Jake and the Fatman

Not to be confused with Jake and the Phatman.
Jake and the Fatman
Title screen
Genre Crime drama
Created by Dean Hargrove
Joel Steiger
Ann Doherty
Developed by Douglas Stefen Borghi
Starring William Conrad
Joe Penny
Alan Campbell
Country of origin United States
Original language English
No. of seasons 5
No. of episodes 106 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers Dean Hargrove
Fred Silverman
Joel Steiger
Production locations Los Angeles, California
Oahu, Hawaii
Running time approx. 45 minutes
Production companies The Fred Silverman Company
Strathmore Productions (1987–1988)
Dean Hargrove Productions (1988–1992)
Viacom Productions
Original release
Network CBS
Release September 26, 1987 –
May 6, 1992
Related
Matlock
Diagnosis: Murder

Jake and the Fatman is an American crime drama television series starring William Conrad as prosecutor J. L. (Jason Lochinvar) "Fatman" McCabe and Joe Penny as investigator Jake Styles. The series ran on CBS for five seasons from September 26, 1987, to May 6, 1992. Diagnosis: Murder was a spin-off of this series.

Plot

J. L. "Fatman" McCabe is a Hawaii-born, tough former Honolulu Police Department officer turned Los Angeles district attorney. He is teamed with a handsome, happy-go-lucky special investigator named Jake Styles. They often clash due to their different styles and personalities. "Fatman" travels hardly anywhere without Max, his pet bulldog. The show was set in Los Angeles during the first season. After the end of Magnum, P.I., the show was moved to Hawaii. The second and third seasons and half of the fourth season were filmed in Honolulu. The show then returned to Los Angeles for the remainder of its run.

Cast

Main cast

Recurring guest stars

Guest stars on the series included Alex Cord, Robert Culp, Denise Dowse, Scott Marlowe, Leigh McCloskey, Ed Nelson, Leo Penn, Stephen Quadros, Robert Reed, Mitch Ryan, Alan Scarfe, David Soul and Ray Sharkey.

Production

Development

Conrad guest starred as an aging prosecutor in a two-part episode of Matlock during its first season on NBC. Executive producers Fred Silverman and Dean Hargrove decided to use this character as a model for one of the main characters in a new show they were creating for CBS. Penny also guest starred in these episodes, but his character was not on the same side as Conrad's character in the storyline's legal case.

Following the departure of Hargrove, executive producers David Moessinger and Jeri Taylor were brought on to run the series with Silverman. They also hired J. Michael Straczynski as an executive story consultant. Taylor and Moessinger ran the show for two years before finally leaving in a dispute over control over the show.

Straczynski has written that he was hired after pitching a story that let Conrad sit down for almost every scene, noting his own faux slogan for the show "Jake and the Fatman: He can't act, he can't walk, together they fight crime".

Controversy

Joe Penny lost a large amount of weight after the show moved to Hawaii, which led to many rumors about his health, including the possibility that he had AIDS. In actuality, he had suffered from a gastrointestinal virus and was having difficulty regaining the weight he lost. When the show moved back to Los Angeles, it was also suspected that it was on Penny's urging. This was also not true, as the move was CBS's decision.

Episodes

Main article: List of Jake and the Fatman episodes

Jake and the Fatman had a total of five seasons and 106 episodes that were broadcast on CBS between 1987 and 1992.

Season No. of
episodes 		Originally aired
First aired Last aired
Pilot 2 October 28, 1986 November 4, 1986
1 23 September 26, 1987 April 6, 1988
2 11 March 15, 1989 May 24, 1989
3 26 September 20, 1989 May 16, 1990
4 24 September 12, 1990 May 8, 1991
5 22 September 18, 1991 April 6, 1992

Home media

CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount) released the first two seasons of Jake and the Fatman on DVD in Region 1 between 2008/2009. As of June 2015, these releases have been discontinued and are out of print.

Visual Entertainment released Jake and the Fatman - The Complete Collection on June 23, 2017.

DVD Name Ep # Region 1
Season One, Volume One 11 July 8, 2008
Season One, Volume Two 12 December 2, 2008
Season Two 11 May 5, 2009
Season Three 26 N/A
Season Four 24 N/A
Season Five 22 N/A
The Complete Series 106 June 23, 2017

Spin-offs

Main article: Diagnosis: Murder

The nineteenth episode of the fourth season of Jake and the Fatman, "It Never Entered My Mind", featured Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan, a medical doctor who solves crimes. The success of that episode led initially to a series of three TV movies, and then a weekly television series Diagnosis: Murder that debuted on CBS on October 29, 1993.