The Wild Wild West (1965) - 72 mistakes in entire show

Continuity: "Night of the Bubbling Death": When West breaks into the hacienda, the double windows he enters by have quite a bit of glowing light behind them. Yet when he climbs into the room, it's completely dark inside.

Revealing: "Night of the Bubbling Death": Artemus takes off his coat and is wearing smoke canisters strapped to his back underneath. But the close fit of his jacket in previous shots reveals that the device wasn't there until just before he began removing the coat.

Factual error: "Night of the Underground Terror": The small round table in West's railcar parlor has a flip-over top, with secret maps hidden on the underside. The wine decanter and glasses all stay attached when it flips. But impossibly, when West turns the tabletop back over at the end, there's a full cup of coffee sitting on it.

Revealing: "Night of the Jack of Diamonds": During his fight with West, Sordo the bandito, who has a gray beard, is suddenly several years younger with a dark brown beard, thanks to the substitution of a stunt double.

Continuity: "Night of the Bubbling Death": When Grigsby first approaches the stolen U.S. Constitution, it's under glass (we can see the light reflections). But seconds later he lifts the paper without removing the glass, which has disappeared. It's back later, when West must cut it to retrieve the document.

Continuity: "Night of the Arrow": West and Gordon leave two champagne bottles and four glasses sitting on the table when they walk away to answer the door. When they return, the bottles and glasses have all completely changed positions by themselves.

Factual error: "Night of the Arrow": The soldiers toss Artemus into the cell, slam the door and walk away. But they never produce a key or lock the cell door. He's somehow locked in anyway, though.

Continuity: "Night of the Arrow": President Grant's cigar keeps getting longer, shorter, and longer again as he gives West and Gordon their special assignment aboard the train.

Continuity: "Night of the Arrow": When Artemus pours the president a drink, the glass is only 1/4 full. When Grant picks it up, however, it's suddenly 3/4 full.

Revealing: "Night of the Underground Terror": During the climactic fight scene, James West's famously tight trousers rip apart in the crotch, amply revealing his very 20th-century white jockey briefs. A few shots later, that rip mends itself and the pants are split (much more decorously) down the right outer seam instead.

Continuity: "Night of the Bubbling Death": West uses a glass cutter to retrieve the US Constitution, which was lying flat under a covering sheet of glass. But when he reaches in and pulls the document free, it is no longer flat, but is rolled up.

Factual error: "Night of the Lord of Limbo": At the end, Vautrain tells West and Gordon to go through the door on their right. The door is on the camera's right, but is on West's and Gordon's left.

Factual error: Throughout Series: No one ever explained just how West and Gordon were able, in the 1870s, to send and receive telegraph signals from a moving train, without any wire connection.

Continuity: "Night of the Bubbling Death": The dust left on West's jacket after the fight changes patterns several times, then disappears altogether when he enters the building. A shot of his feet shows us that his formerly dusty boots also polished themselves.

Revealing: When Liddy's mansion explodes and burns, the switch from real house to cardboard model is very obvious.

Factual error: Liddy's six-shooter fires seven shots - three at West and four more at the bottles on the table after he escapes.

Continuity: West pulls a gun on Artemus and places it just behind his head. In the next shot, though, West is standing two feet away and the gun is nowhere near Artemus' head.

Continuity: Akima dies with his head tilted to the left. In the next shot, he's managed, even though he's "departed," to tilt his head to the right instead.

Continuity: It's night outside the train's windows - until Artemus looks out at the attacking Indians; then it's day, and in next shot, it's night again.

Revealing: Zachariah Skull's bald head has a problem. The latex skull-cap used to cover the actor's hair keeps bubbling and wrinkling as he speaks.

Revealing: Just before she dances away, the life-size ballerina "puppet" fails to hold her fixed stare and blinks.

Revealing: Artemus is sampling beef stroganoff from a pot on the stove. He then carries the kettle by its swinging handle across the room, tilting it just enough to reveal to the camera that it's really empty.

Revealing: Kitten bends apart the cell bars, allowing West and Gordon to escape. But when they brush against it on the way out, one of the "iron" bars gives, flexing like the rubber that it probably is.

