1The LSD Story
Friday and Gannon encounter Benjy "Blue Boy" Carver, an LSD user. Because of the then-lack of any laws against the use of LSD, they are unable to make a case against him, and Carver's parents are of no help. Finally, legislation is passed against LSD use and sale, but by then it may be too late for "Blue Boy".
2The Big Explosion
Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of burglary division when they hear that a large quantity of high velocity gelatin dynamite has been stolen from a construction site. When they interview the Night Watchman who tried to stop the crime they get a license plate # for the car involved. Further investigating leads them to a bar patron nicknamed Ziggy. When they finally track him down they find that four of the eight stolen cases are empty and set to go off somewhere in the city.
3The Kidnapping
Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of homicide when a phone call comes in from Ray Righetti, the manager of the Universal City branch of the Bank of America. Janet Ohrmund claims to have information of a kidnapping and ransom demand. When they question her she tells them a young man is holding her employer Adele Vincent hostage for $75,000. She was told to get the money or else he will kill her.
4The Interrogation
Friday and Gannon question Officer Paul Culver, on the job only 114 days and currently working undercover out of the narcotics division, about the armed robbery of a liquor store in Hollywood. Despite a positive identification in the line-up and thinking he failed the lie-detector tests, Culver swears he is innocent.
6The Bank Examiner Swindle
Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of Frauds Division, Bunco Section. An expert pair of confidence men have moved from Seattle into L.A. Their victims are the elderly and they have been very successful. They pose as bank examiners out to catch crooked tellers and cheat their victims out of their savings. Friday and Gannon will have to catch them in the process of an actual swindle if they are to make a case against them stick.
7The Hammer
The manager of an apartment building is beaten to death with a hammer. Clues at the scene point to a man named 'Fred', who was playing cards with the victim. Fred has fled, possibly in another tenant's car. Later, Friday gets a call notifying him that Frederick Tosca and his girlfriend are in custody in Arizona. Extradition papers are prepared and Friday, Gannon, and Policewoman Dorothy Miller head to Cottonwood. Tosca admits nothing, but a search of the stolen car turns up a key piece of evidence.
8The Candy Store Robberies
In the span of two weeks someone has robbed at gunpoint ten branches of the city's largest candy store chain--Rachelles. The suspect is described as an older man thin and gaunt. He's never held up the same store twice so Friday organizes two man teams to stakeout the remaining five stores. Just when they think they've figured out his MO he hits the same store twice.
9The Fur Job
Emile Hartman reports the theft of $100,000 worth of quality furs and his delivery van. Friday and Gannon aren't having much luck until an insurance agent reports a call from a man selling fur coats. When he calls back a meeting is set up. The furrier must then give Gannon a crash course in furs so the detectives can pose as buyers to make the arrest.
11The Shooting
In April 1966 Friday and Gannon, working out of Homicide, got a call that a uniformed policeman, Dave Roberts, was shot point-blank in broad daylight. Investigating the area of the shooting, police found a car used as a getaway vehicle but it was cleaned of fingerprints. At the same time Sgt. Al Vietti, working out of Robbery, got a call for a liquor store holdup whose two suspects may have been involved in the Roberts shooting since both crimes took place in close proximity. The two were Mutt & Jeff suspects, one tall and heavyset and the other short and wiry. Days later Dave Roberts had recovered enough to give a brief description to Friday and Gannon, but his memory of the incident was shattered beyond that a Mutt & Jeff pair of suspects was stopped while swallowing benzedrine pills and drinking cheap port wine.Several weeks later Vietti and Friday got a call from a suburban police force that another liquor store was robbed, with description of the two suspects involved potentially matching the shooters of Dave Roberts. A police sketch artist, Hector Garcia, took down drawings of the two suspects, but copies of the drawings could not be positively identified by the recovering Roberts (whose memory of the shooting would forever be sketchy) or the liquor store owner robbed minutes before the shooting.Now in January 1967 Friday and Gannon have been reading thousands of packages from Records & Identification at any free moment they can spare, trying to find a match for the two fugitive shooters, and with no luck. But then Friday gets a call from one of his skid row informants, Virgil Hicks, who arranges a meeting on the football field at Memorial Coliseum and reveals that two men, Roger Kensington and Harry Johnson, had bellied up to a liquor joint and were boasting about how "Big Mama put that cop down for good, both barrels." Hicks discreetly followed them to the cheap hotel at which they're staying on Crocker Street.Friday and Gannon pull the R&I packages on the two thugs and get positive identification from the liquor store owners, leading to the arrest at gunpoint of the two shooters. Dave Roberts, however, cannot positively identify them as the men who shot him - but Friday and Gannon figure out a way to make the two confess anyway.
