Compare and contrast.

When I was young, I was a big fan of “Highway Patrol“. No, I didn’t watch it first run: I’m not that old. One of the Houston UHF stations aired it.

“Highway Patrol” started popping up in my YouTube recommendations, and I’ve been watching episodes occasionally. This episode came up yesterday, and I watched it last night. (I’d already seen the “Most Shocking”.)

What struck me when I was watching was: it is an interesting contrast to this Dragnet 1967 episode on a similar theme:

Note that in “Highway Patrol” it is the sweet innocent wife (who tries so hard to do the right thing) that gets the worst of it, while in “Dragnet” it ends up being the husband who gets some kind of rough justice for his careless drunken driving.

(Also, I get a kick out of “Dan Matthews” handing his gun to folks off the street. His lecture to poor stupid Harry is priceless.)

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