The Wild Wild West - Anachronisms

Anachronisms

The inventions and devices used by both the heroes and the villains were usually ahead of their time. There are other anachronisms:

• The agents' Morse code machine, which required wires, is often shown working on a moving train.
• In "The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth" (aired 10/1/1965), Dr. Loveless and Antoinette sing "Bring a Little Water, Sylvie," which was written by Lead Belly, born about 1888.
• In "The Night of the Howling Light" (12/17/65), West signals "SOS" by holding a blanket in front of the lighthouse's light. "SOS" did not become a standard for international distress calls until 1905.
• In "The Night of the Eccentrics" (9/16/66), Count Manzeppi refers to physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff, who was born in 1901 and died three months after this episode aired.
• In "The Night of the Bars of Hell" (3/4/66), the warden tries to kill West with an electric chair, a device first used in 1890.
• In "The Night of the Poisonous Posey" (10/28/66), Artemus refers to the mock hanging that opens the story as "the Danny Deever thing," alluding to a poem by Rudyard Kipling published in 1890.
• In "The Night of the Infernal Machine" (12/23/66), Judge M'Guigan quotes from Emma Lazarus's poem "The New Colossus", written in 1883.
• In "The Night of the Circus of Death" (11/3/67), the expression "hot dog" is used before the term came into use.