Joe Friday

I was watching some of the trump coup hearings on CNN and during one of the breaks a group of people were doing some talking and analysis of the events. One of the talking heads referred to one of the person's testifying publicly before the committee under oath as needing to have a "Joe Friday" moment on the stand. Then she immediately turned to the younger folks on the panel then said she would explain the comment to them later. I knew exactly what she was talking about and immediately got the reference.

Of course Joe Friday was the fictional detective character on the show Dragnet played by the actor Jack Webb. In the show Detective Friday was known for uttering the phrase in every episode "just the facts ma'am". 

Dragnet was originally a radio show that moved to television in 1951. It then ran until 1959 as a black and white series. I remember some of the later seasons of that first run. I was a little kid but someone in the house liked the show. Probably Nana and Grandpop. The show came back in color in 1967 and ran until 1970. I remember it was a big thing when it came back on the air after almost a decade and that first episode was an event. It was crazy too and about young people on LSD. I remember that particular show well. Friday's partner in the new show was played by Harry Morgan and was very popular. I watched the first couple of seasons of the new show but I was out most of the time during the later years although I did see a lot of the shows in reruns years later.

The famous phrase is actually a misquote. The closes he ever got to saying the phrase was "all we want are the facts, ma'am". The famous phrase came from a comedian doing a play on Dragnet.