The holiday Dragnet episode known as “The Big Little Jesus” was first broadcast over NBC Radio on December 22, 1953 . Listening to the broadcast nearly fifty years later, I noticed something unusual—a good portion of this show consists of the audio from the television version, telecast two nights later. (I know this to be so because I have a black-and-white version of the show on a Dragnet DVD set I purchased a few months ago.) This same television audio/radio hybrid was apparently released commercially as a long-playing record LP as well.
It’s an unusual episode, to be certain—a kindler, gentler Dragnet that tells a heartwarming story about a statue of the Baby Jesus that has gone missing from one of Los Angeles
FRANK: Christmas cards, huh…little late, aren’t ya?
JOE: Well, I was gonna send them out Monday but we had that stakeout…
FRANK: You oughta get married, Joe…
JOE: Yeah?
FRANK: It’s the only system…Faye does all that stuff for me…laundry, mails cards…only system…
JOE: Might help…
FRANK: Got a big stack there…
JOE: I oughta cut down the list…look at this here…upholstery shop…
FRANK: Yeah?
JOE: They send me a card every year…I never get anything upholstered…
FRANK: Faye and I oughta go over our list…cut off a few names…
Friday and Smith get a call from Father Xavier Rojas (Harry Bartell) at the Old Mission Church that a statue of the Christ Child is missing, presumably stolen. The religious statue has minimal monetary value, but it possesses a sentimental significance to the parish members and their children and families. So much so that the priest asks the two cops if they can manage to retrieve it before the first Mass of Christmas is celebrated. It’s a tall order—less than 24 hours—Friday and Smith assure Father Rojas that they’ll do their best:
FATHER: It’s sad, isn’t it…?
JOE: How’s that?
FATHER: In so short a time, men learn to steal…
JOE: Yes…but consider us, Father…
FATHER: Us?
JOE: If some of them didn’t…you and I’d be out of work…
Joe and Frank question the proprietor (Ralph Moody) of a religious artifacts store to see if someone might have pawned the statue; the owner firmly declaring that such a person would have to be “crazy.” An interview with one of the mission’s altar boys leads the two men to an individual named Claude Stroup (James Griffith)—a down-and-out indigent staying at a shabby hotel called The Golden Dream. According to the hotel’s desk clerk (Herb Vigran), Stroup is late for rehearsal of the hotel’s annual Christmas program; but he contacts Friday and Smith when Stroup returns. Stroup is hauled downtown and subjected to a vigorous interrogation; but the man manages to convince both cops of his innocence.
Joe and Frank, admitting defeat, stop by the church to inform Father Rojas that their investigation has come to a dead end. The three men are interrupted by a little Latino boy who enters the church pulling a red wagon—and in the wagon sits the statue of Baby Jesus. The child tells Father Rojas that he has prayed every Christmas for such a wagon, and this year he prayed to the Baby Jesus—promising him a ride in the wagon he got one.
The last lines of dialogue highlight the measured eloquence that was Dragnet’s trademark—and why this particular program is particularly deserving of the term “classic”:
FRANK: I don’t understand how he got that wagon today…don’t kids wait for Santa Claus anymore?
FATHER: It isn’t from Santa Claus…the firemen fix old toys and give them to new children…Paquito’s family…they’re poor…
JOE (after a pause, then quietly): Are they, Father…?
Written by Jack Webb’s longtime friend and collaborator Richard L. Breen, “The Big Little Jesus” so moved Webb that he replaced the other Dragnet Christmas episode “.22 Rifle for Christmas” with this broadcast. Webb would return to this story again in 1967 during the police drama’s 1967-70 revival, and original actors Bartell, Moody, and Vigran reprised their roles in that remake.
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