Visible crew/equipment: Behind West, when he's suspended over the electrical field, you can see the shadow of the boom mike and rigging pole moving on the wall.

Visible crew/equipment: When the Eccentrics outline their nefarious plan to assassinate Juarez, the boom mike shadow is moving on the door behind West and Gordon.

Revealing: Tony throws two knives at West - but on the wall where the knives hit, the rectangular openings from which the blades actually emerge are delineated beforehand. Happens again a few scenes later, where slots cut in the door are already there before the knives are thrown. [Spoiler: It's inconsequential to the "revealing" error, but if you play the scene in slow motion, you can see that both times, the knives pop through from the back of the "wall." This is also how the carnival trick is performed.]

Visible crew/equipment: West walks through the gate into the amusement park and twice passes very visible truck tire treadmarks in the dirt street.

Continuity: Dr. Loveless' henchmen remove Artemus' leg chain. But a few scenes later, he's shown asleep in a chair, and the chain is back around his ankle.

Continuity: In the reverse angle shot of West's table, the plates, candles and red table cloth are all there - but the huge dish of butter has disappeared.

Continuity: Because the second one is a painted backdrop, the building across the street from the sheriff's office in the exterior shots looks nothing like the one we can see from inside the office in the next scene.

Continuity: Balya, the Turkish representative, is killed by a knife protruding through the back of his chair. But when he falls to the floor, leaving the knife behind, there's no blood on the blade.

Continuity: West and Gordon are ordered to sit on the floor to talk to the diminutive Dr. Loveless at eye level. In all the two-shots, their shoulders are touching. In all the wider angles, they're sitting a foot apart.

Revealing: When the marshal opens the train's rear door and comes in to arrest Lana, you can see wrinkles in the "sky" outside. It's really a painted cloth backdrop.

Continuity: West stabs the giant cat in the left front paw. But when the cat is shown licking its wound, the injury is on its right front foot instead.

Revealing: The "corpse" Miklos wheels into Dr. Faustina's laboratory is pretty healthy for a dead guy: you can see his chest moving up and down as he breathes.

Continuity: While Artemus talks to Lily at her dining table, he clasps his hands behind his back and is standing up straight. When the shot cuts, he's suddenly leaning forward with his left arm extended to the table.

Continuity: The large black straps hanging off the sides of Dr. Faustina's medical table disappear when West and Gordon burst into the lab.

Visible crew/equipment: At the end of the sword fight, the moving boom shadow is visible on the balustrade at the right of the screen.

Revealing: During the sword fight on the stairs, Artemus' stunt double's face is in plain view in several shots.

Continuity: In the barn, when Artemus jokes about "smoked ham," he and West are standing within inches of each other. Then the shot cuts to a wider angle, at which point they're several feet apart.

Continuity: It's just past nightfall when the townspeople enter the courthouse. They aren't there more than half an hour, yet it's daylight when they emerge. Then a shot from inside shows that it's night again.

Continuity: At the end, the wagon tailgate falls open during the scuffle with the bad guys. When West fights his way to the front and drives the wagon away, the tailgate has somehow tied itself up again.

Revealing: After they're carried inside and placed in chairs, one of the "unconscious" women moves her arm into a more comfortable position.

Revealing: The rectangular openings from which the knives thrown at West will actually emerge are visible on the door behind him. After the knives "land," the rectangles disappear.

Factual error: Brutus fires his rifle at West more than a dozen times without once reloading. And he's not carrying anything in which he could store ammunition anyway.

Continuity: The bad guys throw an unconscious West down a chute into the ice house. He goes in with his arms at his sides, then slides with his arms above his head, and finally lands with both hands folded over his stomach - all while remaining unconscious.

Continuity: In the funeral parlor, West is standing with his back to a wooden door. The shot cuts away briefly, then back, and now there's a blue wall behind him. Cut again, and the door is back.

Revealing: West and Gordon are supposedly hiding in opposite corners of the ice house, yet each actor is crouching in the same area with the exact same blocks of plastic ice surrounding him.

