Adam-12 – ‘Log 122: Christmas – The Yellow Dump Truck’ (1968) / ‘Christmas’ (1974)

               After “Dragnet” went off the air in 1959 Jack Webb and his Mark VII Productions fell into a bit of a lull. They’d managed to get a number of other shows briefly on the air, such as “The D.A.’s Man” and “Pete Kelly’s Blues," but none of them lasted more than a single season. Webb himself was briefly an executive producer for the anthology show “GE True” in 1962, and then just as briefly acted as head of Warner Bros. Television starting in February of 1963. Many of the changes he made, such as completely overhauling “77 Sunset Strip” for it sixth season leading to its cancellation, were disastrous and he was considered officially out of touch with the emerging cultural consensus. In 1965 he was approached by Universal Pictures to produce a “Dragnet” television movie, the resulting film turning out so well that NBC decided to revive the series, possibly the first time a show was resurrected after its initial run. In order to develop the series Webb contacted Robert A. Cinader for help as he knew him from this time at Warner Bros. While they developed the show Cinader pitched Mark VII on a related series that would focus on beat cops on their day-to-day patrols. This synced well with Webb’s own sensibilities and lead to the creation of “Adam-12.”

              The premise of the show was simple: follow around a patrol car with low-lever officers as they went on their daily routine. ‘1-Adam-12’is the radio call sign for their car, and although that wasn’t a real call sign it was in the correct LAPD format as this show prided itself on its accuracy and verisimilitude as much as any of Webb’s other productions. The cases were once again drawn from the files of the LAPD and once again the relationship between the show and the higher ups in the police was tight and mutually beneficial. To give some idea as late as 2003 the LAPD resurrected the 1-Adam-12 call sign for officers who had demonstrated “outstanding duty performance.” They hadn’t forgotten the service Webb and his shows performed for them.

              The cast remained largely static for the entire seven-season run. The main cast members were Martin Milner as Pete Malloy and Kent McCord and Jim Reed. Malloy was the veteran, introduced in the pilot as having just lost his partner and considering retirement when he’s partnered up with the rookie Reed. The first two seasons were non-chronological, jumping around in time but gradually depicting a thaw between the more by-the-books Malloy and the more empathetic Reed. All of the episodes in these seasons started with a seemingly random ‘log’ number. This was dropped for the third and subsequent seasons as slowly the show began developing the characters. The two central chracters would slowly achieve advancement over the course of the series, with Malloy ending up as a Sergeant and Reed ending the series applying to be a detective. Their private lives were occasionally mentioned but almost never intruded upon the episodes themselves.

              Again we have a dramatic police procedural with episodes only lasting half an hour, but unlike the structure of “Dragnet,” where they consider an individual case each episode, “Adam-12” is almost picaresque in nature. Since the show is following beat cops they don’t investigate cases or follow up on leads, they simply patrol and interact with the public as they come across them. They wander from incident to incident either by stumbling across something on their patrol or by answering calls from their dispatcher. There’s usually a small runner through the episodes, a problem or situation that’s introduced at the beginning and usually resolved by the end, but there are anywhere from three to seven or so other smaller incidents over the course of the half hour. To pick an episode at random, here’s the IMDB summary for season 4, episode 14: “Woman reports a pickup truck bumped her car. When she stopped, they stole her purse. On patrol they spot a stopped car with the hood up. Driver says his engine over heated but a stakeout shows him meeting with a counterfeiter. A call about loud noise results in a citizen chewing out the officers. A scuffle at a food drive-in results in the arrest of a man for outstanding warrants. A cruise by the house with noise turns up the pickup and two men who robbed the woman.” This structure doesn’t change for something small like the holidays.

See? Everyone got along fine in 1968.

