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''Jake and the Fatman'' is a crime drama series starring Creator/WilliamConrad and Joe Penny.

J. L.[[note]]Jason Lochinvar[[/note]] "Fatman" [=McCabe=] (Conrad) is a tough, Hawaii-born former Honolulu Police Department officer turned Los Angeles district attorney. He is teamed with Jake Styles (Penny), a handsome, happy-go-lucky special investigator. The two men often clash due to their different styles and personalities. "Fatman" hardly travels anywhere without Max, his pet bulldog.

The show ran for five seasons (1987–92) on Creator/{{CBS}}. ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'' was a SpinOff of this series.

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!!''Jake and the Fatman'' contains examples of:

* AbsenceOfEvidence: In "I'd Do Anything", a psychiatrist who manipulated one of her patients into murdering her husband then shoots the patient and [[WoundedGazelleGambit bruises and scratches herself]] so she can claim the patient attempted to rape her and that she killed him in self-defence. Jake is able to prove she is lying when the coroner doesn't find any of the psychiatrist's skin under the patient's fingernails.
* BackdoorPilot: "It Never Entered My Mind" was the backdoor pilot for''Series/DiagnosisMurder''.
* BadSanta: In "[[ChristmasEpisode Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas]]", it's Christmastime, but [=McCabe=] isn't feeling so jolly as an ambitious assistant DA helps Jake find a murderous Santa Claus.
* BaitAndSwitchGunshot: In "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan", the killer has the drop on Jake. There is a close-up on Jake and the sound of a gunshot. The camera then cuts to the killer who is stand with his gun in hand. He then topples forward, revealing [=McCabe=] standing at the end of the corridor with a smoking gun in his hand.
* BlackmailBackfire: In "Second Time Round", a famous attorney is being blackmailed. His devoted secretary offers to kill the blackmailer. But instead she fakes the blackmailer's death. Then five years later the blackmailer turns up alive and is now blackmailing the secretary who is now married to the attorney running for governor. Unable to pay him off, the wife lures the blackmailer into a rendezvous, then shoots him while he is [[DeadlyHug embracing her]].
* BlackWidow: In "The Tender Trap", Derek suspects his uncle's fiancee is a black widow, and she may have already spun her web.
* CarFu: In "It Had to Be You", a psychiatrist who is secretly a serial rapist [[FrameUp plants evidence on one of his patients to frame him]]. When it looks like the police aren't buying the frame, he steals the car of one his victims and uses it to run down the patient: looking to close the case on the rapes and frame the victim for the murder.
* CharacterNameAndTheNounPhrase
* ChristmasEpisode: In "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", it's Christmastime, but [=McCabe=] isn't feeling so jolly as an ambitious assistant DA helps Jake find a [[BadSanta murderous Santa Claus]].
* CigarChomper: In keeping with his LargeAndInCharge personality, J.L. [=McCabe=] (a.k.a. 'the Fatman') smokes cigars.
* CopCriminalFamily: [=McCabe=]'s son Daniel, who he already dropped contact with due to various incidents that range from boneheaded to downright shady, turns out to have gained a profit selling fake airplane parts, which led to numerous private airplanes crashing and killing the families onboard. When J.L. learns this, he doesn't hesitate in turning him over to the feds.
* CounterfeitCash: In "Snowfall", the Secret Service gets help from Jake in catching a money counterfeiter, who trades his product for cocaine. It becomes personal for Jake when a friend is killed during a failed raid.
* ADayInTheLimelight: In "I Cover the Waterfront", an old friend of Derek's shows up wanting to reconnect, but when he's found dead later that night, Derek insists it [[NeverSuicide wasn't a suicide like all the evidence seems to imply]]. Jake is out of town testifying in another state, so Derek goes off-reservation and acts an investigator.
* DeadlyHug: In "Second Time Round", a famous attorney is being blackmailed. His devoted secretary offers to kill the blackmailer. But instead she fakes the blackmailer's death. Then five years later the blackmailer turns up alive and is now blackmailing the secretary who is now married to the attorney running for governor. Unable to pay him off, the wife lures the blackmailer into a rendezvous, then shoots him while he is embracing her.
* DetectiveMole: In "You Turned the Tables on Me", the prosecutor appointed to head the organized crime unit turns out to be literally and figuratively in bed with the biggest mobster in town.
* DiedInYourArmsTonight: In "Out of Nowhere", Jake's NewOldFlame falls into Jake's arms and dies after being shot InTheBack by the Perp of the Week.
* DrivingIntoATruck: Jake does this in "Rhapsody in Blue" when he stages a 'kidnapping' of a pair of suspects as part of plan to convince them he is a high ranking mob figure.
* EmbarrassingMiddleName: J.L. [=McCabe=]'s full name is Jason ''Lochenbar'' [=McCabe=]. Small wonder he prefers 'J.L.', or even 'Fatman'.
* FakingTheDead: In "Second Time Around", a famous attorney is being blackmailed. His devoted secretary offers to kill the blackmailer. But instead she fakes the blackmailer's death.
* FatAndSkinny: [=McCabe=] and Styles.
* FrameUp: In "It Had to Be You", a psychiatrist who is a serial rapist plants evidence on one of his patients to frame him as the rapist. Later, he steals the car of one of his victims and uses it to [[CarFu fatally run over the patient]], in an effort to frame the victim and close both cases.
