The LSD Story

Infobox Television episode
Title=The LSD Story
Series=Dragnet
Season=1
Episode=1
Airdate=January 12, 1967
Production=1
Writer=Jack Webb
(credited as John Randolph)
Director=Jack Webb
Guests=Michael Burns
Eve Brent
Olan Soule
Art Balinger
Episode list =List of Dragnet episodes
Prev=First episode
Next=The Big Explosion

The LSD Story was an episode of the Dragnet television series that appeared on the NBC network on January 12,1967. It was produced and directed by Jack Webb, who also starred as Joe Friday. It is sometimes called "Blue Boy" after a character appearing on it.

Plot synopsis

Friday and his partner Bill Gannon are working for the Los Angeles Police Department when they are called to a disturbance in MacArthur Park. It seems a man is gnawing the bark off a tree there. When Friday and Gannon arrive they find the young man, who identifies himself as "Blue Boy" and is acting very strangely. After Friday and Gannon arrest him, it transpires that Blue Boy, whose real name is Benjy Carver (played by Michael Burns) is under the influence of LSD. However as it is not illegal at that time to possess or use LSD, the most Carver can be charged with is public intoxication, for which he gets a light sentence.

As time passes, the LAPD hear more and more about Carver and his involvement in selling and using LSD. At last they get two breaks: first LSD is made illegal, and secondly one of Carver's disgruntled former customers gives him up.

The police raid an LSD party in progress. The participants are so stoned, no one even notices the cops entering, until Friday flips a light on. It turns out they just missed Carver.

At last, Friday and Gannon get an address for Carver and, with the landlady's consent raid his apartment. It turns out they are too late again: Benjy Carver had died of an overdose about an hour earlier.

Trivia

*The was the first color episode broadcast of Dragnet and the first episode of the later series broadcast.

*While the episode centers on the dangers of LSD and the climax suggest that Benjy died of an LSD overdose, which is nearly physically impossible, the epilogue says that he had been taking barbitutates a far more likely cause of death.