Jake and the Fatman

What happened to Joe Penny? He's obviously another one of those actors, pigeon holed for the small screen, and it's a shame. In my opinion as just recently tuning into re runs of the series, he makes the show, where I know a lot of viewers would be barracking for his partner in law, the grouchy Jake, a beefy guy of a few words, and I know Conrad plays it brilliantly, but it's what Penny does with his character. He has a certain kind of enviousness, and pathetic style. He has an unhurried coolness. We know exactly what he's about and what he wants. But there's much more to him. Basically, the show has him as a sexy PI, and Penny really enjoys his job. After he catches the bad guy, and makes the case, our fat grouchy DA (Conrad) prosecutes with his few words. This wasn't the best drama on the block, but it was up there. The stories were tightly scripted, and at the time, quite original. One episode had a female fatale, Penny let himself be controlled by, via a deadly concoction of drink, a twist of that, not just of lemon, as I recall, watching an another episode over a year ago. Without Penny as the lead, this show truly wouldn't have the same impact or fun. He's just embodies a character, I really find fascinating, like I do with roles of other actors, whether film or t.v. T.v shows music score is something that really brings back memories of 87. If you've never seen this, watch it, sheerly for Penny, the driving force of the show, but Conrad's much smaller screen time appearances are gold. He reminds me of and could of played the Lawrence Tierney character in Reservoir Dogs. I really hope Penny's career is resurrected in the future.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise that this show was (co?)produced by Fred Silverman,who also created and produced the highly successful "Matlock" on rival nets NBC and ABC. This inhabitant of the CBS midweek scheduling(usually Tuesdays if memory serves)seems like as much a sort of photo negative of the earlier offering starring Andy Griffith,where instead of a defense attorney fighting to exonerate a wrongly accused yet highly viable suspect,a sly,pro-active prosecuting attorney--in this case,portly J.L.McCabe(the late,great William Conrad)--battles to find who the real guilty culprit in in cases that seem cut-and-dried in another direction. To his aid are a handsome,seemingly 'Devil may care' private investigator(and ex-cop)named Jake Stiles(the handsome,now 'Where Are They Now?' material Joe Penny) and the loyal assistant attorney Derek Mitchell(Alan Campbell).

While I cannot profess to be a loyal fan of the show,I watched it with some regularity through the first two seasons or so and was reasonably impressed with how the show(for its day)could deconstruct a "Now you see it,now you don't" type of murder mystery that was similar to the show about the crafty,blue suited Atlanta defense attorney. The combination of the veteran bluster of Mr. Conrad and the seemingly feckless charm of Mr.Penny was able to fill up an hour capably. Even though this show had a solid five year run(that was almost cut down after season one),it's pretty tough to find re-runs of this. If you can,and you feel like this kind of easy-to-digest,late eighties entertainment is your cup of tea,then check this out.

Magnum P.I., Riptide (my personal favorite), Simon & Simon, and all the other little detective shows that were on during the late 70s and early 80s network battles were light entertainment.

It's not to say that they weren't great entertainment, but just that the tone of the shows were less stressful and more family friendly.

Jake and the Fatman got a bit darker. The action and comedy were still there, but it sort of feels like the older sibling of detective shows. And it does so in almost the same way that Columbo feels like the adult in the room of detective shows from that era.

However, it's still entertaining fair that I would love to see brought back in some form. Buddy detective shows are a lot better than police procedural melodramas.

Why was this series cancelled? With the exception of Hunter, it was probably the best detective show since William Conrad starred in Cannon. Conrad played the eccentric district attorney, J. L. McCabe, with his ever-present dog Max to the hilt, and Joe Penny played detective Jake Styles just as well. The interplay of McCabe's and Styles's personalities added much to the mix.

I agree to my previous speaker: "Jake And The Fatman" was one of the best TV crime dramas, and surely on top of the list during the late 1980's. I would say it lines up nicely with the great TV crime series like The Streets of San Francisco, Cannon, Petrocelli, Vega$, and Miami Vice - all quite different and individual, but all classic. By the way, I had the impression that William Conrad had his good days and less good days during the Jake And The Fatman series, especially in later episodes filmed on Hawaii. Does anyone know if William Conrad suffered from (a beginning) Parkinson's disease?