Andy Griffith

 Andy Griffith plays the title character of criminal defense lawyer Ben Matlock in Dean Hargrove's American mystery legal drama television series Matlock. The program was created by Intermedia Entertainment Company, The Fred Silverman Company, Dean Hargrove Productions, and Viacom Productions and first shown on NBC and ABC, respectively, from March 3, 1986, through May 8, 1992.

Both Matlock and the 1980s Perry Mason television films were developed by Dean Hargrove. The concept of the program is identical to that of CBS' Perry Mason, with Matlock finding the offenders and then facing them in dramatic courtroom sequences. One distinction was that Matlock often won a jury acquittal at trial, but Mason typically cleared his clients in a pretrial hearing. Reruns of Matlock have been shown on TBS, INSP, Hallmark, CBS Drama, WGN America, FETV, PlutoTV, and MeTV since 1991.

The protagonist of the program is widower Ben Matlock (Andy Griffith), a famous, endearing, and cantankerous lawyer. Even though Matlock makes it clear that his only objective is to establish a reasonable doubt in the case of his client's guilt or to establish his client's innocence, in most cases the person who is on the stand being questioned by Matlock at the conclusion of the case is the actual perpetrator, and Matlock will expose him or her. After working as a public defender for a while, Matlock formed his own legal firm in Atlanta while living in a small farmhouse in a nearby neighborhood. Matlock studied law at Harvard Law School. He is renowned for visiting crime sites to unearth information that could otherwise go unnoticed and develop strong alternate interpretations of the particular event. Throughout the entire length of the series, Matlock owned three iterations of the Ford Crown Victoria—always an all-gray model—and was known for his very fussy sense of style. He often arrives in court wearing a recognizable light gray suit.