* GPSEvidence: In "Rhapsody in Blue", Jake gets sticky sap stuck to the roof of his car when he visits the murder scene. Later, while talking the garage attendant, the attendant sympathizes and says that he had to clean that sap off the car of one of the suspects twice within 24 hours. Jake realises that the suspect had returned to the scene of the crime after the legitimate visit he had told the police about.
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: All of the episodes share their names with songs, often jazz standards.
* ImposterForgotOneDetail: Allows Jake, [=McCabe=] and Derek to work out how the TagTeamTwins pulled off the jewel theft in "Blues in the Night". Although the sisters were dressed in identical outfits, they were mirror twins and had cinched their belts in opposite directions.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: In "It Had to Be You", [=McCabe=] tricks a serial rapist into accusing three women of conspiring against him and saying that he raped them. [=McCabe=] points out that the victims' identities were never released to the media, so the only way he could know they had been raped is if he was the rapist.
* InterruptedSuicide: In "You Can't Take That Away From Me", [=McCabe=] drops off the widow of the VictimOfTheWeek--a murdered cop--at her house after the funeral. After spotting an old scar on her wrist, he has a hunch and returns to the house to discover she has just swallowd a handful of sleeping pills. He calls the paramedics and saves her life.
* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: In "Second Time Around", Jake is posing as mob enforcer as part of a sting to catch a high profile married couple involved in a pair of murders. After accepting $20,000 from the husband to kill the wife, he then accepts $30,000 from the wife to spare her and kill the husband. When the husband offers him $50,000 to go back to the original deal, the wife grabs Jake's gun and fires several shots at her husband. The husband screams, but then realises nothing has happened. Sirens sound around them, and [=McCabe=] steps out of hiding to reveal that Jake's gun is loaded with blanks, and he now has enough evidence to put both of them away.
* LadyMacbeth: In "Rhapsody in Blue", Ned Covington is passed for over for promotion by his boss Phil Duncan. On learning this, his wife concocts a plan to murders Duncan and pressures her husband into going along with it. However, [[MurderByMistake they kill another employee by mistake]]. Realizing this, the wife comes up with a plan to frame Duncan for the murder.
* LargeAndInCharge: J.L. [=McCabe=] is the L.A. District Attorney, extremely overweight, and very definitely the boss. When he talks, everyone listens.
* MoneyFetish: In "Rhapsody in Blue", a husband and wife pair of murderers/blackmailers are shown lying in post-coital bliss atop the $250,000 in small bills they had extorted from their victim; evidently just having had sex on top of it.
* MonsterClown: In "We'll Meet Again", a clown comes after [=McCabe=] with a sawed-off shotgun, leading the Fatman to remember all the suspects he convicted.
* MurderByMistake:
** In "Rhapsody in Blue", a husband and wife pair of killers break into the company lodge intending the murder the husband's boss. However, in the darkness, they do not realise that someone else is staying in the lodge and shoot him instead. When they discover their mistake, they attempt to frame the boss for the murder.
** In "You Can't Take That Away From Me", the murderer lures her abusive husband into an ambush and empties both barrels of a shotgun into the windscreen of his car. What she didn't know was that her husband--who was a cop-- had picked up his partner before arriving at the scene. The guilt of also killing an innocent man drives her to [[DrivenToSuicide attempt suicide]].
* NakedInMink: In "Second Time Round",FemmeFatale Carolyn Bruce returns from blowing up a patsy in order to allow her blackmailer boyfriend to [[FakingTheDead fake his death]] wearing a full length white fur coat.She climbs into-bed with him and then shrugs off the coat to reveal ToplessnessFromTheBack.
* NeverSuicide: In "I Cover the Waterfront", an old friend of Derek's shows up wanting to reconnect, but when he's found dead later that night, Derek insists it wasn't a suicide like all the evidence seems to imply.
* NewOldFlame: In "Out of Nowhere", Jake and the FBI go after Victor Potemkin, a suspected drug smuggler. But when they raid his house they find no drugs, but Jake finds someone he knows - a woman who disappeared overnight just as he was about to propose to her.
* OldCopYoungCop: Technically [=McCabe=] is a prosecutor rather than a cop (although he is an ex-cop) but otherwise the relationship between the Fatman and Jake fits this trope.
* OnlyKnownByInitials: J.L. (Jason [[EmbarrassingMiddleName Lochenbar]]) [=McCabe=], the eponymous Fatman.
* OrganTheft: In "Come Along with Me", Neely teams up with Jake to probe a series of murders connected to an organ-theft plot on behalf of a rich man who needs a new liver.
* ParentsForADay: In "Pretty Baby", Jake, [=McCabe=] and Derek take turns looking after a baby while they search for the infant's mother who witnessed a murder.
* ParkingPayback: In "You Turned the Tables on Me", a pretty young prosecutor steals the parking space Jake has been waiting for. Jake takes revenge by stealing the distributor cap from her car, forcing her to get a ride home with him.
