User Reviews

I have always liked William Conrad and Joe Penny. This is a fun series. The banter between the 2 leads is funny. The series can be serious or light hearted. J.L. is Gregg but he can be kind hearted also. I love the dog. He adds some great dialog. What makes me laugh is I have the feeling J.L. can't cook. He is always asking Jake to cook. I feel sorry for Jake because J.L. is always raiding his fridge. Priceless....

Those stories are detective stories mostly in Los Angeles with something like one year deported to Hawaii. The original is old, so the remastering was not possible that easily and the pictures are slightly distorted to fit in a wide screen. They did not bother to add the now standard subtitles for hard-of-hearing people. That's ok when the bulldog is speaking, meaning barking or grumbling, but with human characters, it is slightly difficult.

This series comes from a time when, in one way or any other, the main culprits were naturally women. If men get in the way of the police or justice, it is only and most of the time always because the poor man got entangled with a bad woman. It is in many ways irritating to brandish such sexism. The first two seasons even went further, and in the title sequence, an allusion to the sexual activities of the investigator, Jake, with women, were his way to be able to have the great life he had, but the Fatman doubted how he could do it with the simple pay of some kind of police or district attorney's investigator. And the allusion to his being a gigolo in a way, was heavily repeated for at least two years if not three. Then, in later seasons, the flimsy skin-rubbing scenes were only thrown onto the screen from time to time but without the gigolo allusion.

Maybe I overdo it by calling Jake a gigolo. In fact, he was just a complacent and easy partner who could not resist the temptation systematically thrown in his way by any woman trying to get some advantage from this semi-cop. It is true it would be difficult to imagine Columbo doing that kind of sport, especially since Columbo has a wife somewhere. But it is the Fatman who is the impersonation of Columbo. A fat slob is quite similar to the sloppily-dressed character that cannot be missed at any time of this presence anywhere because of his odd behavior. The Fatman is just plain fat, and he eats so much and so badly that he is literally killing himself. He even pushes the connection with Columbo one step farther, and he has a dog he cherishes, and he overfeeds to make him some kind of a couch- - what the Brits call a settee - -ridden slobbish dog if we can still call that a dog.

The crimes and murders and all other sorts of offenses are funny, more ah-ah than strange. They always turn around a twist in the fabric or a bias in the language of the people who are supposed to be witnesses and investigating personnel. And you can play with words along their stylish line and replace slob with snob because they sound alike and the Fatman makes it an aristocratic nobility to be fat, and the impolite if not insolent disrespectful dummy who may snicker at the fat perambulating cardiac arrest, can crawl, on the mat, hat off, with a bat in his belfry, and a cat in his scullery raiding the meat cabinet, on all fours, hands, elbows, shoulders, knees, and feet, a lot more than four, true enough, begging for leniency. "Noblesse oblige," as they say in French, "Honi soy qui mal y pense," as they say when they speak from the garter - not the gutter of course not - all these noble aristocrats, all men, and none women, who swear in their Order of the Garter that they are as pure in mind and body as newborns, or the cleaned up skeleton that has stayed in the earth for at least five centuries.

And don't ask the silly question: "Since garters are for women today, what did this garter suspend in the Middle Ages for men? I guess the G-String or G-thong or G-loincloth of the happy males whose G*****Ls are not floating around and swinging or swaying in the wind. Yes, Honi soy qui mal y pense. And a good rope might be just proper to hang the culprit high and short on Bartholomew Fairgrounds, just before the Fair, to give some sanguinity to the audience before dismembering, disemboweling, gelding, emasculating, and other orchidotomous extractions of the eyes, the ears, the nose, the breasts and nipples, and other prominent jewels of the body, to end up with quartering him. After a while, we try not to see the fat anymore, but I must say it is pitiful to cultivate such fatness that ended badly for the actor.

The stories are always on a similar pattern. You see the crime being committed but often not the criminal. At once a person of interest or two appears in the limelight, and you can be sure it is not the proper answer, and this proper answer is going to be an evil woman who has managed to hide her evilness long enough for the investigation to last a few days. But the bad woman will be dealt with and processed like a bunch of data in a database. And you can have a nightcap and go to sleep in some kind of DUI (Drowsing Under the Influence) stupor.

Enjoy the fun of the Fatman and the lust of Jake, the investigator. Luckily, he sees, from time to time, a little bit beyond the tip of his dick.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU.

Hailing from the UK i am not that familiar with niche 80's US detective shows, so imagine my surprise whilst flicking through the various cable channels at 4am (dont ask) that i came across Jake and the Fatman.

although other people might disagree i found myself hooked on this show which for an 80's programme (reaganite politics aside) is extremely groundbreaking in a cheesy sort of way. episodes that dealt with vigilante husbands punishing random muggers due to his wife being gang-raped (something he was made to watch)years previously to an avenging cops wife shooting her husband and his partner for the miscarriage he rather violently inflicted on her in the past.

i am aware of the censorship issues that are in operation in network American TV so it is all the more refreshing and intelligent that such a programme could have dealt with these issues in (i am assuming) its prime-time slot.

if you happen to read my rather general review on Jake and the Fatman and i have piqued your interest you would not be wasting your time if you were to give it a go, so search the stations on those cold dark nights and be entertained.

Does anyone know which episode contained William Conrad telling the Christmas story to a bunch of Hawaiian kids in the hospital children's ward? I can't tell from the episode guide. I'd love to have a video of it as a gift for my husband. Does anyone have one they'd be willing to sell or trade? We loved the series, although have to agree that it was much better when set in Hawaii than in Los Angeles. It's a shame that it never made it to syndication. We felt that it ranked right up there with many of the best of the 80s detective shows, and the relationships between the two stars and of course, Max, were very well drawn. Jake and Max were perfect foils!