              The show only did two Christmas episodes, one in the first season and one in the last. Other than the actors having visibly aged and the model of the car changing there’s not a whole lot to demonstrate that six years have passed in between episodes, even though 1968 and 1975 were very different years. One big change from “Dragnet” is that this show is in color, which underlines how bright and sunny Christmas in Los Angeles usually is. Despite the Christmas decorations everywhere and a running plotline in both episodes that are specifically about getting ready for the holiday it’s somewhat surreal to watch everyone wandering around in short sleeves in December.

              The show’s first Christmas episode was in its first year and so the show was still finding its feet somewhat. The episode opens in a way that “Hill Street Blues” would later steal, namely by showing the briefing given to the officers at the start of their shift. They wrap up the assignments by reminding everyone to grab a few bags of presents as they’ll be distributing them to specific needy families over the course of their shifts. We see Malloy and Reed stop by the first of their families, an apparent single mom with two kids. It’s very odd to see a tv show set in LA just three years after the Watts riots for a couple of cops to show up at the house of a Black family and have a young girl happily announce back over her shoulder, “Mom, the cops are here!” While they’re waiting for the mom to come out they have a brief conversation with her little boy, who proudly announces that he’s going to get a yellow dump truck for Christmas. They try to gently suggest some of the toys they know they have in their car but he’s having none of it. When the mom finally comes out she asks if she can meet them later in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store so the surprise isn’t ruined for the kids. Since these are fictional cops they readily agree and continue on with their day. This is the runner for the episode.

              Malloy and Reed have a fascinating little conversation in the car about the dump truck. They know they don’t have one in the donated toys, so Reed starts to suggest that they buy the kid one. Malloy scoffs at the suggestion and shuts it down instantly. In the next scene they’re distributing more toys and Malloy feels the need to justify his decision. He tells Reed, “You can’t let yourself get bent out of shape every time you see somebody unhappy in this job. You get involved up to a point, beyond that you go screaming up the walls.” This is a decently complicated point, acknowledging their duty to serve the public while maintaining boundaries that allows them to maintain their professionalism and own well-being. It’s about the dumbest way I’ve heard that idea expressed and I don’t think I’m going to shock anybody when I reveal that over the next few scenes Malloy grudgingly gives in to his better impulses and chips in with Reed for the dump truck.

Some things are always funny.

              They meet up with the mom in the parking lot and transfer the toys. Next up they’re driving around when they come across an obviously drunk driver weaving his way over both sides of the road in the middle of a subdivision. They follow at a safe distance and tell him to pull over several times, then he finally crashes harmlessly into a bush. The entire scenario is played for laughs as the driver is a Red Skelton-style cartoon drunk. They haul him down to the station where they have him breath into this huge breathalyzer machine, which apparently wasn’t portable back in those days. It’s an opportunity for hijinks at the precinct. After they get him booked they start heading out but run into the mom from before, who’s there reporting her car stolen. The cops are crestfallen that the toys were still in the car. They check with a clearly overworked guy from the traffic detail who gives them a couple of tips of where to look but cautions them not to get their hopes up.

              As night falls they’re called to a domestic disturbance call, which decades of reality cop shows have taught us are some of the most dangerous and fraught kind of calls but which here is again played for laughs. A couple argues sitcom style about their spending habits and Christmas traditions and just as the cops put together an O. Henry style happy ending by persuading both of them to open their presents to each other it kicks off again and the scene fades out like a commercial break in a sitcom. As they’re driving away from the scene they hear over the radio that another couple of cops have found the stolen car, so the final scene of the episode is Malloy and Reed persuading the cop in charge of the case that they don’t need to hold onto the toys as evidence and get them released in time for the kid to enjoy his yellow dump truck. We don’t actually get the scene where they return the toys to the grateful family but it’s still a happy ending.

              The next episode is a full six seasons later and with such a large time jump we can see the plot escalation bloat in full swing. The format of the show is the same and the cops haven’t changed their characters. The thing that’s most obviously different is that the show has swapped a 1968 Plymouth Belvedere for a 1972 AMC Matador. And while the half-hour picaresque structure is still the same we have a radically different set of interactions with the public.

