"It was Saturday, August 8th, we were working the day watch out of juvenile division. My partner is Frank Smith. The boss is captain Powers. My name's Friday."
So begins the typical start of the famous Dragnet program. In this episode, Joe and Frank (Ben Alexander) are at the home of a mother of four-year-old twins who are missing. (The mother was played by Virginia Christine, who became famous for doing Folger's Coffee commercials!) Nowadays, these missing kids would be a big story but, oddly, Joe and Frank seem to pass it off as no big deal.
Shortly thereafter, they get a tip that an ice cream truck driver saw two little girls with a man. Our two cops talk to the vendor who describes where he saw the kids and a general description of the guy. More evidence pops up when a piece of torn clothing is found. Homicide joins the investigation. The girls are found, bruised a bit and molested and it's up to Joe and Frank and the police to find the abductor.
This was my first viewing, believe it or not, of Dragnet since I watched it as a kid in the '50s and later in the '60s when Henry Morgan was "Joe's" (Jack Webb) partner.
What was interesting here was that one of the suspects, a guy who had been arrested for child molestation in the past, looked and sounded exactly like a young Hal Linden of "Barney Miller" fame, but it wasn't him.
They did something they don't do anymore on crime shows - wasted about a minute showing the two cops just standing there listening to a real estate woman talk on the phone. It had nothing to do with the story, just killing time in this episode.
Overall, it was a "fair" episode, not as humorous as I remembered this show. I think there was more comedy later with Morgan. Then again, child molestation is hardly a humorous topic. I was shocked they even handled it on TV back in '54.