At last, one of life's great mysteries will be solved when Shout Factory releases the third season of Adam-12 on DVD a week from today.

Adam-12 Season 3 was filmed in 1970-early '71, and aired on NBC-TV, who moved it from its original Saturday night time slot to a more-ratings-friendly Thursday night slot at midseason.

Officers Reed & Malloy still use a '69 Plymouth Belvedere as a patrol car (and not one of the "anteater" '70 Mercury Montegos that was LAPD's 1970 fleet buy)....and that B-Body is at the heart of the mystery, which involves the show's opening.

Instead of the one used the previous two seasons, where you see a call being routed through LAPD's communications division, Season 3's opening did a quick fade-in on the Belvie's door graphics, then zoomed out as the door shut and accelerated away from the curb as dispatcher Shaaron Claridge intoned "One-Adam-12, a 211* in progress...."

As the Belvie passed the camera (and recording microphone), the roar of the engine could be heard...and, believe me, it was no Slant Six or 318!

When I first saw that season of Adam-12, I wondered if the very-noticeable engine sound was because of any of the following reasons:

a) Whoever was running the sound board at our NBC-TV affiliate in Syracuse (back then it was WSYR-TV, channel 3) cranked it up at the "right" moment as each episode** began;

b) Whoever was running the sound board at NBC-TV's master control in New York cranked it up at the "right" moment as each episode** began; or

c) Executive Producer Jack Webb had the sound editor crank it up at the "right" moment during post-production of each episode**. 

Now--thanks to my home theatre/time machine, I'll find out which one(s) were true!

(* fyi: "211" is/was LAPD radio shorthand for an armed robbery, using the number of the applicable section of the California criminal code.)

(**more fyi: Season 3 contains the episode "Elegy For A Pig," which used a plain black background and Jack Webb's voice-over for the opening.)