Joe Friday - Original Series

Original Series

The Joe Friday character was created and played by American actor, television producer, and writer Jack Webb (1920–1982) on Dragnet. The series ran on radio (1949–1956) and television (1951–1959 and 1967–1970), and there was also a theatrical film (1954) and a TV-movie (1969).

Over the earlier run of the series, Friday was partnered with Sgt. Ben Romero (played by Barton Yarborough), Sgt. Ed Jacobs (played by Barney Phillips), Officer Frank Smith (played first by Herbert Ellis and then by Ben Alexander), and finally his last partner Bill Gannon (played by Harry Morgan).

During the 1958–1959 season Friday was promoted to lieutenant. However, when the show returned in 1967 he was back to the sergeant rank without any on-screen explanation (Webb later explained that in reality the lieutenant rank was more of a supervisory position and involved less investigatory time in the field, which would change the structure of the show).

Friday made famous the line "My name is Friday—I'm a cop," (the latter part later changed to "I carry a badge") said in the introductory narration of every TV episode. Supposedly, he also made the line, "Just the facts, ma'am," famous. In fact, what Friday actually said in an early episode is "All we want are the facts." Friday, as portrayed by Webb, never actually said the oft-repeated phrase. Indeed, it was more Stan Freberg's parodies of the Dragnet series that popularized the phrase.

As a trivia note Joe Friday's date of birth was April 2, the same as Jack Webb's in real life. It was said by the character in the Dragnet 1969 episode "Community Relations" (DR-10) after the character Officer Bill Gannon asked it. He was also an Army veteran, as stated in a few episodes (Webb himself was an Army veteran).