Violence, Cancellation and Syndication
The first season's episodes were filmed in black and white, and they were darker in tonality. Cinematographer Ted Voightlander was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on these episodes. Subsequent seasons were filmed in color, and the show became noticeably campier.
Still, some episodes were violent for their time, and that, rather than low ratings, ultimately was the series' downfall. In addition to gunplay, there were usually two fight sequences per episode. These were choreographed by Whitey Hughes and performed by Conrad and a stock company of stuntmen, including Red West, Dick Cangey, and Bob Herron (who doubled for Ross Martin). Hughes recalled, "We had a lot of crashes. We used to say, 'Roll the cameras and call the ambulances.'" Conrad had been doubled before, but after his concussion from the fall from a chandelier, the network insisted that he defer to a double. (His chair on the set was newly inscribed: "Robert Conrad, ex-stuntman, retired by CBS, Jan. 24, 1968.") "hen I came back for the fourth season I was limited to what I could do for insurance reasons," Conrad explained. "So I agreed and gradually I did all the fights but couldn't do anything five feet off the ground and of course that went out the window." He was doubled by Jimmy George. Often, George would start a stunt, such as a high fall or a dive through a window, then disappear behind boxes or off camera, where Conrad was concealed and waiting to seamlessly complete the action.
Following the 1968 assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson created the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. One of the questions it tackled was whether violence on television was a contributing factor to violence in American society. (This also included graphic news coverage of the Vietnam War.) The television networks, anticipating these allegations, moved to curtail violence on their entertainment programs before the start of the 1968-69 season. Television reporter Cynthia Lowrey, in an article published in August 1968, wrote that The Wild Wild West “is one of the action series being watched by network censors for scenes of excessive violence, even if the violence is all in fun.” However, despite a CBS mandate to tone down the mayhem, "The Night of the Egyptian Queen" (aired 15 November 1968) contains perhaps the series' most ferocious barroom brawl. A later memo attached to the shooting script of "The Night of Miguelito's Revenge" (aired 13 December 1968) reads: "Note to Directors: The producer respectfully asks that no violent acts be shot which are not depicted in the script or discussed beforehand. . . . Most particularly stay away from gratuitous ad-libs, such as slaps, pointing of firearms or other weapons at characters (especially in close quarters), kicks and the use of furniture and other objects in fight scenes."
In December 1968, executives from ABC, CBS and NBC appeared before the President's Commission. The most caustic of the commissioners, Rep. Hale Boggs (D-La.), decried what he called "the Saturday morning theme of children's cartoon shows" that permit "the good guy to do anything in the name of justice." He also indicted CBS for featuring sadism in its primetime programing (The Wild, Wild West was subsequently identified as one example). The Congressman did, however, commend CBS for a 25% decline in violence programing in prime time compared to the other two networks.
Three months later, in March 1969, Sen. John O. Pastore (D-R.I.) called the same network presidents before his Senate communications subcommittee for a public scolding on the same subject. At Pastore's insistence, the networks promised tighter industry self-censorship, and the Surgeon General began a $1 million study on the effects of television. Congress’s concern was shared by the public: in a nationwide poll, 67.5% of 1,554 Americans agreed with the theory that TV and movie violence cause violence in real life.
Additionally, the National Association for Better Broadcasting, in a report eventually issued in November 1969, rated The Wild Wild West "as one of the most violent on television."
After being excoriated by two committees, the networks scrambled to expunge violence from their programming. The Wild Wild West received its cancellation notice late in February, before Pastore’s committee convened. Producer Bruce Lansbury always claimed that "It was a sacrificial lamb ... It went off with a 32 or 33 share which in those days was virtually break-even, but it always won its time period." This is confirmed by an article by Associated Press reporter Joseph Mohbat: "Shows like ABC's "Outcasts" and NBC's "Outsider," which depended heavily on violence, were scrapped. CBS killed 'The Wild, Wild West' despite high ratings, because of criticism. It was seen by the network as a gesture of good intentions." The networks played it safe thereafter: of the 22 new television shows that debuted in the fall of 1969, not one was a western or detective drama; 14 were comedy or variety series.
In the summer of 1970, CBS reran several episodes of The Wild Wild West on Mondays at 10 p.m. These were "The Night of the Bleak Island" (aired 7/6); "The Night of the Big Blackmail" (7/13); "The Night of the Kraken" (7/20); "The Night of the Diva" (7/27); "The Night of the Simian Terror" (8/3); "The Night of the Bubbling Death" (8/11); "The Night of the Returning Dead" (8/17); "The Night of the Falcon" (8/24); "The Night of the Underground Terror" (8/31); and "The Night of the Sedgewick Curse" (9/7).
TV critic Lawrence Laurent wrote, "The return of Wild Wild West even for a summer re-run isn't surprising. CBS-TV was never really very eager to cancel this series, since over a four-year run that began in 1965 the Wild Wild West had been a solid winner in the ratings. Cancellation came mainly because CBS officials were concerned about the criticism over televised violence and to a lesser degree because Robert Conrad had grown slightly weary of the role of James West. Ever since last fall's ratings started rolling in, CBS has wished that it had kept Wild Wild West. None of the replacements have done nearly as well and, as a result, all of the Friday programs suffered."
That fall, CBS put the program into syndication, giving it new life on local stations across the country, including WGN and WOR-TV. This further antagonized the anti-violence lobby, since the program was now broadcast weekdays and often after school. One group, The Foundation to Improve Television, filed a suit on November 12, 1970, to prevent WTOP in Washington, D.C., from airing The Wild Wild West weekday afternoons at 4 pm. The suit was brought in Washington, D.C., specifically to gain government and media attention. The suit said the series "contains fictionalized violence and horror harmful to the mental health and well-being of minor children", and should not air before 9 pm. WTOP's vice president and general manager, John R. Corporan, was quoted as saying, "Since programs directed specifically at children are broadcast in the late afternoon by three other TV stations, it is our purpose to counter-program with programming not directed specifically at children." US District Court Judge John J. Sirica, who later presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars and ordered US President Richard Nixon to turn over White House recordings, dismissed the lawsuit in January 1971, referring FIT to take their complaint to the FCC. FIT appealed, but a year and a half later the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the district court decision dismissing the suit on the grounds that FIT had not exhausted the administrative remedies available to them. By then, WTOP had stop broadcasting the series altogether.
At that time, the show was in reruns on about 57 other local stations across the country. By the spring of 1973 it had expanded to 84 stations. Its ongoing popularity throughout that decade prompted two television movies, The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979) and More Wild Wild West (1980) (see below). By the spring of 1985 the original series was still carried on 74 local stations.
In 1994, The Wild Wild West was broadcast on Turner Network Television (TNT), which preferred the color episodes to the black and white shows. Hallmark Channel aired the series in 2005 as part of its slate of Saturday afternoon Westerns but dropped it after several weeks. The series has also been broadcast on MeTV. As of September 2012, MeTV airs the series at 4 p.m. weekdays, just as WTOP had 32 years ago.
Read more about this topic: The Wild Wild West