A brief history of how law was depicted in popular culture before television shows that early popular stories about detectives or cowboys treated the legal establishment with scorn. After discussing the treatment of police and crime in radio, the article shows how and why the broadcast media changed the image of law enforcers and thus helped to change the status of lawyers and the police in the culture itself. In the 1950's, largely under the influence of the Dragnet series, the police began to be depicted more favorably on television. In the rebellious 1960's, however, the police began to be portrayed more derisively. Lawyers like Perry Mason continually exposed the police as a group of well-meaning buffoons. Television did not again begin glorifying exploits of the police until the more conservative 1970's and the rise of blue-collar police heroes like Kojak. Although images of the police have changed superficially in the 1980's, men and women officers remain among television's favorite heroes. 211 footnotes.