Jake and the Fatman: Season 1, Vol. 1

Product Description Veteran district attorney "Fatman" McCabe solves cases in Los Angeles with the help of his easygoing private investigator partner Jake Styles Amazon.com It was a brilliant stroke of counter-programming to schedule Jake and the Fat Man opposite Moonlighting in its inaugural season. Never mind that by 1987, Moonlighting had lost its magic. Jake, an old school crime series, was perfect for older audiences who couldn't keep up with David and Maddie's rapid-fire banter or didn't have a clue about the show's inside jokes and pop culture references. "Hip" and "stylish" would not be words to describe Jake and the Fatman, but it is enormously entertaining thanks to its alchemic casting. William Conrad, the slovenly anti-Bruce Willis, is the blustery behemoth L.A. District Attorney J.L. McCabe. A lean Joe Penny, supplying the sex appeal, is fast-living investigator Jake. Sure, Jake might get annoyed with McCabe for interrupting his late-night trysts with unannounced visits and refrigerator raids, but they genuinely like and respect each other. McCabe's wall-shaking bark is worse than his bite. In the episode, "Laura," in which Jake is on the case of his former partner's killer, he tells McCabe not to worry. "I always worry," McCabe gruffly replies, before adding, "about you, kid." And we don't need a Christmas episode to show us that deep down McCabe isn't really a Scrooge. We see that in his devotion to his ever-present bulldog, Max ("I never leave home without him"). These first 11 episodes are light on traditional gunplay, car chases, or hot pursuits, but the stories are plenty compelling. Viewers witness a crime (a senatorial candidate's ambitious Yuppie-scum speechwriter murders the politician's mistress, a man preys on skid row bums to conceal a closer-to-home murder plot, a defense attorney frames his ex-wife for the murder of her lover) and then watch McCabe and Jake do the legwork. With his massive girth and stentorian voice, Conrad is in his element making a feast of the scenery, whether it be railing against a novice assistant D.A. ("Stop having opinions before you know what the facts are"), rattling a suspect, or staging outrageous stunts in the courtroom, like pulling a gun on a witness to expose his false testimony. These are the simple pleasures that, pound for pound, make Jake and the Fatman a show that really pulls its weight. --Donald Liebenson