* PhoneInDetective: [=McCabe=] would send Styles out to do his legwork for him.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The episode "Ain't Misbehavin'", with Nell Carter as a tough bail bondswoman.
* PrisonEpisode: In "Danny Boy", [=McCabe=]'s bottled-up feelings are unleashed when he's called to the state prison where his inmate son witnessed a murder.
* RecordedSplicedConversation: In the episode "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie", [=McCabe=] and Jake splice together parts of [=McCabe's=] priest's sermons and call his wife, who's also his killer, as well as the killer of two women who were involved with him, in an effort to get her to confess. It does the job.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Daniel [=McCabe=] in his second appearance. Finally feeling guilt during a prison escape gone horribly wrong and getting shot for it, Daniel, rather than conserving his energy to heal, gets up and distracts his former partners to save his father before dying in the ambulance. [=McCabe=] never gets over his son's death and bitterly regrets having given up on him early on after this, occasionally mentioning him when a troubled parent-child relationship pops up.
* {{Retool}}: The series moved to Hawaii at the start of the third season before returning to Los Angeles midway through season 4.
* RevealingInjury: In "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan", Jake shoots at a disguised figure who is faking a limp, and thinks that he panicked the man into forgetting which leg he was limping on. Later, he realises that the killer is too professional to make that mistake and he had actually hit him in the other leg, forcing him to limp for real. He later finds one of the suspects tending a wound on that leg and has his suspicions confirmed.
* RevealingReflection: In "How Long Has This Thing Been Going On?", Jake takes a female PrivateInvestigator to the house where the murder was committed. While pretending to search another part of the room, he watches in a mirror as she retrieves a listening device she had planted earlier. The fact that she went straight to where it was hidden proves she had been in the house before.
* SaunaOfDeath: In "You Don't Know Me", Andrew Blaine, a friend of [=McCabe=]'s is ousted from his company by his protege, Charles Hatton. He also learns that his wife aided him. When she catches Hatton with another woman she snaps and threatens him. He is later killed when someone tampers with his sauna.
* ScaredOfWhatsBehindYou: In "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die", Henry--a mousy bookkeeper who's been poisoned and has now decided to live for the first time--confronts a macho type who is hassling the girl he likes on the dance floor. The bully is contemptuous until he looks over shoulder and sees Jake who flashes his police badge at him, and then immediately backs down; making Henry look like a hero.
* SerialKiller: In "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", a serial killer who's targeting winos taunts [=McCabe=] with phone calls before each killing.
* SerialKillingsSpecificTarget:
** In "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", a serial killer who's targeting winos taunts [=McCabe=] with phone calls before each killing. However, his real target is his brother who is living on the streets, and the other murders and the calls to [=McCabe=] are theatrics designed to hide this fact.
** After a journalist is dumped by her lover, she murders his wife and makes it look like the work of a SerialKiller in "More Than You Know".
* SlippingAMickey: The M.O. of the [[OrganTheft organ-leggers]] in "Come Along With Me". The man chats up a woman in a bar. His female accomplice then distracts the victim while he spikes her drink.
* TagTeamTwins: In "Blues in the Night", a pair of twin jewel thieves proves to be a challenge for [=McCabe=] as he unknowingly provides an alibi for one sister while the other commits a murder.
* TwistedChristmas: In "[[ChristmasEpisode Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas]]", it's Christmastime, but [=McCabe=] isn't feeling so jolly as an ambitious assistant DA helps Jake find a [[BadSanta murderous Santa Claus]].
* UncattyResemblance: [=McCabe=] (a no-nonsense and very large prosecutor) has a pet bulldog named Max who looks quite a bit like him.
* WhodunnitToMe: In "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die", a mousy bookkeeper who's been poisoned spends his last days helping Jake find the rat who did it.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: In "I'd Do Anything", a psychiatrist who manipulated one of her patients into murdering her husband then shoots the patient and bruises and scratches herself so she can claim the patient attempted to rape her and that she killed him in self-defence.
* WrenchWhack: In "Last Dance", the VictimOfTheWeek is the blackmailing owner of an auto repair shop who is beaten to death with a large wrench.
* YouJustToldMe: In "Second Time Around", Jake is interrogating mob enforcer Billy Nickel, who is being uncooperative. Jake mentions the name of previous victim, saying he is out of his cast and getting around pretty well on his crutches. Nickel grunts that he'll break the punk's other leg for squealing. Jake then admits the victim hadn't said anything and it was just a lucky guess.
* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: After [=McCabe=] wins a gangster's trial, said gangster's lawyer congratulates him and calls him his inspiration.
-->'''Lawyer:''' There's very few people I told such compliment.\\
'''[=McCabe=]:''' That's not a compliment. That's an ''insult''!

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