50 Fun Facts About The Wild Wild West

Creator Michael Garrison conceived The Wild Wild West as which famous fictional spy on horseback?

James Bond was the model: beautiful women, clever gadgets and megalomaniac villains, all moved to the 1870s frontier. Westerns were losing viewers to spy shows when the series was developed.

In The Wild Wild West, James West served on which future president's Civil War staff before guarding him?

Ulysses S. Grant is the president the agents answer to, and the series is set during his two terms, from 1869 to 1877. West had been a cavalry and intelligence officer on his wartime staff.

Which actor performed nearly all of his own stunts as agent James West on The Wild Wild West?

Robert Conrad volunteered for the jumps and falls because setting up stuntmen slowed filming and strained the budget. He also helped choreograph the two big fights most episodes featured.

Which agency sends James West and Artemus Gordon out on a private train in The Wild Wild West?

The Secret Service gives the pair their missions throughout the series. In the 1999 film they only join it at the very end, as its first two agents.

The Wild Wild West was cancelled in its fourth season amid a Congressional outcry over which issue?

TV violence came under fire after the assassinations of 1968, and the network dropped the show as a gesture of good intentions. Its last episodes had strict limits on fights and gunplay.

Which star played James West in the 1999 film Wild Wild West and also recorded its chart-topping theme song?

Will Smith turned the agent into a wisecracking Army captain, and his title song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The film itself disappointed at the box office against a $170 million budget.

Which actor, later famous as the henchman Jaws, played Dr. Loveless's towering bodyguard Voltaire on The Wild Wild West?

Richard Kiel played the mostly silent giant in only three episodes before Voltaire vanished without explanation. He returned later as a different character, a wealthy family's outcast son.

Which machine armed with nitroglycerin cannons is Dr. Loveless's ultimate weapon in the 1999 film Wild Wild West?

A giant spider was something producer Jon Peters had already requested for an unmade Superman film. In Wild Wild West it halts at the very edge of a canyon during the final showdown.

The star of The Wild Wild West fractured his skull in 1968 after falling from what during a stunt?

A chandelier swing went wrong when he failed to chalk his hands, dropping him 15 feet onto concrete. Filming for the season ended early, and the fall itself was left in the finished episode.

Which science-fiction hit of 1999 did the leading man of Wild Wild West turn down to make the Western instead?

The Matrix offered him the lead role of Neo, but he chose the Western, a decision he later said he regretted.

Which actor played more than 100 different characters across The Wild Wild West as gadget-maker Artemus Gordon?

Ross Martin called the part a show-off's showcase and sketched his own ideas for each character's look. The work earned him an Emmy nomination in 1969.

The cartoon hero in The Wild Wild West's opening titles shoots a gunman with which pistol hidden up his sleeve?

A derringer slides out of his sleeve after he drops his own gun and raises his hands. A toy sleeve gun went on sale in 1966, though without the show's name on it.

What is the name of the luxurious private train that carries James West and Artemus Gordon in The Wild Wild West?

The Wanderer's lavish passenger-car interior was a studio set that reportedly cost $35,000 to build in 1965. The 1999 film kept the name for its own train.

Which actor and nightclub singer played the arch-villain Dr. Loveless in ten episodes of The Wild Wild West?

Michael Dunn sang in a real nightclub act with Phoebe Dorin, who played Loveless's companion on screen. Poor health held him to ten episodes when his contract called for four a season.

Which network filmed The Wild Wild West on a lot it shared with Gunsmoke and Gilligan's Island?

CBS filmed the series at its Studio Center lot in Studio City, once the home of Republic Studios and its Roy Rogers and Gene Autry Westerns.

The Wild Wild West, with its Victorian-era gadgets, is often cited as an early television example of which genre?

Steampunk sites cite the show's Verne-style technology in an 1870s setting as a pioneering influence. The 1999 film played up that side even more.

Which actor played a dual role as Artemus Gordon and the President in the 1999 film Wild Wild West?

Kevin Kline made his Gordon a vain inventor locked in a rivalry with West, where the television partners were close friends who trusted each other with their lives.

