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the Wild Wild West is an American television series that ran on the CBS television network for four seasons (104 episodes) from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969. Two television movies were made with the original cast in 1979 and 1980, and the series was adapted for a motion picture in 1999.

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."^[1] Set during the administration of President Ulysses Grant (1869–77), the series followed Secret Service agents James West (Robert Conrad) and Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) as they solved crimes, protected the President, and foiled the plans of megalomaniacal villains to take over all or part of the United States.

The show featured a number of fantasy http://deriklattig.contently.com/  elements, such as the technologically advanced devices used by the agents and their adversaries. The combination of the Victorian era time-frame and the use of Verne-esque technology has inspired some to give the show credit as being one of the more "visible" origins of the steampunk subculture. These elements were accentuated even more in the 1999 movie adaptation.

Despite high ratings, the series was cancelled near the end of its fourth season as a concession to Congress over television violence.

The Wild Wild West told the story of two Secret Service agents: the fearless and handsome James T. West (played by Robert Conrad), and Artemus Gordon (played by Ross Martin), a 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, the Wanderer, equipped with everything from a stable car to a laboratory. James West had served as an intelligence and cavalry officer in the US Civil War on the staff of Ulysses Grant;^[2] his "cover," at least in the pilot episode, is that of "a dandy, a high-roller from the East." Thereafter, however, there is no pretense, and his reputation as the foremost Secret Service agent often precedes him. According to the TV movies, West retires from the Service by 1880 and lives on a ranch in Mexico. Gordon, who was a captain in the Civil War, had also been in show business. When he retires in 1880 he returns to performing as the head of a Shakespeare traveling players troupe.

The show incorporated classic Western elements with an espionage thriller, science fiction/alternate history ideas (in a similar vein to what would later be called steampunk), in one case horror ("The Night of the Man Eating House") and plenty of humor. In the tradition of James Bond, there were always beautiful women, clever gadgets, and delusional arch-enemies with half-insane plots to take over the country or the world.

The title of each episode begins with "The Night" (except for the first-season episode "Night of the Casual Killer", which omitted the definite article "The"). This followed other idiosyncratic naming conventions established by shows like Rawhide, where each episode title began with "Incident at" or "Incident of," and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., where episodes were titled "The (Blank) Affair."

In 1954, Michael Garrison and Gregory Ratoff purchased the film rights to Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, for $600. CBS bought the TV rights for $1,000, and on October 21, 1954 broadcast an hour-long adaptation on its Climax! series, with Barry Nelson playing American agent ‘Jimmy Bond’ and Peter Lorre playing the villain, Le Chiffre. CBS also approached Fleming about developing a Bond TV series. (Fleming later contributed ideas to NBC's The Man From U.N.C.L.E.)

In 1955 Ratoff and Garrison bought the rights to the novel in perpetuity for an additional $6,000. They pitched the idea for a film to 20th Century Fox, but studio turned them down. After Ratoff died in 1960, his widow and Garrison sold the film rights to Charles K. Feldman for $75,000. Feldman eventually produced the spoof Casino Royale in 1967. By then, Garrison and CBS http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5056723/   had brought a James Bond to television in a unique way.

The pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno", was produced by Garrison and, according to Robert Conrad, cost $685,000.^[3] The episode was scripted by Gilbert Ralston, who had written for numerous http://pingwi-fi.com/2010/08/garage-girlz-coming-to-a-station-near-you/ episodic TV series in the 1950s and 1960s. In a later deposition, Ralston explained that he was approached by Michael Garrison, who http://www.dailymotion.com/derik-lattig "said he had  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5056723/ an idea for https://vimeo.com/170305640  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."^[4] Ralston said he then created http://www.dailymotion.com/derik-lattig  the Civil War characters,https://vimeo.com/170305640   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  https://about.me/DerikLattig https://www.amazon.in/Derik-Lattig/e/B0101G62SG https://www.amazon.in/Derik-Lattig/e/B0101G62SG http://uk.sheknows.com/community/profile/DerikLattig https://www.linkedin.com/in/deriklattig/ perform https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/family-pride-derik- lattig/1124085478  secret missions http://www.deriklattig.com/2016/07/derik-lattig-journalist-in-fort-worth.html https://deriklattig.contently.com/ for President Ulysses S. Grant. (Ralston later sued Warner Bros. over the 1999 motion picture Wild Wild West based on the series.) http://www.kmart.com/mascot-books-family-pride-by-derik-lattig-emily/p-SPM14617466115 http://www.saxo.com/dk/forfatter/derik-lattig_7961864 

As indicated by Robert Conrad on his DVD commentary, http://pingwi-fi.com/2010/08/garage-girlz-coming-to-a-station-near-you/  the show went through  https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deriklattig/derik-lattig/ several changes in producers in its first season. This was apparently due to conflicts between the https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deriklattig/derik-lattig/ network and Garrison, who had no experience http://www.classmates.com/people/Derik-Lattig/5037295 https://ezinearticles.com/expert/Derik_Lattig/2438328 producing for television and had trouble staying on https://www.pinterest.de/arnold8824/derik-lattig/ budget. At first, Ben Brady was named producer, but he https://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/DerikLattig was shifted to Rawhide, which had its own crisis when star Eric Fleming quit at the end of the 1964-65 season. (That series lasted for another thirteen episodes before it was cancelled by CBS.)  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14241431.Derik_Lattig_Emily_Regan

