy moments, including the scene at the acid-eaters house; one girl's 'climbing' a stairs, another is snapping her fingers to that (invisible) bongo beat, and, the beatnik who has dialogue, is eating paint.
You cannot make this stuff up.
But, Jack can - and does he.
He trowels on the moralising, and, everything in Sgt. Joel's world IS black and white.
You're either a good upstanding citizen - meaning, a square, boring person, or, you're a freak, and will do anything to make him snarl. But, be certain of this: after Joe's given you his speeches, and his disgusted looks, he'll throw the book at you.
I love him. I miss him. And, he gave up Ms. Julie London for his jazz records.
Go figure.
And what a way to start!
This episode starts, with Joe and his newest partner Bill Gannon, respond to a call. And literally 'pick' Benjie'blue-boy' Carver's head (attached to his living body) out of the ground.
With a tight, single shot, 'blue-boy' gets right at it:
'Reality, man, reality! I can see the centre of the earth!'
And, with those immortal words (and more to follow) we're into the 60's man - tagging along with Sgt. Joe. And what a trip this will be.
This episode includes some of my - and, many others - favourite trippy moments, including the scene at the acid-eaters house; one girl's 'climbing' a stairs, another is snapping her fingers to that (invisible) bongo beat, and, the beatnik who has dialogue, is eating paint.
You cannot make this stuff up.
But, Jack can - and does he.
He trowels on the moralising, and, everything in Sgt. Joel's world IS black and white.
You're either a good upstanding citizen - meaning, a square, boring person, or, you're a freak, and will do anything to make him snarl. But, be certain of this: after Joe's given you his speeches, and his disgusted looks, he'll throw the book at you.
I love him. I miss him. And, he gave up Ms. Julie London for his jazz records.
Go figure.
Surprisingly good...
planktonrules15 November 2009
Warning: Spoilers
When I have talked to friends who were alive when "Dragnet" was on television, we invariably begin talking about specific episodes that still stand out in our minds. In every case, eventually the conversation leads to "The LSD Story" as it is something you can't easily forget! The show begins with Friday and Gannon responding to a call about a young man who is "eating the bark off trees and acting crazy". When they arrive, this lovely young man has his head buried in the ground. His head is also painted blue and yellow and he announces that his name is 'Blue Boy'--a sight you'll not soon forget! It seems that he's under the influence of 'acid' (i.e., LSD) yet the officers can only arrest him for his behaviors, as LSD is not illegal at the time the show begins. Blue Boy's parents, oddly, have no concern at all about the boy's drug use and the parent's bluster and yell--trying to force the cops to release Blue Boy instead of booking him. The judge isn't so impressed by the parents' non-concern and places the kid on probation.
Later, more and more cases of the use of this new drug are reported and the police are beside themselves trying to stop it. In most cases, it seems Blue Boy is behind the spread of the drug. Eventually, however, the law changes--LSD is now illegal and Friday and Gannon are looking to find the punk. Eventually, they find the guy...in a crazy finale.
In many ways, Sgt. Friday is the ultimate square and always was on "Dragnet". However, in this episode, Jack Webb actually handles the drug outbreak rather evenhandedly. The only possible hyperbole is showing that a person can die from an overdose of acid--something that apparently is not true. A person CAN die as a result of their own actions as a result of the hallucinogenic effects but the drug is non-toxic. However, I don't think this was a deliberate lie as they still probably didn't know this back in the mid-late 1960s. Plus, the death of someone like Blue Boy could occur if they are using a combination of other dangerous drugs--making it seem like they overdosed on LSD. And, the episode did show that he was taking a variety of pills along with the acid. As far as the effects of the drug, the crazy and over the top actions shown by the users in the show actually are pretty realistic.
Exciting, fascinating and informative--this is one of the best of the series and a great way to start off this new version of "Dragnet".
Later, more and more cases of the use of this new drug are reported and the police are beside themselves trying to stop it. In most cases, it seems Blue Boy is behind the spread of the drug. Eventually, however, the law changes--LSD is now illegal and Friday and Gannon are looking to find the punk. Eventually, they find the guy...in a crazy finale.
In many ways, Sgt. Friday is the ultimate square and always was on "Dragnet". However, in this episode, Jack Webb actually handles the drug outbreak rather evenhandedly. The only possible hyperbole is showing that a person can die from an overdose of acid--something that apparently is not true. A person CAN die as a result of their own actions as a result of the hallucinogenic effects but the drug is non-toxic. However, I don't think this was a deliberate lie as they still probably didn't know this back in the mid-late 1960s. Plus, the death of someone like Blue Boy could occur if they are using a combination of other dangerous drugs--making it seem like they overdosed on LSD. And, the episode did show that he was taking a variety of pills along with the acid. As far as the effects of the drug, the crazy and over the top actions shown by the users in the show actually are pretty realistic.