12The Hit-and-Run Driver
This episode begins when Friday and Gannon are called to the scene of a hit and run accident. An elderly couple (a woman age 68 and a man 73) are hit and killed instantly by a hit and run driver.When they arrive at the scene, they interview several witnesses to the accident. While none agree to the actual make and model of the car, all agree that it was a dark blue sedan. Later that day, Friday decides to give all information about the accident to the newspapers, radio and television; hoping this will assist them in tracking down the suspect.Several days pass, and the detectives receive a call from a woman who lived directly across the street from where the crash occurred. When they arrive at the home to interview her, she tells them where to find (what she believes to be) the hit and run vehicle. When Friday and Gannon examine the car, they find it is not a blue sedan.The next day, the two finally receive a break. The owner of an auto body shop informs them he had replaced a windshield in a dark blue 1964 Lincoln sedan the previous evening. They learn from the gentleman that the car is registered to a Clayton R. Fillmore. The police take the shattered winshield to use as evidence.The detectives decide to pay a call on the Fillmore home where they find Mrs. Fillmore, appearing a little upset. She informs them that her husband was at work; she and he had been experiencing marital problems, and she was on her way to speak to her attorney about a divorce.Next, Joe and Bill visit Fillmore's workplace where, they coincidently find Mr. Fillmore speaking with his attorney. Clayton Fillmore is placed under arrest for two counts of fellony manslaughter and one count of leaving the scene of an accident. His automobile is also taken as evidence. Showing little remorse, Fillmore is released on bail. When the court date arrives, Fillmore is fined $250 and placed on probation. Friday and Gannon leave the court room a little frustrated.About six months pass, and Joe and Bill are informed of another fatal accident. This time, two teenage girls are killed. When they arrive at the scene, they learn the the driver of the impact vehicle was Clayton R. Fillmore.The detectives rush to the hospital and speak to the doctor there. He informs them that Mr. Fillmore was under heavy sedation and could not be talked to. Mrs. Fillmore was in silghtly better condition; she was suffering from contusions and traumatic shock but could be seen briefly. Mrs. Fillmore, seeming very distraught, informs them that she dropped the divorce hoping her husband would straighten out. She also tells them that her husband had two drinks before he left his office and would be losing both his legs as a result of the accident!! She tearfully tells Friday: "he was in a hurry Sargaent." to which Friday sadly replies: "he won't be anymore."In the end, Clayton R. Fillmore is charged with two (more) counts of fellony manslaughter and is sentenced to five to ten years in prison. Because of his permanent disability as a result of the accident, however, sentence was suspended. He was also forbidden to ever drive a motor vehicle again as long as he lived; despite the fact that artificial limbs would have enabled him to do so.
14The Subscription Racket
15The Gun
Friday becomes emotionally involved in a rape-murder case of a Japanese-American war widow, especially after he sees how beautiful she was and after he finds out that she left a young daughter behind. Also, their might be a connection with the rape of another woman the previous night. Now Friday and Gannon must search for the rapist before he strikes again.
16The Big Kids
A teenage shoplifting gang is targeting a group of stores. It turns out the kids belong to a club, The Mod Squad, which requires them to steal $20 in clothes. Friday and Gannon go to the high school to talk to the boys before they get into more trouble.
17The Bullet
Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of homicide when they respond to a late night call at the house of Jessie Gaynor. Her daughter Nora Hamlin is staying with her due to a separation from her husband. The call involves a gunshot heard from a locked study where Carl Hamlin's body is discovered. It is assumed at first that he killed himself but when Ray Murray from SID tells them that the bullet doesn't match the gun it turns into a murder case.
1The Grenade
Friday and Gannon are working out of the juvenile division when they get called to a movie theater to investigate an attack on a high school student who had acid thrown on his back. The suspect is another boy named Gerald Paulson, who is emotionally disturbed. Later, Gerald has an argument with his stepfather and runs out of the house carrying a live hand grenade. Eventually, Friday and Gannon trail him to a house where a girl he attends high school with is throwing a party and he is holding them hostage and threatening to pull the pin. It is now up to the two detectives to get the grenade out of his hands before he kills himself and seriously wounds several other people.
