Dragnet

From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.

Dragnet was an experiment done by Dick Wolf that tested how long a person would slump down in his chair and fall asleep during a program. Starring Dan Aykroyd as Sgt. Joe Friday, as well as Tom Hanks as Det. Pep Streebeck, Dragnet ran for exactly 111 seasons on NBC until cancellation in 1989.

Some say that Wolf created the series as a spin-off of Law & Order, and Aykroyd has confirmed that fact by stating that he'd sooner die before starring on L&O.