The Wild Wild West
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The Wild Wild West was an American television series that ran on CBS for four seasons (104 episodes) from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969. Developed at a time when the television western was losing ground to the spy genre, this show was conceived by its creator, Michael Garrison, as "James Bond on horseback." It was one of the first television series which could be described as a science fiction Western. Two television movies were made with the original cast in 1979 and 1980, and the series was adapted for a motion picture in 1999 with a new cast and story.
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[edit] Plot
The Wild Wild West told the story of the country's first two Secret Service agents—James West, the charming gunslinger (played by Robert Conrad), and Artemus Gordon (played by Ross Martin), the brilliant gadgeteer and master of disguise. Their unending mission was to protect President Ulysses S. Grant and the United States from all manner of dangerous threats. The agents traveled in luxury aboard their own train equipped with everything from a stable car to a laboratory.
The show incorporated classic Western elements with an espionage thriller, as well as science fiction/alternate history ideas (in a similar vein to steampunk) and plenty of comedy. In the finest James Bond tradition, there were always beautiful women, clever gadgets, and delusional arch-enemies with half-insane plots to take over the country or the world.
The most memorable recurring arch-villain was Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless, a brilliant-but-insane dwarf portrayed by Michael Dunn, who performed almost an identical function for West and Gordon as Professor Moriarty performed for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson—the worthy adversary, whose plans could be foiled but who resisted all attempts to capture him and bring him to justice. Loveless was introduced in the show's sixth produced, but third televised episode, "The Night the Wizard Shook The Earth," and appeared in another nine episodes. According to the "The Wild Wild West Revisited" TV movie, Loveless eventually dies in 1880 from anger and frustration at having his plans consistently ruined by West and Gordon. (His son, played by Paul Williams, subsequently seeks revenge on the agents).
While the show's writers created their fair share of villains, they frequently started with the nefarious, stylized inventions of these madmen and then wrote the episodes around these devices. Stories were also inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, and Jules Verne.
Each episode's title begins with "The Night" (except for the first-season episode Night of the Casual Killer, which omitted the definite article). Shows with similar naming conventions include Rawhide (seasons 1–3 and 5–6: "Incident ..."), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ("The ... Affair"), Friends ("The One ..."), and Scrubs ("My ...").
The first season episodes were filmed in black and white, and were appropriately darker in their tonality. (Cinematographer Ted Voightlander was nominated for an Emmy for his work on these episodes.) Subsequent seasons were filmed in color and the show became noticeably campier. Still, some episodes could be astonishingly violent, and that ultimately was its downfall: according to Susan Kesler's book (see below), CBS bowed under pressure from watchdog groups and cancelled the show. However, the network re-ran several episodes in the summer of 1970 before the program moved into syndication and new life on local stations across the country. In the early 1990s it was broadcast on cable channel TNT. The channel usually preferred the color episodes, however, rather than the black and white shows.
Robert Conrad and a stock company of stunt players choreographed at least two fight sequences per episode. Conrad also insisted on performing almost all of his own stunts, such as leaping off a 2nd-floor balcony or running in front of a team of horses. During the filming of one episode, "The Night of the Fugitives," Conrad fell 12 feet from a chandelier onto a concrete floor and suffered a concussion. [1] Production of the series, then near the end of its third season, was shut down two weeks early. (The episode eventually aired during the fourth season, with footage of the fall left in.) Ross Martin broke his leg in a fourth season episode, "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary," and suffered a heart attack a few weeks later after completing "The Night of Fire and Brimstone." His character was replaced temporarily by other agents played by Alan Hale, Jr., Charles Aidman, William Schallert and Pat Paulsen.
The Wild Wild West featured numerous gadgets. Some were recurring devices, such as James' sleeve gun or breakaway derringer hidden in his left and right boot heels. Others only appeared in a single episode.
- Sleeve gun (a Remington derringer, featured in many episodes)
- Breakaway derringer (featured in numerous episodes)
- exploding pool ball (featured in pilot episode)
- cue stick that has a hidden sword inside (featured in pilot episode)
- cue stick that has a hidden gun inside (featured in pilot episode)
- stage coach with ejection seat (featured in "The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth")
- A ball of explosive in the hollow heel of one boot, and the hem of his jacket is pulled away to form the fuse.
[edit] Revivals and other media
The two late-1970s TV movies, "The Wild Wild West Revisited" (aired May 9, 1979) and "More Wild Wild West," (aired October 7-8, 1980) reuniting Conrad and Martin, were successful enough that there was talk of a new series being commissioned, but the death of Ross Martin on July 3, 1981 put an end to these plans.
The Wild Wild West inspired subsequent TV shows like 1975's Barbary Coast with William Shatner and Doug McClure as sagebrush secret agents; 1985's Wildside; and 1993's The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
Ross Martin appeared in the 1978 TV movie "Wild and Wooley," which was described as "'Charlie's Angels' on horseback."
The series spawned several merchandising spin-offs, including a seven-issue comic book series by Gold Key Comics and Richard Wormser's The Wild Wild West, a paperback novel published in 1966 by Signet (ISBN 0-451-02836-8), which is an adaptation of the episode "The Night Of the Double-Edged Knife".
