Product Description
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James West and Artemus Gordon are two agents of President Grant
who take their splendidly appointed private train through the
west to fight evil. Half science fiction and half western, the
Artemus designs a series of interesting gadgets for James that
would make Inspector Gadget proud. A light-hearted adventure
series that was a fan favorite.
.com
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Season One
CBS had an instant hit on their hands when The Wild Wild West
made its network debut on September 17, 1965. While many of the
popular TV Westerns were running out of steam, series creator
Michael Garrison ripped a page from the Ian Fleming/Sean Connery
playbook and conceived The Wild Wild West as a "James Bond
Western," energizing the genre by combining a traditional Western
setting (primarily the San Francisco region in the 1870s) with
the accoutrements of the genre. It was a foolproof formula,
further refined by producer Fred Frieberger (who later produced
the third and final season of Star Trek), and TWWW held its
popular time-slot (7:30-8:30 on Friday nights) for its entire
four-season run. Smart casting proved to be another source of
audience appeal: While Robert Conrad fit nicely into his role
(and tight-fitting costume) as macho Secret Service agent James
West, doing his own challenging stunts and charming each
episode's obligatory beautiful female guest star, Ross Martin
proved an equally excellent choice to play West's skillful
sidekick Artemus Gordon, a debonair dandy whose mastery of
disguises and dialects would prove essential as they tackled
dangerous crime-fighting assignments from President Ulysses S.
Grant.
The series' unique appeal arose from its clever and frequently
bizarre plots. Every episode title began with a variation of "The
Night of..." (including the pilot, "The Night of the Inferno,"
with more unusual titles thereafter), and as Jim and Arte plotted
strategies from the comfort of their tricked-out custom railroad
car, their exploits frequently led them into realms of the
occult, mad science, bizarre inventions, and villains so
eccentrically twisted that they became instant favorites among
the show's growing legion of fans. Best of them all was the
nefarious Miguelito Loveless, first appearing in "The Night the
Wizard Shook the Earth" (original airdate 10/01/65) and played to
perfection by dwarf actor Michael Dunn, a '60s TV regular
familiar to Star Trek fans from his memorable role in the
original series episode "Plato's Stepchildren." A gifted,
intellectual renaissance man (like Ross Martin) with an angelic
singing voice, Dunn was an overnight sensation, guest-starring in
four of the first season's 28 episodes, with six more appearances
in subsequent seasons. Dunn's gleeful malevolence (accompanied by
his mute henchman Voltaire, played by giant actor Richard Kiel)
was an essential addition to the series' sideshow esthetic;
weirdness, humor, gorgeous women, and devious ingenuity (in
plotting, action and gadgetry), became the trademarks that set
TWWW apart from its more conventional TV Western competition.
--Jeff Shannon
On the DVD
For this much-anticipated DVD release, Para has made
above-average efforts to satisfy fans. Virtually every episode
looks and sounds practically brand-new, and with TWWW expert Sue
Kesler serving as DVD co-producer, this seven-disc set features a
wealth of archival extras, many culled from Kesler's own research
as author of the out-of-print guidebook The Wild Wild West: The
Series. In addition to excerpts from audio-taped interviews with
Frieberger, writer (and "Dr. Loveless" creator) John Kneubuhl
(who tells a fascinating story of how Liberace almost
guest-starred on the show), music composer Richard Markowitz, and
special-effects technician Tim Smyth, each episode includes brief
but informative audio introductions by Robert Conrad, who also
appears (with Martin) discussing the show (and their subsequent
TV-movie revival of TWWW) in a 1978 talk-show appearance.
Excerpts from the original music-theme scoring sessions were
found in UCLA's Film and Television archive, and other extras
include a network series promo clip (from a later season, after
TWWW switched to color), a sketch by Ross Martin, a photo
gallery, and even one of Conrad's notorious Eveready Battery
commercials from the late '70s. All in all, this 40th Anniversary
package should give TWWW fans ample reason to celebrate, boding
well for the other season-sets to follow. --Jeff Shannon
Season Two
Whether you grew up with it on the tube, want to erase the memory
of 1999's disappointing feature-film adaptation, or are simply
discovering it now, The Wild Wild West rocks. This late-'60s TV
show has a bit of everything: laughs, drama, action, elements of
magic, sci-fi, ghost stories, high- and low-tech gadgets that
would do James Bond and MacGyver proud, great music, pretty
ladies, outrageous villains, cool clothes... and even Sammy Davis
Jr. and Richard Pryor, among other unexpected guests. Droll
ladies man and government agent James West (played by tough guy
Robert Conrad, wearing pants so tight they reveal his... well,
they're really tight) and his sidekick, master of disguises
Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin), are back at it for this second
season (1966-67), with 28 episodes packaged on seven discs,
bringing with them the same delightfully arch tone as before.
Headquartered in their well-appointed train car, they embark on a
variety of oddball adventures, all of them entitled "The Night
of" something (like "...the Flying Pie Plate," "...the Returning
Dead," "...the Surreal McCoy," "...the Tottering Tontine," and
many more). It's all very tongue-in-cheek; the villains, both
familiar (Doctor Miguelito Loveless, colorfully portrayed by
"little person" Michael Dunn) and new, are deluded,
silver-tongued maniacs camping it up like there's no tomorrow,
while the stories, ranging from Loveless' schemes to take over
the world and various plots to eliminate President Ulysses S.
