I just finished going through the Honey West episodes for the second time in the last few years. Overall, it's a fun show. Anne Francis is fantastic as Honey. Smart, sexy, funny - she played Honey perfectly. As good as she is, I think John Ericson deserves as much credit for making the show what it was. Other than being a bit too overprotective at times, his Sam Bolt is an excellent partner for Honey. And I don't want to forget Irene Hervey as Aunt Meg. Her comic relief is generally well done.When Honey West is good, it's very good. Episode #4 A Matter of Wife and Death, Episode #21 Like Visions and Omens... and All That Jazz, and Episode #30 An Eerie, Airy, Thing are three examples of Honey West at its very best. For anyone unfamiliar with the show, these would be good jumping off points. Unfortunately, the writing was incredibly uneven (to put it politely). Episode #24 Slay, Gypsy, Slay, Episode #25 The Fun-Fun Killer, and Episode #27 Little Green Robin Hood are among the worst. When Honey West was bad, it was real bad. While I would have liked to have seen Honey West with a longer run, the writing in the latter episodes is so bad that it's probably best things ended when they did.A few other random thoughts: I may be alone, but I never cared for Bruce. It looked like he was going to rip-off someone's hand at any given moment.As sexy as Anne Francis could be, that AC Cobra she drove just might have been sexier. What an incredible looking car! I've complained about it any number of times, but one of the things that annoyed me the most about Honey West was the poor stunt double. He/she looked nothing like Francis.I've read all the comparisons and connections between Honey West and The Avengers. As mush as I enjoy Honey West, you really can't compare it with the innovative and creative "stuff" they were doing on The Avengers.

The good die young, the loveliest things are the most ephemeral, and the best TV shows are killed after a short run: Star Trek, Due South, The Powers that Be, and Honey West -- the briefest of the lot. I had already fallen for Anne Francis, from Forbidden Planet and The Satan Bug. But Honey West topped them and any other offering on TV or in movies. Honey was ultimately cool, ultimately hot, self-assured, poised, capable; she was superlative. But above all, she was smolderingly sexy. She made me think of a steel spring encased in ice-blue velvet. I think the ocelot only accentuated the sexual appeal of the woman, which needed no accentuation. She was the ultimate, and pheromones fairly poured out through the screen. Whether as Honey West or any other of her characters, Anne Francis was the sexiest woman who ever lived on this planet.

Honey West/Anne Francis was certainly my favorite back then (on TV, second was Diana Rigg - in the movies, I liked Raquel Welch).Honey had an attitude that Donna Reed & Doris Day did not have. For a kid in the 60's, she was something different & special.My folks let me watch because they thought I liked the cat - duh... I had a crush on Anne Francis... (I was 15).And the ocelot's full name was Bruce Bite-A-Bit.I don't remember much else. Maybe some studio would do a re-make with a current star as Honey (sorry, Anne, but you are in your 70's now, and still very good looking, but you're just not convincing as a karate-chopping PI any more - maybe you could be the new Honey's "office manager" or something... that way, we could still enjoy your screen-presence).

Is anyone aware that the man who worked on Special Effects for Honey West is the same man who did the Special Effects for the Star Trek series just a year later? The man's name was Jim Rugg. He was my Pops. He also worked on such shows as The Rifleman, Burkes Law, Broken Arrow, Mission Impossible, Cannon, Barnaby Jones and Hawaii Five-O. He worked on such movies as The Wizard of Oz, River of No Return, Bus Stop, The Day the Earth Stood Still, On the Riviera and Silent Running. Pops had a pyrotechnic license and he made a living blowing everything up from cars to boats to airplanes... you name it. He was most proud of the fact that in no show that he was in charge of did anyone ever get hurt. My Dad is gone now but he was the best in the business... just ask anyone who ever worked with him.