This episode takes Joe Friday to college. Friday is studying in Night School when he notices a fellow student in possession of Marijuana. After class, he busts the student who used the famous oregano defense, “”No, man, it’s oregano for a pizza sauce. I’m a gourmet chef.”
Friday’s professor decides he wants Friday removed from class for being a Narc. Friday makes his case but thanks to the influence of the professor he’s yanked from the class. Friday asks the instructor for another chance and the professor agrees, but requires that Friday get a 2/3 majority.
It’s an interesting study in intellectual tyranny, and Friday’s pleas, particularly his second are spot on.
Of course, not everyone is a fan of this episode. Michael Hayde wrote in his book, “We’re asked to believe that Friday, whose job involves protecting young people from themselves, is depressed because he’s incapable of being accepted by them as a peer…Here the immortal seargent, firmly set in his ways, is utterly out of his element.”
In one sense, Hayde has a point. Joe Friday is an iconic figure. It’d be almost like Batman having the same problem. Part of the trouble as well may come from the fact that going back to 1949, Friday was never revealed to have much of an outside life. So seeing him pursuing a college degree is sudden and hard to deal with.
But in a larger sense, I think the episode works in that Friday represents policemen everywhere.
And policemen across the country, including those with a lot of experience have reason to go to college to acquire additional education that can help them be better police officers or to pursue other goals. These officers had a rough time of it in the 1960s and 70s, do to some of the rabid anti-police attitudes on campus. This was also addressed in a somewhat less direct way in an episode of Adam 12.
So, this represents a very unique, but still entertaining, episode of Dragnet.