G. E. True “Nitro” (April 28, 1963)

You wouldn’t think twenty-five minutes of nail-biting suspense could begin with Jack Webb narrating, “On July 27, at 3:05 in the afternoon, Ed Gleason was mixing an electrolyte solution of sulfuric acid and glycerine. . . .”  But so it goes.  The sulfuric acid turns out to be nitric, and suddenly there’s nine gallons of nitroglycerine in an urban chemical plant as the temperature gets hotter and hotter.  While the police and the level-headed plant foreman (Philip Carey) methodically evacuate the neighborhood, the workman (Noam Pitlik) who accidentally mixed the wrong chemicals deals with his guilt and humiliation.  Jack Webb’s fascination for the mundane and the procedural, also evident in Dragnet and Adam-12, reached its apex in this forgotten anthology series derived from actual newspaper stories, which he executive produced and hosted.  I’m also partial to “Gertie the Great,” one of the most agreeably trivial half-hours in television history, about a mallard duck that becomes a sort of city mascot after nesting on a bridge pylon in a polluted Milwaukee river.