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A sample of the short-lived comedy series The Jack Webb Show, which ran in 1946. The series was written by Richard Breen, who would later write Pat Novak For Hire.

#Jack Webb #Richard Breen #The Jack Webb Show #Old Time Radio #OTR #Golden Age of Radio

Webb Covers the Waterfront

"Her hair was red, and her eyes were about as cold as rigor mortis. And you knew the first time you met her, you’d been seeing her too often." (Pat Novak For Hire)

Jack Webb will be forever etched in pop culture as Sgt. Joe Friday, the no-nonsense, “just the facts,” cop he played for over two decades on radio and TV in Dragnet. But before Webb developed and starred in that groundbreaking procedural, he found radio success as a very different kind of radio detective - a hard-boiled detective series featuring the purplest prose this side of a pulp novel and a character whose defining trait was his cynicism - Pat Novak For Hire.

The series (billed as “one of radio’s most unusual programs” during its national ABC run) was the brainchild of Webb and longtime collaborator Richard Breen. The two met at ABC’s San Francisco affiliate, KGO, and became fast friends and eventual roommates. Webb was a jack (no pun intended) of all trades at the station, acting as a disc jockey, news anchor, and a comedian (almost impossible for those who know Webb solely as Joe Friday to imagine). Webb was already developing his signature downbeat style, a naturalistic approach to acting that wasn’t showy or flashy. And Breen knew exactly how to write for Webb’s voice. KGO had holes to fill in its schedule, and they turned to Webb and Breen to develop programming. Detective shows were lighting up the radio dial, and Pat Novak, the waterfront sleuth who rented boats and took cases to supplement his income, was born.

Like other radio gumshoes, Novak was frequently fingered for the crimes he investigated, most often by the officious Inspector Hellman. Novak’s only friend (if you could call him that) was Jocko Madigan, an ex-doctor turned booze hound who could be found on a bar stool dispensing advice in between sips. Novak’s worldview was bleak and cynical; nobility didn’t keep him in this racket; it was the need for a paycheck and room and board. He trusted his clients as long as their money was good, but he wasn’t about to stick his neck out for anybody even if they were paying his fee. And along the way, he delivered some of the most purple narration ever heard on radio. Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade only flirted with lines like these…”She sauntered in, moving slowly from side to side like a hundred and eighteen pounds of warm smoke.”

The series premiered on KGO over ABC’s West Coast network in 1946 and was a big hit. Listeners hadn’t heard a detective like Novak before and they tuned in to his adventures in big numbers. For reasons that remain unclear, Webb and Breen left the series and KGO in 1947. Some think the star and writer got too big for their britches and made demands that the network was unwilling to accommodate. Whatever the reason, Webb and Breen left ABC and KGO and quickly set up shop at Mutual with the very similar series Johnny Madero, Pier 23. Mutual had a national network and it was Webb’s first exposure to audiences outside of the West Coast. Stepping into Novak’s waterfront office on KGO was actor Ben Morris, who did an admirable job of retaining the wry, cynical attitude Webb brought to the character. Audiences, however, missed the signature downbeat Webb method (like Rod Serling, Jack Webb has a cadence and style that is easy to imitate but hard to duplicate), and ratings for Pat Novak took a tumble. The series left the air in January 1948.

ABC brought Pat Novak back in 1949 for a run over its entire network. Richard Breen was back as writer, and Jack Webb returned as Novak. His profile had increased in the year he spent away from the character. In 1948, Webb starred as another popular hard-boiled gumshoe on CBS in Jeff Regan, Investigator. Supporting Webb in this new series were Tudor Owen as Jocko Madigan and Raymond Burr (a few years away from his own pop culture immortality as Perry Mason) as Inspector Hellman. William Rousseau, who would later direct Jeff Chandler as Michael Shayne, directed the 1949 run. The new Novak series maintained the quality of the original KGO run, but even in top form the new Pat Novak wasn’t destined for a long run. Webb already had his sights set on his next project - a police procedural to be produced with the cooperation of the Los Angeles Police Department. When Webb left to start Dragnet on NBC, ABC folded the tent on Pat Novak. The short-lived Ben Morris run demonstrated that Novak without Webb would (to borrow an expression from Patsy himself) go over like Mother’s Day in an orphanage.

Like Bill Rousseau’s New Adventures of Michael Shayne with Jeff Chandler (featured in Episode 11), Pat Novak For Hire is just tongue in cheek enough to have fun with the hard-boiled conventions of the private eye without devolving into parody. The Breen scripts are tight and Webb’s delivery sells the colorful lines while maintaining a real sense of dramatic tension. If you only know Jack Webb as the all-business paragon of virtue Sgt. Joe Friday, it might be time to take a trip down to Pier 19 on the waterfront and hire Pat Novak.

In Episode 19 of our podcast, “As Deserted as a Warm Bottle of Beer,” we’ll hear Jack Webb as Pat Novak in “Sam Tolliver,” first aired on ABC on April 23, 1949.

Click here to download the episode.

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WORKS CONSULTED:

"The Definitive Pat Novak For Hire Radio Log." The Digital Deli. http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Pat-Novak-for-Hire.html

#Pat Novak For Hire #Jack Webb #Richard Breen #OTR #Old Time Radio #Detectives