Continuity: When he shows it to West, Mauvais holds the bottle of fire ants differently in the close-up than he does in the full shot.

Continuity: When they attack him, Artemus' cellmates are smacked with a wooden chair, which lands broken but upright on the floor. In the very next shot, though, as Artie throws the exploding cigar, the chair is suddenly lying on its side.

Continuity: While interviewing West, Commandant Mauvais removes his white gloves. But after a quick cut away to West, the gloves are back on again.

Continuity: After Artemus' entrance, Mauvais' left glove disappears and reappears repeatedly as he pours and drinks his wine from the red glass.

Revealing: When the Marquis meets West at the door, the landscape behind him has a give-away flaw: there are prominent wrinkles visible in the cloth backdrop "sky."

Continuity: In the Mermaid Tavern, the abalone shell and West's black hat switch places on the table between takes.

Factual error: The coin Artemus hands West is a Morgan silver dollar. It's no coincidence that the actor's thumb covers the date on the coin in the inserted close-up. The series is set during Grant's presidential term in the early 1870s, and Morgan dollars weren't minted until 1878, after Grant had left office.

Continuity: Just after the street brawl at the beginning of the episode, all the dust vanishes from West's blue suit between one shot and the next.

Revealing: The town of Wickenberg has very peculiar sunlight: it casts shadows in several directions at once. Also notable is the far end of its main street, where a distinct line of demarcation reveals the presence of a painted studio backdrop.

Continuity: Near the end, when they confront Liston Day outside the house, West and Gordon are standing close together in all the frontal shots, but several feet apart in all the reverse angle views.

Visible crew/equipment: When the old man gets up from his chair and moves toward the door, the camera shadow is moving on the wall behind him.

Continuity: West and Gordon drag Day from the haunted house, prop him on the porch and turn away. When they turn back, they're stunned to see that he's aged 30 years. But if you look closely, you can see that the man they prop on the porch is already gray-bearded and shaggy. So why were they surprised?

Continuity: West tosses a small grenade at the French doors. We see it hit and explode without breaking a single pane or crosspiece. It just makes smoke and blackens the surface. After a shot of West and Gordon, we cut back to the door and it's now a broken ruin with no glass and the wood framing destroyed. Delayed action bomb?

Factual error: Fenlow begins shouting about "one nation, under God, indivisible." This series is set in the 1870s. The Pledge of Allegiance, from which these lines are taken, wasn't written until 1892. And the words "under God" weren't added until 1954.

Continuity: West crashes through the French doors, breaking out the center section and leaving a partial framework on either side. In the next several shots, the center support and one broken frame reappear and disappear repeatedly.

Factual error: The bizarre centerpiece on the murderers' banquet table has colored electric light bulbs showing in the skulls' eye sockets.

Continuity: West's sword fight ends when his opponent falls through a window after dropping his weapon. In the next shot, the dropped blade has moved several feet to the center of the floor, and West's sword has vanished altogether.

Continuity: At the dinner table, the wine glasses vanish and reappear several times as the camera angles change.

Continuity: There's a coiled wire sticking out of the spine of the book that electrocutes Baring. It's there in close-up, but disappears in full-shot.

Continuity: West demonstrates how the knife popped out of the chair upholstery when pressure was applied. His hand is inches from the blade in one shot, then disappears in the next close-up view. When it cuts back to the master shot, his hand is once again beside the knife.

Deliberate "mistake": The knife that has just killed one of the investors doesn't have a trace of blood on it. No one had time to clean it off.

Continuity: The mannequin arms holding West to Emma Valentine's chair keep changing positions between shots.

Revealing: Mr. Braine screams as his steam-powered chair crashes into the bandstand. If you look closely at the next shot, just before the explosion, you can see that the dummy now in the chair is already missing its head.

Revealing: Mr. Braine fires a mini-rocket at Brendage, killing him. But a poor camera angle reveals the explosive charge going off in the wall more than two feet to Brendage's left. From the angle at which it was fired, the rocket couldn't possibly have hit him.