Casting and lead actors Before
The Wild Wild West, Robert Conrad played private detective Tom Lopaka in ABC's
Hawaiian Eye for four seasons (1959–63). In November 1964, he was making the film
Young Dillinger (1965) with
Nick Adams,
Victor Buono and
John Ashley (all of whom would later guest star on
The Wild Wild West) when his agent sent him to CBS to audition for the West role. Conrad claimed to be the 17th actor to test for the part. Others tested included
Robert Horton,
Ray Danton and James "Skip" Ward. Conrad also claimed that
John Derek left the audition without testing. Conrad performed nearly all of his own stunts in the series. "For the first few episodes we tried stuntmen," Conrad explained, "but the setup time slowed production down, so I volunteered. Things started moving quicker when I took the jumps and the spills. We started meeting the budget." Early on, he was doubled by Louie Elias or Chuck O'Brien. On January 24, 1968, however, during filming of "The Night of the Fugitives" near the end of the third season, Conrad fell from a chandelier onto the stage floor and suffered a
concussion. "A little gymnastics — chandelier work," he later explained. "I didn't chalk up properly and I went 15 feet to the concrete and fractured my skull. I was in intensive care for 72 hours, with a six-inch lineal fracture of the skull and a high temporal concussion." As a result, production of the series ended two weeks early. Conrad spent weeks in the hospital and had a long convalescence slowed by constant dizziness. The episode was eventually completed and aired early in the fourth season, with footage of the fall left in. Conrad later told Percy Shain of the
Boston Globe, "I have the whole scene on film. It's a constant reminder to be careful. It also bolstered my determination to make this my last year with the series. Four seasons are enough of this sort of thing." Thereafter, Conrad was doubled for the dangerous stunts, but still participated in fight scenes. Prior to
The Wild Wild West, Ross Martin co-starred in the CBS series
Mr. Lucky from 1959 to 1960, portraying Mr. Lucky's sidekick, Andamo. The series was created by
Blake Edwards, who also cast Martin as villains in his films
Experiment in Terror (1962) and
The Great Race (1965). Martin once called his role as Artemus Gordon "a show-off's showcase" because it allowed him to portray over 100 different characters and perform dozens of different dialects during the course of the series. He sketched his ideas for his characterizations and worked with the makeup artists to execute the final look. Martin told Percy Shain of the
Boston Globe, "In the three years of the show, I have run a wider gamut than even those acknowledged masters of disguise,
Paul Muni and
Lon Chaney. Sometimes I feel like a one man repertory company. I think I've proven to myself and to the industry that I am the No. 1 character lead in films today." The industry acknowledged Martin's work with an
Emmy nomination in 1969. Martin broke his leg in a fourth-season episode, "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary", when he dropped a rifle, stepped on it, and his foot rolled over it. Martin told Percy Shain, "In the scene where I was hurt, my stand-in tried to finish it. When the shell ejected from the rifle, it caught him in the eye and burned it. We still haven't finished that scene. It will have to wait until I can move around again." But Ratoff died that December and his widow sold the film rights to producer
Charles K. Feldman for $75,000. Feldman and director
Howard Hawks were interested in making
Casino Royale with
Cary Grant as Bond. Eventually Feldman was offered $500,000 and a percentage of the profits to let Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli make the film with Sean Connery. Feldman turned them down, and eventually produced the spoof
Casino Royale in 1967. By then, Garrison and CBS had brought James Bond to television in a unique way. The series' pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno", was filmed in December 1964. It was produced by Garrison and, according to Robert Conrad, cost $685,000. The episode was scripted by
Gilbert Ralston, who had written for numerous episodic TV series in the 1950s and 1960s. (Western novelist and screenwriter
Clair Huffaker also worked on the concept.) In a later deposition, Ralston explained that he was approached by Michael Garrison, who "said he had an idea for a series, good commercial idea, and wanted to know if I could glue the idea of a western hero and a James Bond type together in the same show." Ralston said he then created the
Civil War characters, the format, the story outline and nine drafts of the pilot script that was the basis for the television series. It was his idea, for example, to have a secret agent named Jim West who would perform secret missions for President
Ulysses S. Grant. Ralston later sued
Warner Bros. over the 1999 theatrical film
Wild Wild West, which was based on the series. As indicated by
Robert Conrad on his DVD commentary, the show went through several producers in its first season. This was apparently due to conflicts between the network and Garrison, who had no experience producing for television and had trouble staying on budget. At first, Ben Brady was named producer, but he was shifted to
Rawhide, which had its own crisis when star
Eric Fleming quit at the end of the 1964–65 season.
