Jake and the Fat Man

Jake and the Fatman TV Show

Jake and the Fatman was a crime drama that ran from 1987 to 1992 on CBS.  In this TV series, Joe Penny played the role of investigator Jake Styles, and William Conrad played the role of prosecutor “Fatman” McCabe.  The show was a spin-off of an episode of Matlock, and actually had a spin-off of its own with the show Diagnosis: Murder.

Initially, the setting of the show was Los Angeles, but seasons 2 and 3 were based in Hawaii, and season 4 back in L.A.  Fatman (Conrad), the former Hawaii born police officer, became the district attorney in L.A., where he teamed up with an easy-going prosecutor named Jake (Penny).  Like Matlock, the Fatman would go about the business of proving somebody’s innocence or guilt by gathering evidence on the street and presenting it in court.