Exciting, fascinating and informative--this is one of the best of the series and a great way to start off this new version of "Dragnet".
An All-Time Favorite
spiritof673 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Let's get one thing straight right now: Joe Friday is resolutely anti-hippie. Even before this series, that was the case. So, let's jump off into a new series. What's the subject? Hippies! This is the famous/infamous "Blue Boy" episode.In the '80s when this series was syndicated, there was a call-in contest to suggest which episodes to show. This one was the winner. Second place was "The Baby in the bathtub." Dragnet fans know which one that was...
This one stars Michael Burns (formerly of "Wagon Train", Bill Hawks' "son") who plays a Jack Webb imagined acid head during the time (yes!) when LSD was not illegal. By the way, contrary to other posters here, LSD is not a "narcotic" and is resolutely not "addictive", and I speak as one who took pharmaceitical LSD in the 60's. Anyway, "Blueboy" fulfills all of Jack Webbs' fantasies of drug use, even though none of them are even remotely correct or true.
It is, however, one of the inadvertenly hilarious episodes of any cop show of the era. Anybody who had real experience with LSD will howl with laughter all through this. The sad thing is that so many people consumed this episode whole and believed it, when it had no basis in fact or practice. And do so today.
By the way, without knowing it, Jack Webb created an icon with "Blue Boy". He was everything no "acid head" ever was. Thanks, Jack.
This one stars Michael Burns (formerly of "Wagon Train", Bill Hawks' "son") who plays a Jack Webb imagined acid head during the time (yes!) when LSD was not illegal. By the way, contrary to other posters here, LSD is not a "narcotic" and is resolutely not "addictive", and I speak as one who took pharmaceitical LSD in the 60's. Anyway, "Blueboy" fulfills all of Jack Webbs' fantasies of drug use, even though none of them are even remotely correct or true.
It is, however, one of the inadvertenly hilarious episodes of any cop show of the era. Anybody who had real experience with LSD will howl with laughter all through this. The sad thing is that so many people consumed this episode whole and believed it, when it had no basis in fact or practice. And do so today.
By the way, without knowing it, Jack Webb created an icon with "Blue Boy". He was everything no "acid head" ever was. Thanks, Jack.
LSD In Its Early Days
ccthemovieman-129 March 2008
Warning: Spoilers
On the DVD, this first episode had a different title than is listed here at IMDb. On the disc, it was called, "The Big LSD." For those old enough to remember when this hallucinatory drug became popular, this was an interesting episode. It was almost like watching a documentary on the subject.
Anyway, Jack Webb returns as "Sgt. Joe Friday" in this updated version of the famous Dragnet TV show, which began in 1952. He has a new partner: "Bill Gannon," played by veteran actor Harry Morgan, who went to bigger fame in the next decade with the TV show "MASH."
The two cops are called out to a neighborhood area when they find some young guy, his face painted yellow on one side and blue on the other, and it's sticking in the ground like an ostrich. He said he was admiring the center of the Earth. He babbles on about all the colors he sees and appears totally insane so Joe and Bill bring him to a hospital, where he is diagnosed as being the under the influence of some unknown drug. (These were the early days of LSD, and even though the doctor says it is an "unknown drug," Friday knows what it is, even calling it by one of its street names: "acid.").
Anyway, the story is how the cops battle this new drug, get it to be illegal and then nab a big seller six months later, who happens to be the same guy: "Blue Boy," as he is called by his friends, the guy with the painted face.
Along the way, we learn something about the drug, it's history and effects, which was interesting. LSD was a popular drug back in this period. I remember a movie called "The Trip," which dealt with this subject. A lot of songs by rock groups in this era were about LSD and other similar drugs.
This was my first look at this updated Dragnet program in 40 years and I was surprised how serious it was. I remember Dragnet has having a lot of humor being added to serious topics. There were no jokes in this one, and the stories, as they remind us, are all true. There is a tragic ending to this particular episode, too.
Anyway, Jack Webb returns as "Sgt. Joe Friday" in this updated version of the famous Dragnet TV show, which began in 1952. He has a new partner: "Bill Gannon," played by veteran actor Harry Morgan, who went to bigger fame in the next decade with the TV show "MASH."
The two cops are called out to a neighborhood area when they find some young guy, his face painted yellow on one side and blue on the other, and it's sticking in the ground like an ostrich. He said he was admiring the center of the Earth. He babbles on about all the colors he sees and appears totally insane so Joe and Bill bring him to a hospital, where he is diagnosed as being the under the influence of some unknown drug. (These were the early days of LSD, and even though the doctor says it is an "unknown drug," Friday knows what it is, even calling it by one of its street names: "acid.").
