Created by Douglas Stefen Borghi, Dean Hargrove & Joel Steiger
William Conrad was no stranger to playing detectives and lawmen on radio and television by the time he starred as JASON LOCHINVAR “FATMAN” McCABE in Jakes & The Fatman (1987-92, CBS). He’d already played Nero Wolfe and Frank Cannon on television, and Sheriff Matt Dillion on radio’s Gunsmoke.
So playing a tough, curmudgeonly, slovenly former Hawaiian cop turned Los Angeles (and for a few seasons Honolulu) district attorney nicknamed “Fatman” seemed like a natural. They teamed McCabe up with a brash, hip young “special” investigator, ex-cop JAKE STYLES (played by Joe Penny, late of Riptide),
The high-flying Jake was all style, driving a silver Porsche, sporting flashy suits and living in a swank apartment. Meanwhile. J.L. was definitely not all style — he was grouchy, perpetually peeved, often simply unpleasant, and generally looked like an unmade bed. And if you thought he looked a little heavy in Cannon…
Anyway, the dramatic sparks were supposed to fly, even if the producers couldn’t quite figure out exactly where they were supposed to be flying. It was in California, then it was in Hawaii, then it was in California…
The initial switch from LA to Hawaii occurred the same year that Magnum P.I. was cancelled —evidently CBS wanted to keep using the studio facilities (which were in fact a holdover from Hawaii 5-0). When the lease on the property expired, though, the show scurried back to LA.
The show was actually spun off from a Matlock episode called “The Don,” which served as a soft (very soft) pilot. Conrad, as McCabe, was the DA prosecuting Matlock’s case, and Alan Campbell played his assistant, although Joe Penny was also in the episode, playing the son of a Mafia boss, not Jake Styles.
But keeping it all in the family, so to speak, a few names and characters were tweaked, and Campbell went on to play Assistant District Attorney Derek Mitchell in the series.
I dunno. Sometimes it worked, but more often it just collapsed under the weight of its own bland predictability, and enforced cuteness (like, did we really need J.L doting on his ever-present lookalike English bulldog, Max?).
But CBS was particularly good at this kind of toothless mystery show, built around an aging but still bankable star who maybe hadn’t worked for a while, and some tried-and-true off-the-rack mystery plots. The show ran for five seasons.
The show was a little too cookie-cutter and Penny a little too smarmy for my tastes, but it even spawned a spin-off of its own. A fourth season episode, “It Never Entered My Mind”, introduced Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan, a crime-solving physician and police consultant, who went on to star in his own, more successful series, Diagnosis Murder, a light-hearted piece of fluff — a sort of a Murder, He Prescribed.
I dunno. Maybe it’s time to go back and watch a few episodes of both shows.
UNDER OATH
- “This long-running detective show… was so bad that it has never been rerun domestically since it was cancelled (when Barbara Walters asked Jerry Seinfeld what he was going to do when his sitcom was over, he joked: “revive ‘Jake and the Fatman'”). The cliche-riddled show is notable only for spinning off a series that was far more successful. We’re talking, of course, about Diagnosis Murder.”
— Lee Golberg (who, of course, wrote for Diagnosis Murder)
TELEVISION
- JAKE AND THE FATMAN | Buy the complete series on DVD
(1987-1992, CBS)
Created by Dean Hargrove and Joel Steiger
Writers: Douglas Stefen Borghi, Dean Hargrove, Joel Steiger, Kimmer Ringwald, Tom Lazarus, Robert Hamilton, , William Conway, Rick Kelbaugh, J. Michael Straczynski, Jeri Taylor, Gerry Conway, David Moessinger, Joyce Burditt, Bernard L. Kowalski
Produced by Ron Satlof, Fred McKnight
Executive Producers Fred Silverman, Dean Hargrove, David Moessinger, Ed Waters
Starring William Conrad as J.L. “FATMAN” McCABE
and Joe Penny as JAKE STYLES
Alan Campbell as as Derek Mitchell
Lu Leonard as Gertrude
Guest stars: Robert Reed, Robert Culp, Lu Leonard, Karen Keawehawaii, Olga Russell, Jack Hogan, Melody Anderson, Robert Forster, David Soul, Anne Francis, Gregg Henry, Clarence Clemons, Ed Ames, Lee Purcell- SEASON ONE | Buy Season 1, volume 1 on DVD
- “Happy Days Are Here Again” (September 26, 1987)
- “Fatal Attraction, Part One” (September 29, 1987)
- “Fatal Attraction, Part Two” (September 29, 1987)
- “Laura” (October 6, 1987)
- “The Man That Got Away” (October 13, 1987)
- “Love for Sale” (October 20, 1987)
- “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (October 27, 1987)
- “Body and Soul” (November 3, 1987)