Grant and other important personages to time travel and
green-skinned women from Venus, are smart, whimsical, and clever.
The show's overall vibe, from the opening credits on, is
obviously reminiscent of cartoons and comic books; the fact that
it doesn't take itself at all seriously is arguably its most
appealing feature, along with better-than-average sets,
cinematography, and other technical elements (not to mention a
great title tune by Morton Stevens, the same guy responsible for
Hawaii Five-0's immortal theme). Inevitably, some of it seems a
bit dated now, such as the stereotypical depictions of Indians,
but overall, The Wild Wild West has held up well. If there's a
principal drawback, it's the lack of any bonus features; even
though creator Michael Garrison died before this second season
hit the airwaves, it would have been nice to hear from some of
the others who participated in the making of this terrific show.
--Sam Graham
Season Three
"Elaborate little subterfuges" and "intricate dramas" await the
suave and dashing frontier 007, James West (Robert Conrad) and
his partner, master of disguise Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin),
courtesy of a gallery of rogues and flamboyant villains with
grandiose schemes of world domination. Among them: Victor
Freemantle ("The Night of Bubbling Death"), bent on establishing
his own Texas Panhandle domain; the Falcon ("The Night of the
Falcon"), who s his behemoth cannon at Denver and conspires
with a European syndicate to put the rest of the world under the
; Emmett Stark ("The Night of the Death s"), who breaks
out of prison to stage an elaborate and bizarre revenge against
his captors, West and Gordon; and, of course, West's ultimate
nemesis, the diminutive Dr. Miguelito Loveless ("The Night Dr.
Loveless Died"), whose demise could just be "another typical
Loveless prank."
You may not find The Wild Wild West on any of those "Greatest TV
Shows of All Time" lists, but more than 40 years later, it leaves
many of the so-called classic shows in the dust. West's blend of
Western action, adventure, and sci-fi thrills (less here than
in seasons past) still pack quite a kick. The pleasures of this
offbeat, genre-bending series did not diminish in its penultimate
season. There's the classic theme song, the animated opening
credits (with West's bang-zoom dispatch of a femme ale
intact); the chemistry between one of TV's great buddy teams, and
Gordon's primitive gadgets (like a smoking jacket that really
smokes!) that are akin to the Flintstones' prehistoric versions
of modern-day appliances. The Wild Wild West also rounded-up some
great character actors. Robert Duvall appears in "The Night of
the Falcon" as a "mild mannered country doctor" with a more
sinister secret practice. Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian) and
venerable Western bad guy Jack Elam team up to steal Aztec
treasure in "The Night of Montezuma's Horde. Harry Dean Stanton
(Big Love is an innocent man framed for murder in "The Night of
the Hangman." --Donald Liebenson
Season Four
At one uncharacteristically poignant point during Wild Wild
West's final season, secret service agent James West raises a
glass to toast "absent friends." That would be Artemis Gordon,
West's resourceful sidekick and a master of disguise and the odd
"diversion." Ross Martin, who portrayed Gordon, had suffered a
heart attack and was missing in action for several episodes, so
missed that it took several actors to fill his shoes: Charles
Aidman as Jeremy Pike, William Scharlett (who early in the season
portrays a villain in the episode, "The Night of the Gruesome
Games") as Frank Harper, Pat Paulson, the hangdog
mock-Presidential candidate on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,
as the seemingly milquetoast Bosley Cranston in "The Night of the
Camera," and Alan "The Skipper" Hale, Jr. as chemist Ned Brown in
"The Night of the Sabatini Death," (which also features Jim
Backus and contains a cute Gilligan’s Island in-joke at episode’s
end). With or without Martin, this was a wild, wild season that
offers genre-bending kicks in episodes that evoke James Bondian
espionage, Jules Verne fantasy, bizarre Avengers-style villainy,
and even The Phantom of the Opera. James and company are up
against some entertainingly over-the-top megalomaniacs bent on
world domination. Of course, the sun couldn’t set on the West
without one last encounter with the series’ most popular villain,
the "dictatorial, vain, short-tempered, and occasionally
unreasonable" Dr. Loveless (Michael Dunn), who re-emerges yet
again to pass judgment over those he professes to have wronged
him in "The Night of Marguerite’s Revenge." Two of TV’s comedy
icons, Harvey Koran and a pre-Mary Tyler Moore Show Ted Knight,
play it straight as formidable foes in "The Night of the Big
Blackmail" and "The Night of the Kraken," respectively. "The
Night of the Winged Terror," the series’ only two-parter, is an
effective creep show featuring a hypnotizing bulging-brained
adversary. Conrad, as one character compliments him, is "better
than ever," whether dispatching goons (he performed all his own
stunts) or romancing the ladies ("He said something about showing
the big dipper to the daughter of the Lithuanian ambassador,"
Artemis explains West’s absence in "Big Blackmail"). While there
are signs that the series was poised to jump the shark, it is too
bad it ended before further encounters with Professor Montague,
who is introduced in "The Night of the Janis" as the Q-like
creator of such nifty gadgets as a harmonica . --Donald
Liebenson