Rawhide lasted another 13 episodes before it was cancelled by CBS. The network then hired
Collier Young. In an interview, Young said he saw the series as
The Rogues set in 1870 (
The Rogues, which he had produced, was about con men who swindled swindlers, much like the 1970s series
Switch). Young also claimed to have added the wry second "Wild" to the series title, which had been simply "The Wild West" in its early stages of production. Young's episodes (2–4) featured a butler named Tennyson who traveled with West and Gordon, but since the episodes were not broadcast in production order, the character popped up at different times during the first season. Conrad was not sorry to see Young go: "I don't mind. All that guy did creatively was put the second 'wild' in the title. CBS did the right thing." as Doctor Loveless. Young's replacement,
Fred Freiberger, returned the series to its original concept. It was on his watch that writer
John Kneubuhl, inspired by a magazine article about
Michael Dunn, created the arch-villain
Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless. Phoebe Dorin, who played Loveless' assistant, Antoinette, recalled: "Michael Garrison came to see [our] nightclub act when he was in New York. Garrison said to himself, 'Michael Dunn would make the most extraordinary villain. People have never seen anything like him before, and he's a fabulous little actor and he's funny as hell.' And, Garrison felt, if Michael Dunn sang on every show, with the girl, it would be an extraordinary running villain. He came backstage and he told us who he was and he said he was going to do a television show called
The Wild Wild West and we would be called. We thought, 'Yeah, yeah, we've heard all that before.' But he did call us and the show was a fantastic success. And that's how it started, because he saw the nightclub act." Loveless was introduced in "The Night the Wizard Shook The Earth", the show's sixth produced, but third televised episode. The character became an immediate hit and Dunn was contracted to appear in four episodes per season. Because of health problems, however, Dunn appeared in only 10 episodes instead of 16. After 10 episodes (5–14), Freiberger and executive producer Michael Garrison were, according to
Variety, "unceremoniously dumped," reputedly due to a behind-the-scenes power struggle. Garrison was replaced by Phillip Leacock, the executive producer of
Gunsmoke, and Freiberger was supplanted by John Mantley, an associate producer on
Gunsmoke. The exchange stunned both cast and crew. Garrison, who owned 40% of
The Wild Wild West, knew nothing about the changes and had not been consulted. He turned the matter over to his attorneys. Freiberger said, "I was fired for accomplishing what I had been hired to do. I was hired to pull the show together when it was in chaos." Conrad said, "I was totally shocked by it. Let's face it, the show is healthy. I think Fred Freiberger is totally correct in his concept of the show. It's an administrative change, for what reason I don't know." Garrison's return was much to the relief of Ross Martin, who once revealed that he was so disenchanted during the first season that he tried to quit three times. He explained that Garrison "saw the show as a Bond spoof laid in 1870, and we all knew where we stood. Each new producer tried to put his stamp on the show and I had a terrible struggle. I fought them line by line in every script. They knew they couldn't change the James West role very much, but it was open season on Artemus Gordon because they had never seen anything like him before." On August 17, 1966, however, during production of the new season's ninth episode, "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse", Garrison fell down a flight of stairs in his home, fractured his skull and died. CBS assigned
Bruce Lansbury, brother of actress
Angela Lansbury, to produce the show for the remainder of its run. In the early 1960s Lansbury had been in charge of daytime shows at CBS Television City in Hollywood, then vice president of programming in New York. When he was tapped for
The Wild Wild West, Lansbury was working with his twin brother,
Edgar, producing legitimate theater on Broadway. The first season's episodes were filmed in black and white and they were darker in tone.
Cinematographer Ted Voightlander was nominated for an
Emmy Award for his work on one of these episodes, "The Night of the Howling Light". Subsequent seasons were filmed in color and the show became noticeably campier.