Which British actor played Dr. Loveless as a legless ex-Confederate inventor in the 1999 film Wild Wild West?

Kenneth Branagh played him in a steam-powered wheelchair, a change the television show's star attacked. Branagh later joked that he despised the accent he had used.

The original James West actor turned up in person to collect which awards won by the 1999 film Wild Wild West?

The Razzies named it Worst Picture among five wins, and he accepted three of the trophies himself to show his disapproval of the remake.

The actor who played James West on The Wild Wild West famously balanced what on his shoulder in 1970s commercials?

A battery sat on his shoulder in the Eveready ads while he challenged viewers to test its staying power. The tough-guy routine was parodied by Johnny Carson and Carol Burnett.

Which Bewitched star won The Wild Wild West its only Emmy, playing the murderous matchmaker Emma Valentine?

Agnes Moorehead won the 1967 supporting-actress Emmy for this single guest spot. Her villain holds James West captive in a matchmaking machine that works out his ideal woman.

Which entertainer joined Peter Lawford as a guest in The Wild Wild West episode about a bulletproof ghost rider?

Sammy Davis Jr. played Jeremiah opposite his fellow Rat Pack member Peter Lawford in this second-season story, which was filmed partly in Bronson Canyon.

Which star of the 1931 film Frankenstein played a maharajah who kidnaps James West on The Wild Wild West?

Boris Karloff's maharajah wants West to tutor his sons in the fine art of killing, and at one point the agent becomes the ball in a deadly game of polo.

Which future stand-up legend guest-starred in the Wild Wild West episode that introduced Count Manzeppi?

Richard Pryor played Villar, a member of the Eccentrics, a league of assassins based at a circus. Comedy Central later ranked him the greatest stand-up of all time.

Which state does Dr. Loveless of The Wild Wild West claim through his family's Spanish-era lands?

California, he insists, belongs to him through his mother's old ranchero family. His first scheme was to seize it from the governor and build a haven for society's outcasts.

Unlike its three later seasons, the first season of The Wild Wild West was filmed in what format?

Black and white suited the moodier early stories, one of which earned an Emmy nomination for cinematography. When color arrived in 1966, the train set was rebuilt in lighter wood and the show turned campier.

The theme song of the 1999 film Wild Wild West samples the 1976 hit "I Wish" by which Motown star?

Stevie Wonder also appears in the song's music video, and he played a reprise of the chorus on piano when it was performed at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards.

The star and director of 1999's Wild Wild West had just made which hit alien comedy together?

Men in Black had just wrapped when talks began in 1997, and the studio went on to promote the pair's Western far more heavily than its animated film The Iron Giant.

What is the first name of The Wild Wild West's arch-villain Dr. Loveless, changed to Arliss for the 1999 film?

Miguelito Quixote Loveless was created by writer John Kneubuhl after he read a magazine article about the actor who would go on to play him.

What is the name of Dr. Loveless's singing companion on The Wild Wild West, played by Phoebe Dorin?

Antoinette often sings duets with the doctor at a piano or a stringed instrument. Dorin recalled her costume snagging in underwater machinery on set, and her co-star diving down to free her.

In The Wild Wild West, Dr. Loveless once escapes by shrinking himself and flying away on the back of which bird?

A swan carries off the miniaturized doctor and his companion, after his shrinking powder has left a tiny James West facing a cat.

In one Wild Wild West episode, Dr. Loveless invents a device that lets real people step in and out of what?

Paintings become doorways in the story, and Loveless arranges a gunfight that pits James West against seven of the Old West's fastest gunmen.

According to the 1979 reunion film The Wild Wild West Revisited, what finally killed Dr. Loveless in 1880?

Ulcers did it, brought on by years of frustration at having every scheme foiled by the two agents. His son then sets out to take revenge on them.

Which songwriter of "Rainbow Connection" played the villain's son, Loveless Jr., in The Wild Wild West Revisited?

Paul Williams's Loveless Jr. builds an atomic bomb and replaces the crowned heads of England, Spain and Russia with doubles under his control.