Anyway, the story is how the cops battle this new drug, get it to be illegal and then nab a big seller six months later, who happens to be the same guy: "Blue Boy," as he is called by his friends, the guy with the painted face.
Along the way, we learn something about the drug, it's history and effects, which was interesting. LSD was a popular drug back in this period. I remember a movie called "The Trip," which dealt with this subject. A lot of songs by rock groups in this era were about LSD and other similar drugs.
This was my first look at this updated Dragnet program in 40 years and I was surprised how serious it was. I remember Dragnet has having a lot of humor being added to serious topics. There were no jokes in this one, and the stories, as they remind us, are all true. There is a tragic ending to this particular episode, too.
"The LSD Story" was an effective initial ep of "Dragnet 1967"
tonyvmonte-549733 May 2024
Nearly eight years after the original TV version of "Dragnet" ended, that series was brought back in color and with the first ep that was broadcast (actual first filmed ep of the revival was a made-for-TV movie that aired a couple of years later) concerning the effects of a popular and then-legal drug called LSD. It seems Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and his new partner Officer Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) find a teen boy with his head in the ground and his face painted blue and yellow who initially only ID's himself as "Blue Boy". He also goes on various tangents that only make sense to him. While they can't put him behind bars, they can hold him in court even when his parents offer to take him home. Eventually, he does get off only to cause more trouble. I'll stop there and just say this was quite exciting as not all lines are delivered in that clipped-tone which was the norm for the series but there are some shouting during the climatic scenes. Quite an effective first ep of this revived series. Oh, and one of the teen girls in this ep was played by Heather Menzies who was one of the Von Trapp kids in The Sound of Music a couple of years back. She'd eventually marry future TV star Robert Urich.
A fun little trip
tommyhubbs22 August 2022
This episode was the first Dragnet in color, appropriately. It is a cool little episode and a lot of fun. Just don't take it too seriously. Don't be all Friday about it and just go ahead and let your hair down and get groovy.
LSD
twelve-house-books13 May 2022
I probably shouldn't have, in retrospect, but I have dosed acid more than any other user I've ever known, and I'm here to tell you that you don't get hyper or go crazy while under the influence of LSD, you don't say stupid things that make no sense (usually just the opposite--your intellect is streamlined), addiction is nonexistent, there are no lasting physical effects, and you certainly can't ingest so much that you die. (By the way, the wild result of acid taken on sugar cubes in the film HAIR was as silly and unresearched as this episode that was televised a decade before.) I don't recommend dropping acid, but if you do, make sure you have somebody with you who has also dropped acid but is sober, and be sure there's lots of drinkable water around--and don't forget to drink it. A big danger with using LSD is kidney failure, not, as believed in the 60s, jumping out of windows believing you can fly or burning your hands trying to pick flowers out of a gas burner on a stove. By the way, your sober "babysitter" (it's what they're called) is there to keep you from doing something dumb, like deciding you don't want to be in your body anymore and closing your eyes and giving up the ghost. It happened to me once, and my sober friend cried out and jolted me back into my body. Another time my girlfriend and I didn't have a babysitter, and she pulled a knife on me with intent to do me harm. That was after I had put the alarm clock in the microwave because, of course, that's where it was supposed to go.
I can Hear It! I can Hear It! I can Hear It all! O.K kid lets go down to the office and we can all listen in.
sol12183 October 2011
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** It's when LAPD Sgt. Joe Friday,Jack Webb, and his partner Officer Bill Gannon, Harry Morgan,got this call about some wacko sticking his head into the ground,ostrich like, and trying to hear the waves of the ocean they knew this wasn't going to be a typical day for them on the job.
As it turned out the guy Benjie Carver(Michael Burns) or street name Blue Boy was on some kind of hallucinogenic drug that completely tripped him out.Thinking that he's a tree or in contact with the supernatural or sounds of nature Blue Boy is immediately sent to the local mental facility for observation and be examined to determined if he's to be committed or not. As it soon turns out Blue Boy is on this new drug called LSD that's been hitting the streets of LA over the last few months with a vengeance. Having Blue Boy's parents Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Carver, Robert Knapp & Eva Brent, come over to take their son home he suddenly, after wiping the blue & yellow grease paint off his face , turns normal! This makes both Sgt. Friday and Officer Gannon think that maybe all this head in the ground and eating tree bark on Blue Boy's part was only some kind of teenage prank. How wrong they both,together with Mr & Mrs. Carver, turned out to be.
