Calling All Cars radio show (1933-1939, United States)

Episode time

30 minutes

Language

English

Calling All Cars was one of the early shows that gave inspiration to today police procedural dramas - instead of creating brilliant detective to solve all the cases the show concentrated on reenactment of true cases that Los Angeles Police Department have dealt with. Of course it is the official version that they were true cases, to make it more realistic the creators chose Chief James E. Davis of LAPD to be the host of the show, but of course there is no way to check if they really were true cases.

Each episode was a different case with different characters and different casts (the cast members were usually uncredited) and the story covered the case from moment police got involved to the moment the culprit was arrested or even sentenced. Although the show wasn’t a great drama it gave the inspiration to later shows like Dragnet, or even today shows like Law & Order.