‘Matlock’ premiered 36 years ago today! September 23, 1986

These traits, and the demands he placed upon his investigators, were often points of comic relief in the series. Andy Griffith's prior career as a comic often showed through in things Matlock did or said.

Matlock generally defended his clients in the Fulton County Courthouse, which was actually the Second Church of Christ, Scientist located at 948 West Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles. Originally, the series premiered with Ben Matlock having a law practice with his daughter Charlene (played originally by Lori Lethin in the pilot movie; Linda Purl took over the role when the series went to air). Matlock also employed Tyler Hudson, a stock market whiz (Kene Holliday), as a private investigator. Tyler would often go undercover for Matlock in various guises trying to gather information. Matlock's most frequent prosecutorial adversary was Nebraska native Julie March (Julie Sommars, who is also a Nebraskan in real life). Although the two had a professional rivalry—with Julie being a prosecutor and Matlock a defense lawyer—their relationship outside of court was very cordial and the two often spent time together outside of court.

Toward the end of season one, Matlock also took on Cassie Phillips (Kari Lizer), a cocky young law student, as an office worker. After the season ended, Linda Purl departed from the series due to disputes about her character and castmates, and Charlene was written out of the series by having moved to Philadelphia to start her own law practice. To begin the season, Matlock went over to England to try a case and met Michelle Thomas, a young American lawyer living in London (Nancy Stafford), while doing so. After the case was over, Michelle followed Matlock back to the United States and took over Charlene's role as partner. Cassie stayed on as a file clerk until the end of the second season, when she disappeared for reasons never made clear. With Lizer's departure, Julie Sommars became a regular cast member.

Both Lizer and Stafford appeared in the series as different characters before their role as Cassie and Michelle. In season one's "The Seduction", Nancy Stafford played the role of Caryn Nelson/Carole Nathan, a high-class prostitute, who was paid off for perjury against Matlock's client. Also in that season, in "The Angel", Kari Lizer had her first appearance as Matlock's client, Margaret Danello, a popstar called Angel. Also, actor Daniel Roebuck played lawyer Alex Winthrop in season three's "The Priest", before becoming a cast regular playing Cliff Lewis in season seven.

The series had also other actors who played a different character each time. For instance Carolyn Seymour played Christina Harrison Ward on season one ("The Affair", episode 4), Dr. Vanessa Sedgwick on season two ("The Genius", episode 20) and Iris Vogel on season three ("The Psychic", episode 13). Nana Visitor and Roddy McDowall made several appearances, as well.

After season three, Kene Holliday was fired due to his ongoing battle with drugs and alcohol, after being three months sober, and Tyler was written out as having quit.[3] Matlock hired a former young North Carolina deputy sheriff, Conrad McMasters (Clarence Gilyard, Jr.) to be his new private eye. Like Tyler, Conrad would go undercover to gather information about the cases at hand. However, since the two characters were polar opposites—Tyler, being the day trader he was, carried himself with more of an aristocratic air, while Conrad was more of a blue-collar worker type man— some differences existed in the manner in which Conrad went at his job. Matlock and he became fast friends, as well, as they were alike in many ways. Also during this time, Andy Griffith's old co-star (played by Don Knotts) began making frequent appearances as "Ace" Calhoun, Matlock's annoying next-door neighbor. Before Brynn Thayer appeared in the 1992 episode "The Vacation" as Ben Matlock's other (and to that point unmentioned) daughter Leanne MacIntyre, who had become a prosecutor in Philadelphia and who had married and divorced, she first appeared in "The Suspect", in 1991, in which she played Roxanne Windemere, a character with whom Ben became smitten. She joined the cast full-time in the season of 1992 playing a similar role to Linda Purl's, her sister, Charlene, in the first season. Daniel Roebuck joined Thayer as a new regular for season seven, playing the role of ne'er-do-well Cliff Lewis, a young private investigator and associate who seemed to bounce around from job to job. Warren Frost also joined the cast in a recurring role as Cliff's father Billy, an old nemesis from Matlock's past, as Ben had stood his sister up at the altar to pursue his law degree. The move to ABC caused a fair amount of cast turnover as Nancy Stafford left the series to spend more time with her husband, and Julie Sommars followed, although she would play a recurring role in several episodes, while Don Knotts' character was cut from the series. Clarence Gilyard remained on, but with the addition of Roebuck to the cast and the character of Cliff Lewis becoming a second private investigator, his role was diminished somewhat. After season seven, Gilyard left to play Texas Ranger Jimmy Trivette on Walker, Texas Ranger and Cliff took over Conrad's role as Matlock's chief PI.

Matlock had largely become, like Silverman and Hargrove's Perry Mason revival, a "movie-of-the-week" type series by season nine. Part of the reason for this was Griffith's advancing age, as he was wanting to spend more time with his family as he was pushing 70. Before that season, Brynn Thayer departed from the series and Leanne was never heard from again. Carol Huston joined the series as Jerri Stone, a secondary private investigator helping out Cliff in his duties. Like Conrad McMasters, Jerri and Matlock had shared hobbies including singing. Coinciding with the move to ABC was also a change in filming venues. After taping in California for its entire run on NBC, requiring Griffith to commute from his home in North Carolina to the West Coast, ABC moved production to DEG Film Studios in Wilmington to ease the travel burden on Griffith. The Perry Mason-style whodunit format was also adjusted to a more Columbo-style howcatchem format. Although never officially confirmed, a widespread rumor suggests that the character of Ben Matlock was based largely on well-known Georgia attorney Bobby Lee Cook. Cook, whose practice also includes representation of plaintiffs for personal injuries, is frequently called the dean of Georgia criminal defense attorneys.

The long-running show finally ended in 1995, when Andy Griffith, who in the lead role was the only actor to appear in all 195 episodes of the series, decided that at the age of 69, he wanted to take a break from acting to spend more time with his family.

The show has been mentioned many times on TV's longest-running animated series The Simpsons, usually by older characters, seemingly all of whom are devoted fans of the series, and under the impression that Matlock himself is a real person.

Andy Griffith always kind of scared me even though I liked him as a sheriff. Never watched Matlock.

This was a geriatric show along with In The Heat of The Night and Diagnosis Murder. The most popular geriatric show being Murder She Wrote.

Also, Columbo r5

My Grandma never missed an episode

I like the sheriff better.

My father loved it. Jake and the Fat Man, MacGyver, The A Team were also his favorites. I hated them all. We both liked Murder She Wrote, of course.

Irish tv showed an endless amount of American tv in the 80s.

My mother and little sister would watch reruns of Diagnosis Murder in the 90s and early 00s. My sister (still single digits in age at the time) loved it.

I hated it.

A constipation show