The Wild Wild West was filmed at
CBS Studio Center on Radford Avenue in
Studio City in the San Fernando Valley. The 70-acre lot was formerly the home of
Republic Studios, which specialized in low-budget films, including Westerns starring
Roy Rogers and
Gene Autry and Saturday morning serials (which
The Wild Wild West appropriately echoed). CBS had a wall-to-wall lease on the lot starting in May 1963 and produced
Gunsmoke and
Rawhide there, as well as ''
Gilligan's Island''. The network bought the lot from Republic in February 1967 for $9.5 million. Beginning in 1971, MTM Enterprises (headed by actress
Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker) became the Studio Center's primary tenant. In the mid-1980s the Western streets and sets were replaced with new sound stages and urban facades, including the New York streets seen in
Seinfeld. In 1995, the lagoon set that was originally constructed for ''Gilligan's Island'' was paved over to create a parking lot. Among iconic locations used for filming were
Bronson Canyon ("Night of the Returning Dead" S02 E05) and
Vasquez Rocks ("Night of the Cadre" S02 E26). The TV movies used Old Tucson Studios and Apacheland Studios in Tucson, Arizona, and Gold Canyon, Arizona, respectively.
Train For the pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno", the producers used
Sierra Railroad No. 3, a
4-6-0 locomotive that was, fittingly, an
anachronism: Sierra No. 3 was built in 1891, 15 to 20 years after the series was set. Footage of this train, with a 5 replacing the 3 on its number plate, was shot in
Jamestown, California. Best known for its role as the Hooterville Cannonball in the CBS series
Petticoat Junction, Sierra No. 3 probably appeared in more films and TV shows than any other locomotive in history. It was built by the
Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works in
Paterson, New Jersey. When
The Wild Wild West went into series production, however, an entirely different train was employed. The locomotive, a
4-4-0 named the
Inyo, was built in 1875 by the
Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia. Originally a wood-burner, the Inyo was converted to oil in 1910. The Inyo, as well as the express car and the passenger car, originally served the
Virginia and Truckee Railroad in Nevada. They were among the V&T cars sold to Paramount Pictures in 1937–38. The Inyo appears in numerous films including
High, Wide and Handsome (1938),
Union Pacific (1939), the
Marx Brothers'
Go West (1940),
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944),
Red River (1948),
Disney's
The Great Locomotive Chase (1956) and
McLintock! (1963). For
The Wild Wild West, Inyo's original number plate was temporarily changed from No. 22 to No. 8 so that footage of the train could be flopped horizontally without the number appearing reversed. Footage of the Inyo in motion and idling was shot around
Menifee, California, and reused in virtually every episode. Stock footage of Sierra No. 3 occasionally resurfaced as well. These trains were used only for exterior shots. The luxurious interior of the passenger car was constructed on Stage 6 at
CBS Studio Center. Designed by art director
Albert Heschong, the set reportedly cost $35,000 in 1965 (over $290,000 in 2021 dollars). The interior was redesigned with lighter wood when the show switched to color for the 1966–67 season. The train interior was also used in at least one episode of
Gunsmoke ("Death Train", aired January 27, 1967) and in at least two episodes of
The Big Valley ("Last Train to the Fair", aired April 27, 1966, and "Days of Wrath", aired January 8, 1968). All three series were filmed at CBS Studio Center and shared other exterior and interior sets. Additionally, the train interior was used for an episode of
Get Smart ("The King Lives?", aired January 6, 1968) and the short-lived
Barbary Coast ("Funny Money", aired September 8, 1975). After its run on
The Wild Wild West, the Inyo participated in the
Golden Spike Centennial at Promontory, Utah, in 1969. The following year it appeared as a replica of the Central Pacific's "Jupiter" locomotive at the Golden Spike National Historical Site. The State of Nevada purchased the Inyo in 1974; it was restored to 1895 vintage, including a wider smoke stack and a new
cowcatcher (pilot) without a drop coupler. The Inyo is still operational and displayed at the
Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City. The express car (No. 21) and passenger car (No. 4) are also at the museum. Another veteran V&T locomotive, the Reno (built in 1872 by Baldwin), was used in the two
Wild Wild West TV movies. The Reno, which resembles the Inyo, is located at
Old Tucson Studios. The 1999
Wild Wild West film adaptation used the Baltimore & Ohio 4–4–0 No. 25, one of the oldest operating steam locomotives in the U.S. Built in 1856 at the
Mason Machine Works in
Taunton, Massachusetts, it was later renamed The
William Mason in honor of its manufacturer. For its role as "The Wanderer" in the film, the engine was sent to the steam shops at the
Strasburg Rail Road for restoration and repainting. The locomotive is brought out for the B&O Train Museum in Baltimore's "Steam Days". Both the Inyo and The William Mason appeared in the
Disney film
The Great Locomotive Chase (1956).
