The Asphalt Jungle is a 1961 American police procedural television series starring Jack Warden, Arch Johnson, and Bill Smith about a squad of detectives targeting organized crime in the Midwestern United States.

[3] The police department's Metropolitan Squad specializes in fighting organized crime in an unnamed Midwestern city.

Burnett received a writing credit for each of the 13 episodes, and the other writers credited were George Bellak, Alvin Boretz, Steve Gethers, Abram S. Ginnes, John Huston, Ben Maddow, Paul Monash, E. Jack Neuman, Joseph Petracca, Adrian Spies, Peter Stone, Leon Tokatyan, Carey Wilber, and James Yaffe.

[citation needed] MGM Television filmed the pilot episode of The Asphalt Jungle, entitled "The Lady and the Lawyer", in 1960.

After the cancellation of The Asphalt Jungle, "The Lady and the Lawyer" was re-edited and expanded to create the 79-minute 1961 theatrical film The Lawbreakers.