The 70's was a rougher time for our boys.

We get our episode runner over with first, as the officers are called to a noise complaint. A nice old guy is sat out on his lawn practicing the bagpipes because it’s too warm inside. He says he’s getting ready for the Christmas party at the local retirement community that’s going to be shut down soon. They persuade him to go inside and give him a tip about a local Christmas tree lot where he can get a good deal. Once that crisis is handled they get a call about a delivery van stolen from a nearby warehouse. When they get their the owner is in a near-panic as the van was hauling radioactive material for hospital use, but it can be fatal if someone removes the materials from their protective casings. This is a pretty big step up a cartoon drunk driver. An offscreen helicopter soon spots the van abandoned by one of LA’s empty rivers and when they get there the thieves are gone along with one of the containers. They quickly track them down to a storm drain and arrest them at gunpoint. After that they’re right back on the street because apparently paperwork on the theft of radioactive materials isn’t particularly urgent.

After they thwart possible terrorists there’s a comedy scene of a guy who’s spotted siphoning gas out of his own car to hide the fact that he smells like his mistresses’ perfume. After that they swing by the Christmas tree lot and help the bagpipe guy from before snag a cheap tree. Reed wants to use the patrol car to help him deliver the tree to the retirement home, even letting the guy from the lot mount the tree on the car, but Malloy says absolutely not. As they’re arguing they get a call about a robbery and they tear the tree from the roof in their haste.

They get to the liquor store after the robber has already left and as they’re getting details a sniper starts shooting at them from a nearby rooftop. As they’re taking cover the guy’s wife runs out sobbing, begging them not to kill her husband, who’s apparently depressed. After some back and forth they take the guy into custody without bloodshed. As they’re wrapping that up their boss swings by not to congratulate them on recovering stolen radioactive materials or bringing in a rogue sniper but to chide them about getting spotted with the Christmas tree on the roof of their car. Once that comedic scene is over we get a rare glimpse of the cops in their civies as they go back to the tree lot after their shift is over to deliver the tree to the retirement community. The episode ends in a bright, sunny fashion as they both haul the tree into the Christmas party to the sound of bagpipes.

Look at what they took from us.

By modern standards this is an incredibly strange show. Leaving aside the half-hour format there just aren’t these kind of vignette-style shows where every episode simply features a day in the life of the main characters. Sometimes a longer-running show with break these out as a kind of palette cleanser, and opportunity to dig into the characters without having to worry about larger, longer-running storylines. With any other cop cop the theft of radioactive materials or a random sniper would be the focus of the entire episodes, not maybe a third of one between them. In addition to a desire to merely entertain the shows clearly had a propaganda purpose, showing cops and helpful and professional, people able to be relied upon. In both episodes the cops end up paying a little bit out of their own pockets to help members of the community out of the goodness of their own hearts. This kind of naivete was already strained when the show started in 1968, it overwhelmed most people’s ability to suspend disbelief by 1974 and it’s hardly surprising that the show ended at the end of its seventh season. I think that’s why the plots started to get so ludicrous, they had to keep people’s attention somehow.

Outside of the deliberate propaganda underlying the show’s portrayal of its hero cops, it’s not a bad show. The characters are unrealistically nice but they are pleasant to spend some time with and it’s nice to pretend every once in a while that the police could be friendly and helpful. It took me forever to realize where I recognized both actors from: Martin Milner played an evil lawyer in 1960’s ‘Thirteen Ghosts,’ and Kent McCord played John Crichton’s dad in “Farscape.” They’re both fine in these roles and it’s enjoyable to spend half an hour with them. The shows leans a little bit into how surreal Christmas in LA can be and it doesn’t take itself very seriously. It’s a much less intense show than “Dragnet” and I can see how it would be pleasant to sit on a couch in 1971 and let the antics wash over you.