2The Shooting Board
Following an exhaustive day of work on varied homicide cases, Friday and Gannon go home for the night. Finding he is out of cigarettes, Joe goes to a nearby laundrette. Upon entering he notices a young man with a coathanger trying to pry open a coin changer. Friday identifies himself as a policeman and orders the man to stop; the man whips around and fires a shot that misses Joe. Joe shoots the man in the shoulder as his girlfriend runs in and hustles him to their car and speed off into the night. Friday phones headquarters and eventually a shooting team, Lieutenant Pierce Brooks and Lieutenant Dan Bowser, arrives to interview Joe. He describes the incident, but when they check the wall no bullet is found, just a wooden shelf. Friday becomes concerned as the next morning the investigation begins centering on him.The young man he shot is soon found and identified as Arthur Ashton, a young reprobate, and his girlfriend is identified as Marianne Smith, but the gun they find has been drowned in oil and thus of no use as evidence. Ashton dies of his injury and Marianne Smith hysterically blames Friday.A shooting board of inquiry is summoned and Friday makes his case, while Pierce Brooks and Dan Bowser cite their own investigation to the board. As no bullet can be found to corroborate Friday's story, Joe faces suspension from the force and possibly worse, until Brooks and Bowser, continuing to investigate the laundrette, make a startling discovery.
4The Bank Jobs
A bank robber kidnaps women and uses them by force to help him pull his armed robberies.
8The Big High
Friday and Gannon are assigned to Narcotics. An elderly businessman, concerned about the welfare of his grandchild, informs them that his daughter and son-in-law are using marijuana regularly. They make no apologies for their lifestyle and the officers' hands are legally tied, but the couple's refusal to listen leads to a terrible conclusion.
9The Big Ad
Steven Deal, a reformed criminal who works for a potter, had put in an advertisement for work, saying he'll do anything for $1,000. He has gotten back a cryptic response that requires him to resubmit the ad to make a killing. Suspicious that the response involves murder for hire, Deal has contacted the police, wanting to go straight and stay there. Friday and Gannon, deciding Deal is legitimate, stake out his apartment with Friday posing as Deal. Friday thus gets a phone call that tells him to drive to a deserted street for a meet. Driving Deal's car, Friday meets with a mysterious man who wants him to get a locket from his wife - a locket she wears everyday and thus requires her to be killed. Friday agrees, but first the man has him wait for additional calls from him before the murder can be carried out.The man makes calls to Deal/Friday and leaves phone book pages in the front seat of his car with certain addresses circled. Friday drives to all of them to prove his bona fides to the man. Gannon has him tailed and he is soon identified as Harvey Forrester, but they have nothing in the way of actual evidence. Finally, after many days of this runaround, Friday gets a phone book page with Forrester's address circled as well as a phone call telling him what to do and where payment will be found. Gannon and other police stake out Forrester's house and see Forrester hidden inside, intending to kill an intruder who has killed his wife.
12The Pyramid Swindle
Bonnie Bates is keeping her late husband's lucrative pyramid scheme alive by selling ten-year memberships in his "Dollar-Wise" buying club for $199.99. Friday and Gannon arrest her and she goes on trial where the jury seems to be on her side until they hear how many members are required for the scheme to work.
13The Phony Police Racket
15The Christmas Story
Friday and Gannon investigate the theft of a statue of the baby Jesus from a church's nativity scene on Christmas Eve. The figure itself has little monetary value. Father Xavier Rojas explains this Jesus statue has been at the church for decades and has great sentimental value to the parishioners. The detectives pursue a lead but come up empty. As they return to Father Rojas, a small boy is pulling a wagon with the statue in it. The boy had prayed for a new wagon and promised the baby Jesus the first ride if he received it. The episode is a remake of "The Big Little Baby Jesus" from the original series, with three cast members (in addition to Jack Webb) reprising their original roles.
16The Big Shipment
The crash of a small aircraft offers Friday and Gannon an opportunity. Inside the plane officers discover marijuana and heroin with a total street value over a million. If they can find the pilot, and get the drop location from him, they may be able to follow the chain of criminals to the very top. But they only have five hours: after that the criminals will realize their shipment is missing and disappear. Canvassing neighborhoods at 1:45am eventually puts them onto the pilot, but he won't cooperate. Of course, as Friday reminds him, when he fails to make his shipment on time his criminal bosses are likely to be murderously unhappy. His insurance plan - an article in the newspaper about the crash - won't help him, since Friday has persuaded the news hounds to withhold that item. Stuck, he puts them onto the drop site, and that leads them to the pick up men. If they can get the pick up men to talk, they might just cage the top dog.
