Wild Wild West

Night of the Inferno, #6501

In the pilot episode that started it all, Washington's finest Secret Service agent, James T. West, is asked to go undercover as an Army deserter and attend a special meeting with President Grant. West's assignment? To go after a Mexican revolutionary named Juan Manolo, who has been looting and burning several towns in the Southwest territory. West will make the trip in a private railroad car. Upon boarding his swank accommodations, complete with pool table, he is greeted by the man who will be his partner -- agent Artemus Gordon

West and Gordon arrive in Quemada, New Mexico, in search of Manolo. West enters the only building not razed in a recent raid, a store run by a Chinese man named Wing Fat. Eager for business, Fat hands West a calling card, for a price, and directs him to the lovely Lydia Monteran, his first step in a search for Manolo that will take the agents through sliding walls, underground crypts and into a case of hidden identity.

This was the first appearance of Victor Buono, but certainly not the last. Nehemiah Persoff, too, would turn up in future West episodes, and had also been a favorite with Twilight Zone viewers (the previous series made in the same studio with the same crew).

Wing Fat: Victor Buono
Juan Manolo: Nehemiah Persoff
Lydia Monteran: Suzanne Pleshette
Colonel Shear: Walter Woolf King
President Grant: James Gregory
Mei Mei: Bebe Louie
Major Dome: Alberto Morin
Bedford: Chet Stratton
Directed by Richard Sarafian
Written by Gilbert Ralston
* The above information was compiled from The Wild Wild West: The Series by Susan E. Kesler (Arnett Press), "Michael Garrison's Wild Wild West," an article by Robert Alan Crick in Epi-Log Journal #11 and other sources.
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Animated graphics (c) 2001 by The Animation Factory.