First, to the reviewer who was puzzled by the "Joke Books" reference: Early to mid-20th century porn was very commonly offered as small, crudely drawn comic strip books known as "Tijuana Bibles". Cheap and easy to distribute, but very filthy, often involving caricatures of famous people. They would have been considered comics, "funnies", albeit forbidden ones. These are most likely the type of thing being peddled around by the kid at school.
Second, I think this episode was one that must have been very tricky to present on TV in 1954, due to its subject matter. It put Hollywood in a bad light, and it trespassed into forbidden territory for the network, sexy stuff involving kids. Since the script was already written (recycled from the Dragnet radio show of two years earlier, already paid for) and was probably one of the social-rot ideas that both Jack Webb and his police consultants felt strongly about presenting as a true moral hazard to kids, it had to be made---but I bet the network fought Webb at every turn. Essentially, this story version was a sad compromise, differing somewhat from the more realistic radio version---this TV version soft-peddled the content and then went off into an idiotic digression about a nice old man who couldn't make a living in movies anymore.