Theme music The main
title theme was written by
Richard Markowitz, who previously composed the theme for the TV series
The Rebel. He was brought in after the producers rejected two attempts by film composer
Dimitri Tiomkin. In an interview by Susan Kesler (for her book
The Wild Wild West: The Series) included in the first season DVD boxed set, Markowitz recalled that the original Tiomkin theme "was very, kind of, traditional, it just seemed wrong." Markowitz explained his own approach: "By combining jazz with Americana, I think that's what nailed it. That took it away from the serious kind of thing that Tiomkin was trying to do...What I did essentially was write two themes: the rhythmic, contemporary theme, Fender bass and brushes, that vamp, for the cartoon effects and for West's getting himself out of trouble, and the heraldic western outdoor theme over that, so that the two worked together." Session musicians who played on the theme were
Tommy Morgan (harmonica);
Bud Shank,
Ronnie Lang,
Plas Johnson and Gene Cipriano (woodwinds);
Vince DeRosa and Henry Sigismonti (French horns);
Uan Rasey,
Ollie Mitchell and
Tony Terran (trumpets);
Dick Nash, Lloyd Ulyate, Chauncey Welsch and Kenny Shroyer (trombones);
Tommy Tedesco and
Bill Pitman (guitars);
Carol Kaye (Fender bass);
Joe Porcaro (brushes) and Gene Estes,
Larry Bunker and
Emil Richards (timpani, percussion). Markowitz, however, was never credited for his theme in any episode; it is believed that this was due to legal difficulties between CBS and Tiomkin over the rejection of the latter's work. Markowitz did receive "music composed and conducted by" credits for episodes he had scored (such as "The Night of the Bars of Hell" and "The Night of the Raven") or where he supplied the majority of tracked-in cues (such as "The Night of the Grand Emir" and "The Night of the Gypsy Peril"). He finally received "theme by" credit on both of the TV movies, which were scored by
Jeff Alexander rather than Markowitz (few personnel from the series were involved with the TV movies).
Graphics The animated
title sequence was another unique element of the series. Created by Michael Garrison Productions and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, it was directed by
Isadore "Friz" Freleng and animated by Ken Mundie, who designed the titles for the film
The Great Race and the TV series
Secret Agent, I Spy,
Rawhide and
Death Valley Days. The screen was divided into four corner panels abutting a narrow central panel that contained a cartoon "hero". The hero looked more like a traditional cowboy than either West or Gordon, and from each corner panel encountered cliché western characters and situations that never appeared in the show. In the three seasons shot in color, the overall backdrop was an abstracted wash of the
flag of the United States, with the upper left panel colored blue and the others containing horizontal red stripes. The original animation sequence is: • The hero strikes a match, lights a cigar, and begins walking in profile to the right. • Behind the hero, in the lower left panel, a bandito backs out of a bank; the hero subdues him with a
karate chop to the back. • In the upper right panel, a
cardsharp tries to pull an
ace of spades from his boot, but the hero draws his gun and the cardsharp drops the ace. • In the upper left panel, a gunman picks up and points a six-shooter at the hero, who drops his gun and puts his hands up. The hero shoots the gunman with his sleeve
Derringer; the gunman's hand falls limp. The hero then quickly retrieves his own gun and puts it back in his holster. • A woman in the lower right panel taps the hero on the hat with her
parasol. He pulls her close and kisses her. She draws a knife but, mesmerized by his kiss, turns away and slumps against the side of the frame. He tips his hat and walks away with his back to the camera. There were two versions of this
vignette; this one appears during the first season. When the show switched to color, the hero knocked the woman down with a
right cross to the jaw. This variant also appears in the original pilot episode (included on the DVD release) when the series was titled
The Wild West. Despite this, James West never hit a woman in any episode, although he grappled with many. The closest he came was when he slammed a door against the shotgun-holding evil Countess Zorana in "The Night of the Iron Fist". In "The Night of the Running Death", he slugged a woman named Miss Tyler, but "she" was a man in
drag (actor
T. C. Jones). The original animation, with the hero winning the woman over with a kiss, was a more accurate representation of West's methods than the right cross. • The hero walks away into the distance and the camera zooms into his panel. The title