In 1988, Arnett Press published The Wild Wild West: The Series by Susan E. Kesler (ISBN 0-929360-00-1), which is a comprehensive study of the television series.
In 1990, Millennium Publications produced a four-part comic book series ("The Night Of The Iron Tyrants") scripted by Mark Ellis with art by Green Lantern artist Darryl Banks. A review at the Mile High Comics site praises it thusly: “This mini-series perfectly captures the fun mixture of western and spy action that marked the ground-breaking 1960s TV series.” [2] The storyline of "The Night Of The Iron Tyrants" was optioned for feature film development.
In 1998, Berkeley Books published three novels by author Robert Vaughan - The Wild Wild West (ISBN 0-425-16372-5), The Night of the Death Train (ISBN 0-425-16449-7), and The Night of the Assassin (ISBN 0-425-16517-5).
In 1999 a movie based on the series was released. See Wild Wild West
The first season of The Wild Wild West was released to DVD in North America on June 6, 2006, as a special 40th anniversary edition, with plans for the remaining seasons to be released over the next year. For the first season set, Robert Conrad recorded special audio introductions for all 28 episodes and the set also included interviews and 1970s era footage of Conrad and Martin being interviewed. The second season was released on March 20, 2007 but the set contained no special features.
[edit] Dates
The series is set during the presidency of Ulysses Grant, 1869-77; occasional episodes imply a more precise date.
- "The Night of the Glowing Corpse" is set during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1.
- In "The Night that Terror Stalked the Town", Loveless has a headstone prepared for West, showing his birthdate as July 2, 1842. If West's age during this episode was equal to Robert Conrad's age when it was first shown, the date would be March 22, 1873.
- "The Night of the Whirring Death" opens with the caption San Francisco 1874.
- In "The Night of the Flaming Ghost" Jim West says, "If the real John Brown had lived he'd be almost 75 years old by now," placing this episode not long before May 9, 1875.
[edit] Trivia
- The main title theme was written by Richard Markowitz, who was brought in after the producers rejected two attempts by famed film composer Dimitri Tiomkin. However, Markowitz was never credited for his theme on any episode of the series (although he did receive "music by" credit for episodes he'd scored or where he supplied the majority of tracked-in cues); it is generally believed that this was due to legal difficulties between CBS and Tiomkin over the rejection of the latter's work. Markowitz had composed the theme to the TV series "The Rebel."
- The interior of West and Gordon's train was used in an episode of Gunsmoke titled "Death Train" (aired 1/27/67).
- Agnes Moorehead won an Emmy for her role as Emma Valentine in "The Night of The Vicious Valentine" (aired 2/10/67).
- Ross Martin was nominated for an Emmy in 1969.
- The cartoon teaser in the opening credits was altered slightly when the series changed to color. The original sequence is as follows:
- Hero strikes match to light cigarette
- Hero knocks out bank robber with a karate chop;
- Hero aims gun at cardsharp who drops card;
- Hero shoots gunman who picks up a pistol; gunman's hand falls limp;
- Hero kisses dance hall girl who is about to stab him with a knife; girl changes mind and turns away while still holding knife; he then tips his hat and walks away.
- In later seasons (it changed when the series changed to color): Hero kisses dance hall girl who is about to stab him with knife, then he knocks her out with a right cross to the jaw! [Note: This variant can be seen in the original pilot version of the opening credits (included on the DVD release) when the series was under the title The Wild West.] Despite the new version, James West never hit a woman in any episode, although he grappled with some.
- Each episode was divided into four acts. At the end of each act, the scene (usually a cliffhanger moment) would freeze and a sketch of the scene would replace one of the panels in the cartoon teaser.
- The commercial break art was changed slightly over the course of the series; in all first season episodes other than the pilot, the panels of the freeze-frames were live-action stills made to evoke 19th Century engravings. In season two (the first in color) the scenes initially dissolved to tinted stills; from "The Night of the Flying Pie Plate" on, the panels were home to Warhol-like serigraphs of the freeze-frames. The end credits were displayed over that episode's mosaic in every season but the last, when it was replaced by a standardised design.
- The pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno," is the only episode in which the panel with our hero is replaced by a sketch of the final scene of an act; in the third act our hero is replaced by the villainous Juan Manolo (Nehemiah Persoff).
- As indicated by Robert Conrad on his DVD commentary for the first season, the show went through several changes in producers in its early weeks of production. (Collier Young produced episodes 2-4, Fred Freiberger episodes 5-14, John Mantley episodes 15-21, Gene L. Coon episodes 22-26, and creator/executive producer Michael Garrison produced episodes 1, 27, and 28).
- There was also a cast change made in the first season: three episodes featured a butler named Tennyson who traveled with West and Gordon; this character was dropped after the fourth produced episode, though due to the episodes not being broadcast in production order, the character was seen in an off-and-on fashion.
- According to Philip José Farmer's theory of the Wold Newton family, Commissioner James Gordon from Batman is a descendant of Artemus Gordon, as is Flash Gordon.
