Adam-12

Adam-12
Adam-12 title screen, season 4.
Format	Police procedural
Created by	Jack Webb
Starring	Martin Milner Kent McCord
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	174 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jack Webb
Running time	30 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Picture format	NTSC
Audio format	Mono
Original run	September 21, 1968 (1968-09-21) – May 20, 1975 (1975-05-20)

Adam-12 is a television police drama which followed two police officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, Pete Malloy and Jim Reed, as they patrolled the streets of Los Angeles in their patrol unit, 1-Adam-12. Created by Jack Webb who is known for creating Dragnet, the series captured a typical day in the life of a police officer as realistically as possible. The show ran from 1968 through 1975, and helped introduce police procedures and jargon to the general public in the United States of America.

Premise

Adam-12 was a realistic style police drama following the lives of two officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, veteran Pete Malloy and his rookie partner, Jim Reed. Each episode of the series covered a variety of incidents that the officers encountered during a shift, from the tragic to the trivial.

In the series' first episode (filmed in September 1967, a year before the pilot was picked up), Reed is less than a week removed from graduating from the prestigious Los Angeles Police Academy, and is eager to begin his career. Shortly earlier, Malloy's patrol partner had been killed in an attempt to apprehend an armed robbery suspect; Malloy is deeply saddened to the effect that he plans to resign the force. On what is to be Malloy's last night on patrol, the captain assigns Malloy to take the young, raw, rookie Reed out for his first night on the job. While Reed shows tremendous potential on his first night on the job, Malloy realizes that his new partner has plenty to learn, and with renewed purpose, the veteran officer decides to stay on the job and guide Reed during his nine-month probationary period.

(Actually, viewers had been introduced to the character of Reed during the 1967-1968 season of Dragnet. McCord—credited as playing Officer Reed—had appeared in several episodes, alongside other veteran officers who were neither seen nor referred to when Adam-12 was picked up. It is unclear whether the character of Reed was still in the academy and riding along as a training exercise, or was a rookie at this point.)

Reed's rookie term is played out during the first two seasons, after which he is promoted to a full officer. Both Reed and Malloy remain beat partners.

In later seasons, Malloy and Reed began patrolling other areas of Los Angeles, including the L.A. International Airport, the Los Angeles Harbor, the Foothill District, the West Valley area, Venice, Van Nuys, Hollywood and North Hollywood. With Reed no longer a rookie, several episodes featured the officers working with other rookie officers, with guest actors playing these one-time characters; some episodes had Reed serving as the training officer, while Malloy worked as the watch officer.

Malloy and Reed reported to Sgt. William "Mac" McDonald (William Boyett). Several of their fellow officers were recurring characters; the most frequent were Jerry Woods (Fred Stromsoe) and Ed Wells (Gary Crosby). Shaaron Claridge, a real-life LAPD dispatcher, was the dispatcher.

The personal lives of Malloy and Reed come up on occasion, and are always tied into their duties. Malloy is a bachelor who has at least two girlfriends during the course of the series the last being Judy (Aneta Corsaut); Reed is married to Jean, and they have two children, and one of their births (off-camera) is a major part of the plot of the Season 2 episode "Baby."

Cultural impact

Adam-12 was the first TV series to more realistically portray the satisfactions and frustrations of being a police officer in the late 1960s through middle 1970s. This "new" attention to detail made the show a catalyst for uncounted numbers of people to enter law enforcement agencies when they became adults, the same way COPS has done since 1989.^{[citation needed]}

Other notable actors and actresses

In the Million Dollar Buff episode, (Season 4, Episode 2), Lindsay Wagner stars as Jenny Carson, jewellery store attendant and Ed Begley Jr. stars as Bud, the mistaken punk.

DVD releases

Main article: List of Adam-12 episodes

Universal Studios Home Entertainment released Season 1 of Adam 12 on DVD in Region 1 on August 23, 2005.

In fall 2008, Shout! Factory acquired the distribution rights through an agreement with Universal. They have subsequently released seasons 2-5. Season 6 will be released on January 17, 2012. The seventh and final season will be released on April 10, 2012.

In Region 4, Umbrella Entertainment has released the first two seasons on DVD in Australia.

DVD name	Ep #	Release date
		Region 1	Region 4
Season 1	26	August 23, 2005	May 11, 2011
Season 2	26	September 30, 2008	August 3, 2011
Season 3	26	August 11, 2009	TBA
Season 4	24	February 23, 2010	TBA
Season 5	24	August 10, 2010	TBA
Season 6	24	January 17, 2012	TBA
Season 7	24	April 10, 2012	TBA

External links

• The Official Kent McCord Archives: Adam-12
• Adam-12 at the Internet Movie Database
• Adam-12 at TV.com
• Adam-12 at TVguide