17The Big Search
Friday and Gannon search for a couple of little girls who were reported missing by their mother. They search all over the neighborhood looking in every house and garage, especially an abandoned refrigerator. They also question a recently paroled child molester. They also talk to the girls' father, who was put out by the girls' mother after his drinking got out of hand. Eventually, they question a cocktail waitress who lived next door and who may hold the key to what happened to the girls.
20The Starlet
Friday and Gannon are asked by a woman from Oregon to try to find her niece who has run away from home. Their search eventually leads them into the world of pornography and they soon become involved in the arrest of a pornographer who may have info on where she might be located.
23The Squeeze
On a rain-soaked November night Friday and Gannon bring George Fox downtown for questioning. Fox is a Mob enforcer who's been questioned numerous times for various criminal acts in the past five years but has been able to beat the rap each time. Friday begins the interrogation by showing Fox a photo of a man named Paul Carter. Fox claims to have never heard of Carter and is completely confident in himself. But when Friday shows another photo of Fox talking to Carter, Fox is noticably shaken but puts on a smooth act by suddenly remembering he had partnered up with Carter over a year earlier for a nightclub, but turned down Carter's proposal since he can't get a liquor license.Friday then explains how Carter founded his nightclub and drove home a drunken executive named Tom Tracy weeks ago, but then turned up in Tracy's office claiming that Tracy had signed off on handing over two percent of his company to Carter. Carter was scared, claiming he was being set up to be killed by the Mob if Tracy didn't agree to the deal. Tracy, though, stood his ground in not agreeing to the deal, and had asked the police to wiretap his office and bug his phone should Carter turn up again - which he did a few days later, this time phoning his boss (Fox) who talked to Tracy and threatened to blow his head off if he didn't sign off to Carter. Days after that another stranger - who the police suspect is Fox's boss Jack Rock - phoned Tracy to reinforce the threat, saying Fox and Carter had been bypassed and to give up two percent of his company or else.Fox, amid all this, refuses to back down, until Friday shows him printouts from a voiceprint machine of his voice from a previous interrogation and a printout from the phone call he had with Tom Tracy - printouts that leave no objective doubt to Fox's role in the extortion of Tracy.In the epilogue we learn that Fox explained what happened to Paul Carter but that he refused to implicate Jack Rock or anyone else in the attempted extortion of Tom Tracy, and was eventually sentenced to death.
3Community Relations: DR-10
4Management Services: DR-11
On an April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennesee. With riots erupting all over the United States, the Los Angeles Police Department braces for worse case scenarios such as rioting and bomb threats. Friday and Gannon are assigned to the command post and monitor the situation from there and wait for the first sign of trouble. However, as the weekend progresses Friday notes that Los Angeles is quieter than normal and that many of the people are doing their best to remember that Dr. King stood for peace.
5Police Commission: DR-13
Complaints are being received by the L.A.P.D. from people who are being made to pay inflated prices by a "Wildcat" tow truck driver (a "Wildcatter" is a tow company who is not endorsed by the LAPD and cruise the highways looking for people who are broken down hoping to make a quick buck). The tow company focused on has generated six complaints in one month. In one, the tow driver tows the car of a lady who speaks no English and makes her sign a blank contract. In another a driver runs into a telephone pole while driving drunk and so agrees to a 250.00 tow bill to get it towed before the police can show up. Friday and Gannon investigate further and find out the two owners are ex-convicts, and have been operating under a false permit. As a result of these complaints, the LAPD decides to start an official sanctioning body for tow companies.
12Internal Affairs: DR-20
13Community Relations: DR-17
14Homicide: DR-22
While investigating the murder of a pretty young career girl, Friday and Gannon meet a little old man named Calvin Lampe who is more than a little interested in their investigation. In fact, he even is looked at as a suspect because of his attention to every detail in the case. However, the two detectives are in for a big shock when they find out that Mr. Lampe is a retired chief of detectives and that he is a good friend of their boss, Captain Hugh Brown. Lampe's know how and good old fashioned detective work are a big help as Joe and Bill try to solve a very difficult case.
