History Trivia / TheWildWildWest

* PlayingAgainstType: Don Rickles as evil magician Asmodeus in "The Night of the Druid's Blood." No blustering or brash hurling of insults here.

** A more straightforward example is President Grant. In the pilot episode, he is played by James Gregory; in every future appearance he is portrayed by Roy Engel.

** A large number of recogizable faces turn up in guest roles during the course of the series, often as the VillainOfTheWeek or the GirlOfTheWeek. Among those that appear are Michael Dunn, Richard Kiel, Victor Buono, Suzanne Pleshette, Robert Loggia, Jeff Corey, LeslieNielsen, Katherine Ross, Elisha Cook Jr., Martin Landau, Burgess Meredith, Yvonne Craig, Richard Jaeckel... and that's just the first season.

** All over the place, particularly Pilar Seurat as a very un-Chinese-looking Chinese princess in "The Night The Dragon Screamed," Paul Wallace doing an [[FakeBrit English accent]] that isn't even good enough to be called excruciating in "The Night of the Eccentrics" and Ricardo Montalban as a Confederate Army colonel in "The Night of the Lord of Limbo." (And this being Ricardo Montalban, [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent he doesn't even bother with an accent]].)

* TheEveryman: This was originally intended to be Artemus Gordon's role in the show; it was felt that a James Bond-type character in a continuing TV series wouldn't be relatable enough without some kind of audience surrogate. The surrogate could also be used to provide West with his supply of gadgets, killing two birds with one stone. However, as the series developed, so did Artie's character, and this particular trait went by the wayside.

* ActorAllusion: At the end of "The Night of the Sabatini Death," Ned Brown, one of Artie's pinch hitters in the fourth season, mentions to Jim that on his vacation he's planning to fufill his dream: to spend time alone on a desert island. The actor was [[GilligansIsland Alan Hale Jr.]]

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Artemus Gordon's nickname is spelled "Arte" in various places, including the material accompanying the official [=DVDs=]. However, in the episode "Night of the Juggernaut" the character himself spells it "Artie."

** Before the IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming was sorted out, "The Night of the Inferno" (the pilot) and the first three produced regular episodes ("The Night of the Double-Edged Knife," "Night of the Casual Killer" and "The Night of the Fatal Trap") were respectively called "The Cannonball Eightball," "The Greatest Train Robbery," "Tug O'War" and "How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth."

* RecycledScript: Both "The Night of the Skulls" and "The Night of the Cadre" feature a villain who helps notorious murderers escape from prison so he can train them as a crack team of assassins to kill President Grant. In both episodes, West cracks the case by posing as a killer and getting recruited for the team.

** "The Night of the Big Blackmail" was originally called "The Night of the Deadly Blades." Since the episode does indeed feature deadly blades but does ''not'' involve any blackmail, the change seems an odd one to say the least.

* TheCharacterDiedWithHim: When Ross Martin died there were plans in the works for a third reunion movie or even, according to some sources, a revival of the series. Network executives proposed continuing without Martin by either writing out or killing off Artemus Gordon, but Robert Conrad refused to do the show without his old co-star. In a sense, the series itself died with him.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: The show's creator and producer/executive producer, Michael Garrison, died in an accident at his home during filming of the second season episode "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse." Bruce Lansbury (younger brother of [[AngelaLansbury Angela]]), who was already on board as producer with Garrison above him, took over the reins from then on (although the series remained "A Michael Garrison Production[[note]]in association with the Creator/{{CBS}} Television Network[[/note]]" to the end).

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: John Kneubuhl, one of the series' regular writers (in its first two seasons), wanted to write an episode specifically for Liberace to guest star in. Michael Garrison loved the idea - as did Liberace himself - but as Kneubuhl put it, "[[ExecutiveMeddling CBS killed the idea right then and there]]." This was because Garrison (like Liberace) was very gay, and the Eye was uncomfortable with anything onscreen that might suggest this was so.

** Yes, that's a young RichardPryor as one of Count Manzeppi's henchmen in "The Night of the Eccentrics."

** An odd case in "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary." Ross Martin was injured while filming a fight sequence and a substitute was therefore used to play Artie in the immediately preceding dialogue scene. The new actor's face and voice are very prominently displayed in said scene (in fact, he's the image for the act-ending [[IdiosyncraticWipes freeze-frame/dissolve to drawing]]), making it obvious that he is ''not'' Ross Martin. Understandable confusion results for some in the viewing audience. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdbRn9cl0dk See 3:26 to 3:31 of this compilation of ''all'' the drawings for seasons three and four.]]

** An odd case in "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary." Ross Martin was injured while filming a fight sequence and a substitute was therefore used to play Artie in the immediately preceding dialogue scene. The new actor's face and voice are very prominently displayed in said scene (in fact, he's the image for the act-ending [[IdiosyncraticWipes freeze-frame/dissolve to drawing]]), making it obvious that he is ''not'' Ross Martin. Understandable confusion results for some in the viewing audience.

