page_title: Adam-12
section_title: Premise
hierarchical_section_title: Adam-12 / Premise
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Kent McCord (Reed) and Martin Milner (Malloy) with Edward Crawford from the television program Adam-12.
context_page_description: Adam-12 is an American television police procedural drama that follows Los Angeles Police Department officers Pete Malloy and Jim Reed as they ride the streets of Los Angeles in their patrol unit, 1-Adam-12.
  The series was created by Robert A. Cinader and Jack Webb, the latter of whom also created Dragnet. It starred Martin Milner and Kent McCord and purported to realistically capture a typical day in the life of police officers. The show ran from September 21, 1968, through May 20, 1975, and helped to introduce police procedures and jargon to the general public in the United States.
context_section_description: Adam-12 was a realistic police drama which followed two officers of the Los Angeles Police Department: veteran Police Officer II (P-2) Pete Malloy, Badge 744 (Martin Milner), and his rookie partner, probationary Police Officer I (P-1) Jim Reed, Badge 2430 (Kent McCord). Each episode of the series was based on actual cases, with names changed to protect the innocent, and covered a variety of incidents that the officers encountered during a shift, from the tragic to the trivial. The series' first episode was filmed in September 1967, a year before the pilot was picked up. It was directed by Jack Webb.
  In episode 1, Reed is less than a week out of the prestigious Los Angeles Police Academy and is eager to begin his career. Three weeks earlier, Malloy's patrol partner and friend had been killed in a warehouse. The reason for them being in the warehouse is never mentioned; Malloy is deeply saddened, to the extent that he plans to resign from the force. (The episode "Elegy for a Pig" was not about Malloy's partner dying; Tom Porter was a friend who joined the LAPD with Malloy.) Watch commander Lieutenant Moore (Art Gilmore) was Malloy's first training officer seven years earlier, and he assigns Malloy to take Reed the rookie out for his first patrol on Malloy's final shift. Reed shows tremendous potential on his first night on the job, but Malloy realizes that his new partner has plenty to learn, and the veteran officer decides to stay on the job and guide Reed during his nine-month probationary period.
  Reed's probationary period is played out during the first and second seasons, after which he is promoted to a full officer. Reed and Malloy remain partners. In later seasons, Malloy and Reed began patrolling other beats of Los Angeles, including the Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles Harbor, the Foothill District, the West Valley area, Venice, Van Nuys, Hollywood, Rampart, and North Hollywood. Several episodes featured the officers working with other rookie officers, with guest actors playing these one-time characters. Some episodes had Reed serving as the training officer, whereas Malloy had been promoted to the rank of a Senior Lead Officer (P-3+1) who coordinates patrols in many neighborhoods and works as the acting shift supervisor.
  Malloy displays a "Distinguished Expert" shooting medal, Reed displays a "Sharpshooter" medal.
  Malloy and Reed reported to Shift Supervisor (Sergeant 1) William "Mac" MacDonald (William Boyett), who occasionally took a black-and-white command cruiser (a Plymouth station wagon, carrying extra police equipment. From Season 5 Mac's vehicle was an AMC Matador station wagon, in keeping with the Matador squad cars used by Malloy and Reed from Season 5.) Mac's call sign was 1-L-20 into the field. Reed once questioned why Malloy had not taken the sergeant's exam, as he would have rated higher than Mac did. Malloy related he preferred working patrol on the street to supervision. Malloy later showed he could supervise when Mac was ill, and Malloy filled in.
  Several of their fellow officers were recurring characters; the most frequent were Jerry Woods (Fred Stromsoe), Ed Wells (Gary Crosby), Detective Sgt Jerry Miller (Jack Hogan), and Officer Brinkman (Claude Johnson). Shaaron Claridge voiced the dispatcher and was a dispatcher for the LAPD in real life.
  The personal lives of Malloy and Reed came up on occasion and were always tied in to their duties. Malloy is a bachelor who has at least five girlfriends during the course of the series (the last being Judy (Aneta Corsaut)), while Reed is married to a woman named Jean (played by several actresses, including Kristin Nelson); in Season 2 he becomes a father.
caption: Reed and Malloy comfort a boy whose sister was the victim of a hit and run driver.
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