The Real Reason Why ‘The Wild Wild West’ Was Canceled

Growing up, The Wild, Wild West was one of my favorite shows. I always turned it on after coming home from school — it was the perfect way to decompress after a hard day of reading, writing and a little bit of math at West Bountiful Elementary. I loved watching Robert Conrad and Ross Martin show what it would have been like if James Bond had actually been a government spy in the wild and woolly West.

My memories, however, are not of its original primetime run from 1965 to 1969, but rather from the mid-1970s, when it was featured in reruns on KSTU Channel 20, Salt Lake City’s first UHF TV station. At the time, I had no idea about the heavy-handed way that the U.S. government had targeted this action-packed (and, in the minds of many politicians, way too violent) program, and helped it get pulled from the air.