MG: Interesting observation! But honestly, Dragnet didn't influence me at all. This was entirely a nod to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels (and the films made from them). However, Dragnet was itself influenced by Chandler, I suppose, removing the cynicism from Marlowe's dialogue but keeping the cadence.

"The Big Slap" is a riff on "The Big Sleep," and of course I needed the black and white to recall that movie and the film noir genre in general.