Which comedian played Albert Paradine II, a madman with an invisibility formula, in 1980's More Wild Wild West?

Jonathan Winters stepped in as a new villain because the actor who had played Loveless Jr. was away on tour. That is why the story opens with a string of clones being murdered.

Before The Wild Wild West, the actor behind James West spent four seasons as a private detective on which series?

Hawaiian Eye cast him as detective Tom Lopaka from 1959 to 1963. He was shooting a film with three future Wild Wild West guest stars when his agent sent him to audition for the Western.

After The Wild Wild West, its star played World War II fighter ace Pappy Boyington in which 1970s series?

Baa Baa Black Sheep ran from 1976 to 1978 and was renamed Black Sheep Squadron for its second season. He followed it with the role of the trapper Pasquinel in the miniseries Centennial.

Which Gilligan's Island star filled in as agent Ned Brown while Artemus Gordon's actor was ill on The Wild Wild West?

Alan Hale Jr., the Skipper himself, was one of several stand-in partners after a heart attack sidelined the regular co-star for nine episodes in 1968.

In one Wild Wild West episode, a green-skinned woman from an apparent spaceship says her craft needs what as fuel?

Gold for a spaceship is the bizarre scheme behind "The Night of the Flying Pie Plate". The episode also introduced the show's Warhol-style freeze-frame artwork at each act break.

Which actor, Batman's villainous King Tut, played the black-magic mastermind Count Manzeppi on The Wild Wild West?

Victor Buono also played a different villain in the pilot and returned for the last reunion film as a parody of Henry Kissinger. Manzeppi was the only foe besides Dr. Loveless to face the agents twice.

Which future Godfather star played the Falcon, a villain aiming a town-levelling gun at Denver, on The Wild Wild West?

Robert Duvall played Dr. Horace Humphries, alias the Falcon, five years before his Oscar-nominated turn as Tom Hagen.

Which 1965 film earned an Oscar nomination for the actor who played Dr. Loveless on The Wild Wild West?

Ship of Fools brought him a supporting-actor nomination for playing the cynical Karl Glocken. The film was released in the same year he first appeared as Loveless.

A Wild Wild West plot about a man moving too fast to see was later reused by its producer on which series?

Star Trek's "Wink of an Eye" borrowed the idea from producer Gene L. Coon's stint on the Western. The actor who played Dr. Loveless also turned up on the starship series, as a court jester.

The steam locomotive in The Wild Wild West's pilot is best known as the Hooterville Cannonball of which sitcom?

Petticoat Junction made Sierra No. 3 famous, but the 1891 engine was too modern for an 1870s story. The series itself switched to the Inyo, a locomotive built in 1875.

The animated opening of The Wild Wild West came from the cartoon studio behind which big-screen title character?

The Pink Panther's creators, DePatie-Freleng, made the sequence, with Friz Freleng directing. Its cartoon cowboy deals with a bank robber, a cardsharp, a gunman and a woman with a knife.

In which country was The Wild Wild West a big hit under a title meaning "The Mysteries of the West"?

France got all four seasons in a DVD boxed set before the United States did. The French edition also renamed some episodes, turning one gypsy peril into a white elephant.

Which president is played by Wilford Brimley in the 1979 reunion film The Wild Wild West Revisited, set in 1885?

Grover Cleveland is president when the retired agents are called back to stop a villain who has swapped three of Europe's monarchs for doubles.

Which Oscar-winning composer of High Noon had two theme tunes rejected by the producers of The Wild Wild West?

Dimitri Tiomkin's attempts were judged too traditional, so Richard Markowitz wrote the jazzy theme instead. Markowitz was never credited for it on screen during the series.

Which actor was first cast as James West in 1992 but left the planned Wild Wild West film to make Maverick?

Mel Gibson was attached along with director Richard Donner, who had directed three episodes of the original series. Both left for another big-screen version of a television Western.

Which actor signed to play Artemus Gordon in the 1999 film Wild Wild West but was replaced before filming began?

George Clooney stepped aside in December 1997, saying it was better to leave than to damage the project by reshaping the part to fit him.