It isn't long after Blue Boy was released that LSD started finding its way into the local high school and collage population with Blue Boy being not only addicted to the drug but also as a dealer pushing it! The whole sad story of Blue Boy comes to a tragic and predictable end just before Christmas 1966 when he's found dead of an overdose of LSD mixed with barbiturates in his hotel room, that he shared with fellow drug addicts, in the Hollywood Hills!
Blue Boy aka Benjie Carver carved his way into LSD history by being one of the pioneers in using the dangerous hallucinogenic but also being one of the first to end up dying because of it. Blue Boy always was looking for the ultimate trip a trip that would open his mind to the secrets of the vast and endless universe. With his use of LSD and other illegal drugs Blue Boy did get that trip but it wasn't exactly the trip of universal knowledge and understanding that he was looking for. It was a one way trip to the L.A County morgue!
As it turned out the guy Benjie Carver(Michael Burns) or street name Blue Boy was on some kind of hallucinogenic drug that completely tripped him out.Thinking that he's a tree or in contact with the supernatural or sounds of nature Blue Boy is immediately sent to the local mental facility for observation and be examined to determined if he's to be committed or not. As it soon turns out Blue Boy is on this new drug called LSD that's been hitting the streets of LA over the last few months with a vengeance. Having Blue Boy's parents Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Carver, Robert Knapp & Eva Brent, come over to take their son home he suddenly, after wiping the blue & yellow grease paint off his face , turns normal! This makes both Sgt. Friday and Officer Gannon think that maybe all this head in the ground and eating tree bark on Blue Boy's part was only some kind of teenage prank. How wrong they both,together with Mr & Mrs. Carver, turned out to be.
It isn't long after Blue Boy was released that LSD started finding its way into the local high school and collage population with Blue Boy being not only addicted to the drug but also as a dealer pushing it! The whole sad story of Blue Boy comes to a tragic and predictable end just before Christmas 1966 when he's found dead of an overdose of LSD mixed with barbiturates in his hotel room, that he shared with fellow drug addicts, in the Hollywood Hills!
Blue Boy aka Benjie Carver carved his way into LSD history by being one of the pioneers in using the dangerous hallucinogenic but also being one of the first to end up dying because of it. Blue Boy always was looking for the ultimate trip a trip that would open his mind to the secrets of the vast and endless universe. With his use of LSD and other illegal drugs Blue Boy did get that trip but it wasn't exactly the trip of universal knowledge and understanding that he was looking for. It was a one way trip to the L.A County morgue!
The only spoiler is this episode.
friar_schmuck19 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I've never taken an illegal drug in my life (or should I say 'scored'?), but this show has me jonesing to drop a lid.
The druggie, interestingly enough, went on to turn on, tune in and drop out of acting...in later life he became a history professor at Mt. Holyoke!
I don't know the name of the nerd scientist who provides the background on acid, but I simply love him. One of the handsomenest dudes ever.
The only question this episode raises is the following: was getting the paint off Blue Boy actor's face an excruciatingly painful task or what?
Oh, and one last thing: if there were an epilogue, would Blue Boy been shown in his warpaint at an open-casket funeral?
The druggie, interestingly enough, went on to turn on, tune in and drop out of acting...in later life he became a history professor at Mt. Holyoke!
I don't know the name of the nerd scientist who provides the background on acid, but I simply love him. One of the handsomenest dudes ever.
The only question this episode raises is the following: was getting the paint off Blue Boy actor's face an excruciatingly painful task or what?
Oh, and one last thing: if there were an epilogue, would Blue Boy been shown in his warpaint at an open-casket funeral?
LS Delirious
alydar212 August 2012
Too bad the Harry Morgan died with this show on his resume. I guess that "High Noon, All My Sons and Inherit The Wind" weren't good enough.
Show was almost fun to watch, but it was soooo stupid. It's a shame that the public believed the silly drivel of non-facts told in this episode.
Characters in program are having fun listening to music etc...but you can't have any fun on Dragnet. If you are, it must be against the law.
It was badly dated and irrevocably ignorant, but that was what this entire show was about - most of the time. And it is told to us in such a serious tone, that I couldn't stop snickering at this comic misrepresentation of LSD.
Show was almost fun to watch, but it was soooo stupid. It's a shame that the public believed the silly drivel of non-facts told in this episode.
Characters in program are having fun listening to music etc...but you can't have any fun on Dragnet. If you are, it must be against the law.
It was badly dated and irrevocably ignorant, but that was what this entire show was about - most of the time. And it is told to us in such a serious tone, that I couldn't stop snickering at this comic misrepresentation of LSD.
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