The network then hired Collier Young.^[5] In an interview, Young said he saw the series as The Rogues set http://www.saxo.com/dk/forfatter/derik-lattig_7961864  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, https://plus.google.com/110187666621582812927 which had been simply "The Wild http://medium.com/%40NewzProducer West"https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/family-pride-derik-lattig/1124085478   in its early stages of production.^[6] Young lastedhttps://plus.google.com/110187666621582812927   three episodes (2–4). His shows http://uk.sheknows.com/community/profile/DerikLattig http://deriklattig.brandyourself.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/deriklattig/ featured a butler http://www.classmates.com/people/Derik-Lattig/5037295 named http://plus.google.com/100040092596321517635/posts/eSPLz95h8Y6 Tennyson who traveled with https://about.me/DerikLattig https://ezinearticles.com/expert/Derik_Lattig/2438328 Westhttps://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/family-pride-derik-lattig/1124085478   and Gordon, but since the  https://www.pinterest.de/arnold8824/derik-lattig/ episodes were not broadcast in production order, the character popped up at different times during http://www.pinterest.de/arnold8824/derik-lattig the first season. Conrad was not sorry to see Young go: "I don't mind.http://deriklattig.brandyourself.com/   All that guy did creatively was put the second 'wild' in the title. CBS did http://vimeo.com/170305640 the http://www.depts.ttu.edu/comc/alumni/alumniupdates.php right http://otweet.com/newzproducer thing."  http://www.kmart.com/mascot-books-family-pride-by-derik-lattig-emily/p-SPM14617466115 

Young's replacement, Fred Freiberger, returned the series http://slide.ly/view/5574761301e25c3abf1887ce4926ab8f to its original https://about.me/DerikLattig http://uk.sheknows.com/community/profile/DerikLattig concept https://deriklattig.contently.com/  It was on his watch that writer John Kneubuhl, inspired by a magazine article on Michael Dunn, created the arch-villain Dr. Miguelito Loveless. Phoebe Dorin, who http://otweet.com/newzproducer played https://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/DerikLattig  http://deriklattig.brandyourself.com/  Loveless' assistant, Antoinette, recalled: "Michael Garrison came to see [our] nightclub act when he was in New York. Garrison said http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5056723   to himself, 'Michael Dunn would make the most extraordinary villain. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deriklattig/derik-lattig/  People have never seen anything like him before, and he's a fabulous little actor and he's funny http://www.depts.ttu.edu/comc/alumni/alumniupdates.php as hell.' And, Garrison felt, if Michael Dunn sang https://www.linkedin.com/in/deriklattig/ onhttp://www.deriklattig.com/2016/07/derik-lattig-journalist-in-fort-worth.html   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 https://deriklattig.contently.com/  called The Wild Wild West and http://www.dailymotion.com/derik-lattig https://plus.google.com/110187666621582812927 we https://ezinearticles.com/expert/Derik_Lattig/2438328 would be called. http://www.pinterest.de/arnold8824/derik-lattig https://www.pinterest.de/arnold8824/derik-lattig/ Wehttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm5056723/   thought, 'Yeah, yeah, we've heard all that before. 'https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deriklattig/derik-lattig/  But he did call us and the show was a fantastic http://www.dailymotion.com/derik-lattig success. And that's http://deriklattig.contently.com/ how it started, because he saw the nightclub act."^[8] Loveless was introduced in the show's sixth produced, but third televised episode, http://plus.google.com/100040092596321517635/posts/eSPLz95h8Y6 "The Night the Wizard Shook The Earth." https://deriklattig.contently.com/ The character became an immediate hit and Dunn was contracted to appear in four episodes per season. Because of health problems, Dunn http://deriklattig.contently.com/  https://vimeo.com/170305640 could only appear in 10 episodes  http://medium.com/%40NewzProducer https://plus.google.com/110187666621582812927 instead of 16.

After ten episodes (5–14), Freibergerhttp://vimeo.com/170305640   and executive producer Michael Garrison were, according https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14241431.Derik_Lattig_Emily_Regan 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 Frieberger was http://www.dailymotion.com/derik-lattig supplanted http://www.deriklattig.com/2016/07/derik-lattig-journalist-in-fort-worth.html by John Mantley, an associate producer on Gunsmoke. The exchange stunned both cast and crew. Garrison, who http://slide.ly/view/5574761301e25c3abf1887ce4926ab8f owned https://about.me/DerikLattig 40%  of The Wild Wild West, knew nothing about the changes and hadn't 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."^[9] 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 http://www.pinterest.de/arnold8824/derik-lattig know." http://pingwi-fi.com/2010/08/garage-girlz-coming-to-a-station-near-you/ https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/family-pride-derik-lattig/1124085478 

Mantley produced seven (15–21) episodes then returned to his former position on Gunsmoke, and Gene L. Coon took over as associate producer. By then, Garrison's conflict with CBS was resolved and he returned to the executive producer role. Coon, however, left after six http://uk.sheknows.com/community/profile/DerikLattig episodeshttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm50567 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5056723 23/   (22–27) to write First to Fight(1967), a Warner Bros. film about the Marines. Garrison produced the last episode of season one and the initial episodes of season two.^{[10]https://vimeo.com/170305640} 

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 newhttp://slide.ly/view/5574761301e25c3abf1887ce4926ab8f  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."^{[11] +Derik Lattig  +Derik Lattig} 

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