The Wild Wild West appears. The camera then
swish pans to an illustration of the train, with Conrad's and Martin's names on the ends of different cars. Each episode had four acts. At the end of each act, the scene, usually a cliffhanger moment, would freeze, and a sketch or photograph of the scene replaced the cartoon art in one of the corner panels. The style of freeze-frame art changed over the course of the series. In all first-season episodes other than the pilot, the panels were live-action stills made to evoke 19th-century engravings. In season 2, (the first in color) the scenes dissolved to tinted stills; from "The Night of the Flying Pie Plate" on, however, the panels were home to
Warhol-like serigraphs of the freeze-frames. The end credits were displayed over each episode's unique mosaic of scenes. In the final season, however, a generic design was used under the end credits. Curiously, in this design, the bank robber is unconscious, the cardsharp has no card and the lady is on the ground, but the six-shooter in the upper left-hand panel has returned. The freeze-frame graphics were shot at a facility called Format Animation. The pilot is the only episode in which the center panel of the hero is replaced by a sketch of the final scene of an act; he is replaced by the villainous General Cassinello (
Nehemiah Persoff) at the end of the third act. During the first season, the series title
The Wild Wild West was set in the
font Barnum, which resembles the newer font
P. T. Barnum. In subsequent seasons, the title appeared in a hand-drawn version of the font Dolphin (which resembles newer fonts called Zebrawood, Circus and Rodeo Clown). Robert Conrad's name was also set in this font. Ross Martin's name was set in the font Bracelet (which resembles newer fonts named Tuscan Ornate and Romantiques). All episode titles, writer and director credits, guest cast and crew credits were set in Barnum. During commercial breaks, the title "The Wild Wild West" also appeared in Barnum. This
teaser part of the show was incorporated into
The History Channel's
Wild West Tech (2003–05).
Dates given in the series The series is generally set during the
presidency of Ulysses S. Grant from 1869 to 1877; occasional episodes indicate a more precise date: • "The Night of the Glowing Corpse" (S1E7) is set during the
Franco-Prussian War of July 19, 1870 – May 10, 1871. • "The Night of the Eccentrics" (S2E1) takes place four years after the execution in 1867 of Emperor
Maximilian I of Mexico, i.e. 1871. This is supported by a reference to
President Benito Juárez, who stepped down in 1872. • In "The Night of the Eccentrics", Count Manzeppi hums "
Ride of the Valkyries" which was first performed on June 26, 1870. • "The Night of the Man Eating House" (S2E12) states that Liston Day has been in solitary confinement for 30 years and later that he was arrested April 23, 1836. This would put it around 1866, three years before the Grant presidency began. • In "The Night of the Brain" (S2E21), Artemus Gordon shows James West a newspaper dated July 12, 1872. West states, "July 12, that's an interesting date, but it happens to be tomorrow." After the events described happen, they again get tomorrow's newspaper and we see the date: July 14, 1872. • "The Night of the Lord of Limbo" (S2E15) takes place seven years after the end of the Civil War, making it 1872. • "The Night of the Tartar" (S2E19) takes place five years after the 1867 purchase of Alaska [i.e., 1872] • "The Night of the Whirring Death" (S1E20) opens with the caption
San Francisco 1874. • "The Night of the Returning Death" is set 13 years after the start of the Civil War [i.e., 1874] • In "The Night of the Flaming Ghost" (S1E18), West says, "If the real
John Brown had lived he'd be almost 75 years old by now." Brown was born May 9, 1800. • In "The Night of the Arrow" (S3E16), a cavalry officer resigns his commission as of April 6, 1874. • In "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary" (S4E11), the heading of a letter shown on screen is dated 1875. • In "The Night of the Underground Terror" (S3E19), the sadistic commandant of a
prison camp is said to have escaped justice for 10 years, presumably from the end of the war in 1865. • In "The Night of the Samurai" (S3E6), Baron Saigo says
Admiral Perry took the sword over 30 years earlier. Assuming the date of Perry's first visit to Japan (July 8, 1853), that would mean the episode takes place after 1883, or some six years after the end of the Grant presidency. • In "The Night that Terror Stalked the Town", Loveless has a
headstone prepared for West, showing his birthdate as July 2, 1842. • In "The Night of the Kraken" (S4E6), there is an assassination attempt on
Admiral David Farragut, who died in 1870. ==Cancellation==