- “The Man I Love” (November 10, 1987)
- “Love Me Or Leave Me” (November 17, 1987)
- “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (December 1, 1987)
- “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (December 8, 1987)
- “After You’ve Gone” (January 5, 1988)
- “It Had to Be You” (January 12, 1988)
- “But Not for Me” (January 19, 1988)
- “What Is This Thing Called Love?” (January 26, 1988)
- “Lady, Be Goode” (February 2, 1988)
- “I’ll Be Seeing You” (February 16, 1988)
- “Babyface” (February 23, 1988
- “Blues in the Night” (March 16, 1988)
- “How Long Has This Thing Been Going On?” (March 13, 1988)
- “I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plans” (March 30, 1988)
- “Rhapsody in Blue” (April 6, 1988)
- SEASON TWO
- “Wish You Were Here, Part One” (March 15, 1989)
- “Wish You Were Here, Part Two” March 15, 1989)
- “I’ll Never Smile Again” (March , 1989)
- “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” (April 5, 1989)
- “Why Can’t You Behave?” (April 12, 1989)
- “Poor Butterfly” (April 19, 1989
- “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (April 26, 1989)
- “Someone to Watch Over Me” (May 3, 1989)
- “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” (May 10, 1989)
- “Side by Side” (May 17, 1989)
- “Snowfall” (May 24, 1989)
- SEASON THREE
- “I Only Have Eyes for YouS” (eptember 20, 1989)
- “The Lady in Red” (September 27, 1989)
- “Easy to Love” (October , 1989)
- “The Way You Look Tonight” (October 11, 1989)
- “Dancing in the Dark” (October 25, 1989)
- “It All Depends on You” (November 1, 1989)
- “Out of Nowhere” (November 8, 1989)
- “Sweet Leilani” (November 15, 1989)
- “My Shining Hour” (November 29, 1989)
- “Long Ago and Far Away” (December 6, 1989)
- “What Child is This?” (December 13, 1989)
- “In the Still of the Night” (January 3, 1990)
- “You Turned the Tables on Me” (January 10, 1990)
- “One More for the Road” (January 17, 1990)
- “Who’s Sorry Now?” (January 31, 1990)
- “I’ll Dance at Your Wedding” (February 7, 1990)
- “My Buddy” (February 14, 1990)
- “By Myself” (February 28, 1990)
- “I Ain’t Got No Body” (March 7, 1990)
- “Put Your Dreams Away” (March 14, 1990)
- “If I Didn’t Care” (March 28, 1990)
- “You’re Driving Me Crazy” (April 4, 1990)
- “You Took Advantage of Me” (April 25, 1990)
- “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” (May 2, 1990)
- “Danny Boy” (May 9, 1990)
- “Chinatown, My Chinatown” (May 16, 1990)
- SEASON FOUR
- “God Bless the Child” (September 12, 1990)
- “The Tender Trap” (September 19, 1990)
- “Exactly Like You” (September 26, 1990)
- “‘Round Midnight” (October 3, 1990)
- “Only You” (October 24, 1990)
- “My Boy Bill” (October 31, 1990)
- “More Than You Know” (November 7, 1990)
- “Night and Day” (November 14, 1990)
- “Goodbye, Part One” (November 28, 1990)
- “Goodbye, Part Two” (November 28, 1990)
- “I Know That You Know” (December 12, 1990)
- “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (January 2, 1991)
- “I May Be Wrong” (January 9, 1991)
- “Daddy’s Home” (February 6, 1991)
- “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die” (February 13, 1991)
- “Pretty Baby” (February 27, 1991)
- “I Cover the Waterfront” (March 6, 1991)
- “You Don’t Know Me” (March 13, 1991)
- “It Never Entered My Mind” (March 20, 1991)
- “Second Time Around” (April 3, 1991)
- “I’d Do Anything” (April 10, 1991)
- “We’ll Meet Again” (April 24, 1991)
- “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” (May 1, 1991)
- “Nevertheless” (May 8, 1991)
- SEASON FIVE
- “Where or When, Part One” (September 18, 1991)
- “Where or When, Part Two” (September 25, 1991)
- “Street of Dreams” (October 30, 1991)
- “I’ll Never Be the Same” (November 6, 1991)
- “I Could Write a Book” (November 13, 1991)
- “Two Different Worlds” (November 20, 1991)
- “Every Time We Say Goodbye” (December 11, 1991)
- “Come Along with Me” (December 18, 1991)
- “Last Dance” (January 1, 1992)
- “Come Closer to Me” (January 8, 1992
- “Since I Fell for You” (January 15, 1992)
- “Just You, Just Me” (January 22, 1992)
- “Stormy Weather, Part One”January 29, 1992)
- “Stormy Weather, Part Two”February 5, 1992)
- “You’ll Never Know” (February 26, 1992)
- “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” (March 11, 1992)
- “Pennies from Heaven” (March 18, 1992)
- “I Can’t Believe I’m Losing You” (March 25, 1992)
- “All Through the Night” (April 1, 1992)
- “Ain’t Misbehavin'” (April 8, 1992)
- “Nightmare” (April 22, 1992)
- “Beautiful Dreamer” (May 6, 1992)
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Ron Murillo for filling us in. Illustration by the great Al Hirschfeld. Please don’t sue me.