17Administrative Vice: DR-29
19Juvenile Division: DR-19
21Vice: DR-30
Friday and Gannon go undercover at a hotel to find the location of an unlawful gambling operation. Soon after spreading the word they're looking for some action they are driven to a late-night game in the Hollywood Hills. After the game the detectives give the location of the residence to their boss and a raid is set for the following night.
23Juvenile: DR-32
Friday and Gannon have less than two hours to find the dog that bit a little girl five days earlier. Normally, treatment consists of serum injections followed by vaccine inoculations, but in this case the girl is highly allergic to the anti-rabies serum and it could kill her.
1Personnel: The Shooting
1970 episode. Two Los Angeles police patrolmen, one a 23 year veteran the other an 11-month probationary officer, happen upon a liquor store armed robbery at 5pm on a Friday. Both police officers are shot and critically wounded, one of the two robbers is shot, the other is still at large. The three are brought into the emergency medical facilities at "Central", we are told that Central takes care of all injured policemen. Friday and Gannon are in the Personnel Department, talking about injury investigations and the "floral fund" [Friday & Gannon are obviously meant to be combination characters, because they are always workng some different detail, robbery, fraud, whatever, but Personnel ????]. They meet a Sgt MacDonald at Central, who fills them in on the shooting. Sgt MacDonald is actor William Boyett, a character actor that you would recognize from dozens of minor parts in TV and the movies, lots of cops and cowboys, he must have made a solid upper middle class living on the consistent parts he had over the decades. The majority of the show involves how our heros go to the hospital, and their interaction with the matter-of-fact surgeon, and the two distraught wives. One of the women, Virginia Miller, is "a veteran wife of a veteran policeman", and her own 23 year old son is a new police officer. She delivers a down to earth solliliguy on the nobleness of police work, from the perspective of her husband's reasons for being an officer. The other woman, Victoria Cartwright, is a young, plain-jane wife, who never wanted her husband to become a policeman, she feels men who become policemen must be stupid, that a wife should not be left at home with the children all day, she hates the police department, etc. We get medical reports, wives' reactions, details on the surgery, and the results.
6Juvenile: The Little Pusher
7Homicide: Cigarette Butt
9Burglary Auto: Courtroom
10Internal Affairs: Parolee
11Burglary Auto: Juvenile Genius
13Narcotics: Missing Hype
14Burglary: Helpful Woman
15Homicide: Who Killed Who?
17A.I.D.: The Weekend
It's Friday evening, Bill's wife is out of town and Joe has agreed to spend the weekend with him for some R & R, starting with a little pinochle with two neighbors. The next day the partners plan to "sleep in, watch the ball game on the tube, and have a dinner fit for kings. We're gonna live like sultans for two days, without harems, of course." What could go wrong with this plan?
19Burglary: The Dognappers
Brought to their attention by a member of the Department of Animal Regulation, and with an okay from the Captain, Friday and Gannon investigate a rash of reports of lost dogs from a shopping center. Since only one lost dog had been previously reported from the same area, Friday and Gannon suspect criminal activity.
20Missing Persons: The Body
21Forgery: The Ranger
A forest ranger is brought in when checks and credit cards bearing other names than his own are found in his possession after he is stopped for a traffic violation. Even though he seems to be knowledgeable on the subject of forestry, his answers about the cards and checks lead Friday and Gannon to suspect he is a thief just posing as a ranger.
22D.H.Q.: Night School
Friday arrests a fellow student after their night school class and incurs the wrath of Professor Grant, who expels him after a vote of the other students at their next meeting. Friday demands a chance to plead his case to the students before a second vote is taken. Grant says he must garner 2/3 of the votes to be reinstated.
23I.A.D.: The Receipt
Friday and Gannon are assigned to investigate Norm Bivins and Earl Malone, veteran homicide investigators accused of stealing $800 from a dead man. Agnes Emerson, who handled the man's business affairs, claims she gave Bivins and Malone his personal property, including $1000. They say the amount received was $200. Unfortunately, neither side can produce a receipt.
24Robbery: The Harassing Wife
As Friday and Gannon investigate a series of robberies, a vindictive woman, Jean Sawyer, makes a pest of herself by calling headquarters repeatedly to accuse her husband of the thefts. The detectives investigate John Sawyer and find no evidence against him, but the man responsible for three of the robberies is found and arrested.