* FakeNationality: All over the place, particularly Pilar Seurat as a very un-Chinese-looking Chinese princess in "The Night The Dragon Screamed," Paul Wallace doing an [[FakeBrit English accent]] that isn't even good enough to be called excruciating in "The Night of the Eccentrics" and Ricardo Montalban as a Confederate Army colonel in "The Night of the Lord of Limbo." (And this being Ricardo Montalban, [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent he doesn't even bother with an accent]].)

** Ross Martin was very much playing a sidekick in the first season - he had relatively little screentime, rarely got the girl and his primary role in the final confrontation with the villain-of-the-week was either to watch or lie on the sidelines unconscious. Martin was reportedly unhappy with this as he'd been promised something a bit more substantial when he accepted the role after turning it down multiple times. He was quoted as saying, "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." Once the producer situation stabilized, so did Artie's characterization and Martin gradually moved up to true co-lead status with Robert Conrad.

** CBS did ''not'' want the show's creator Michael Garrison to be overseeing the show because of how much the pilot had cost, which led to Garrison having a legal battle with the Eye throughout season one while the show went through ''seven'' producers - some of whom never even got to do one episode - before Garrison got control back. Eventually, Garrison did get in a producer to his liking (besides Fred Freiberger, under whose reign Loveless was created - in fact, the first episode to be shown after the pilot was a Freiberger-produced one) in the form of Bruce Lansbury... but CBS still got a Garrison-less show in the end, [[AuthorExistenceFailure though not in the manner anyone would have preferred]].

* AuthorExistenceFailure: The show's creator and producer/executive producer, Michael Garrison, died in an accident at his home during filming of the second season episode "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse." Bruce Lansbury (younger brother of [[AngelaLansbury Angela]]), who was already on board as producer with Garrison above him, took over the reins from then on (although the series remained "A Michael Garrison Production[[note]]in association with the Creator/{{CBS}} Television Network]]" to the end).

* AuthorExistenceFailure: The show's creator and producer/executive producer, Michael Garrison, died in an accident at his home during filming of the second season episode "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse." Bruce Lansbury (younger brother of [[AngelaLansbury Angela]]), who was already on board as producer with Garrison above him, took over the reins from then on (although the series remained "A Michael Garrison Production[[hottip:*: in association with the CBS Television Network]]" to the end).

* AuthorExistenceFailure: The show's creator and producer/executive producer, Michael Garrison, died in an accident at his home during filming of the second season episode "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse." He was replaced by Bruce Lansbury (younger brother of [[AngelaLansbury Angela]]).

* TheOtherDarrin: An odd case in "The Night of the Avaricious Actuary." Ross Martin was injured while filming a fight sequence and a substitute was therefore used to play Artie in the immediately preceding dialogue scene. The new actor's face and voice are very prominently displayed in said scene (in fact, he's the image for the act-ending [[IdiosyncraticWipes freeze-frame/dissolve to drawing]]), making it obvious that he is ''not'' Ross Martin. Understandable confusion results for some in the viewing audience.

* CreativeDifferences: CBS did ''not'' want the show's creator Michael Garrison to be overseeing the show because of how much the pilot had cost, which led to Garrison having a legal battle with the Eye throughout season one while the show went through ''seven'' producers - some of whom never even got to do one episode - before Garrison got control back. Eventually, Garrison did get in a producer to his liking (besides Fred Freiberger, under whose reign Loveless was created - in fact, the first episode to be shown after the pilot was a Freiberger-produced one) in the form of Bruce Lansbury... but CBS still got a Garrison-less show in the end, [[AuthorExistenceFailure though not in the manner anyone would have preferred]].

* ExecutiveMeddling: The show was canceled due to content, not because of declining ratings. (At the end of TheSixties, Creator/{{CBS}} executives got nervous about fictional violence after all the RealLife violence of that decade.) Also, Ross Martin was sadly never allowed to ''fully'' unleash his MasterOfDisguise skills, thanks to [[ViewersAreMorons worries about "confused" viewers]].
** And the show ended up being lucky to survive its first season. After the show was picked up by the network, and placed on the fall schedule, one of the biggest television corporate bloodlettings happened, taking out nearly all of the network executives who helped develop the show. The new regime, wanting to put the past regime behind them, changed the new schedule as best as they could in the short time available to them, dropping a number of shows that were developed for the new season. ''Series/TheWildWildWest'' survived this purge, but barely, as the new executives didn't get the show, and were concerned about the show's cost, which was expensive for a show of that era. Had the show not become a hit from the get-go, it's likely it would have been canned faster than you can say Artemus Gordon.

* HeyItsThatGuy: A large number of recogizable faces turn up in guest roles during the course of the series, often as the VillainOfTheWeek or the GirlOfTheWeek. Among those that appear are Michael Dunn, Richard Kiel, Victor Buono, Suzanne Pleshette, Robert Loggia, Jeff Corey, LeslieNielsen, Katherine Ross, Elisha Cook Jr., Martin Landau, Burgess Meredith, Yvonne Craig, Richard Jaeckel... and that's just the first season.

* WorkingTitle: "TheWildWest". The second "Wild" was added by second producer Collier Young.