Trivia / Jake and the Fatman

• Completely Different Title: The French dub of this series loosely translates to The Law is the Law.
  • The German version had a bit of a pun in the title too, translating to Jake and McCabe: Through Thick and Thin.
• Creator Backlash:
  • William Conrad openly thought the show got worse as it went on, and only stayed on to keep his end of the contract.
  • A minor example. J. Michael Straczynski, who created Babylon 5 and wrote works like Changeling and Sense8, was a story editor on Jake and the Fatman early in his career. In later years JMS had some fun at the show's expense, calling it "The Lame and the Halt" and explaining the premise: "One can't walk. The other can't act. Together, they fight crime."
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Unlike both parent show Matlock and spinoff Diagnosis: Murder; Jake and the Fatman has largely slipped off the radar screen, being little seen in reruns and with the DVD releases only making it to Season 2 before stalling and going out of print.
  • The full series has now been released as a DVD box set.
• Un-Canceled: The show was initially cancelled after the first season due to low ratings, but CBS surprisingly revived it under unusual circumstances. With fellow CBS program Magnum, P.I. concluding after an eight year run, CBS was left with a very expensive lease on an empty Hawaii studio. The producers of Jake and the Fatman came up with the idea of the Fat Man retiring from Los Angeles and moving to Hawaii to take up criminal law, with his investigators coming along. He later became District Attorney for Honolulu. The ratings went up sharply with the move. CBS's lease on the Hawaii studio expired during the 1990-91 season, and the show returned to Los Angeles.