TV SERIES · 1999–2006 · USA
The West Wing
- Created by
- Aaron Sorkin
- Network
- NBC
- Seasons
- 7
- Episodes
- 154
- Studio
- John Wells Productions, Warner Bros. Television
377 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026
The West Wing provides a glimpse into presidential politics in the nation's capital as it tells the stories of the members of a fictional presidential administration. These interesting characters have humor and dedication that touches the heart while the politics that they discuss touch on everyday life.
377 Interesting Facts About The West Wing
Interesting Facts (35)
- #001
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- #003
A documentary special in the third season compared the show's depiction of the West Wing to the real thing. Many former West Wing denizens applauded the show's depiction of the West Wing, including advisor David Gergen, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.
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In 2011, Kal Penn told The New York Times that on the first night of his job in the Obama Administration's White House Office of Public Engagement, he was at the office until 11 p.m., and suggested to his colleagues that they order in some Chinese food. When his new co-workers told him that ordering food deliveries is not actually allowed in the White House, Penn's response was "But they do it on West Wing!"
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- #010
Traditionally, during a Republican administration, a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt is hung in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House and, during a Democratic administration, a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt is hung there (the former Roosevelt being a Republican and the latter a Democrat). In the Roosevelt Room of the Bartlet White House, portraits of both Roosevelts are hung.
- #011
On the set of the series one day, Allison Janney was entertaining the cast and crew by lip-syncing to an obscure spoken jazz piece called "The Jackal" by Ronny Jordan. Aaron Sorkin liked it so much that he wrote it into the next episode of the show ("Six Meetings Before Lunch") as a ritual of C.J.'s.
- #012
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- #017
Contains a major spoiler — show
The California assembly was adjourned by a San Francisco Democrat for the purposes of mourning the death of Delores Landingham, President Bartlet's secretary in the first two seasons, when she died in a car accident. Kathryn Joosten lived on. In other words, they mourned the death of a fictional character.
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- #021
By tradition, during a Republican administration a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt hangs in the Roosevelt Room of the White House's West Wing, and during a Democratic administration a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt hangs there (the former Roosevelt was a Republican and the latter a Democrat). In the Bartlet White House, portraits of both Roosevelts hang in the Roosevelt Room.
- #022
- #023
After Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme left following the fourth season, Richard Schiff felt that most of the new writers did not truly understand the character of Toby and would write him as equally grumpy and without nuance. Schiff was unhappy with his work on the series, and he particularly disliked Toby's storyline in the past season involving the leak.
- #024
- #025
The character Mandy was dropped after the first season. Aaron Sorkin and Moira Kelly agreed that the character was not working. The series never explained what happened to Mandy; the character simply vanished. This gave rise to the term "Mandyville," for where characters go when they disappear from a series.
- #026
The set was the largest ever built for both a pilot and a series. It was so large that, in the first season, it had to be housed on two stages, each with an identical yellow corridor, to maintain continuity. During the break between the first and second seasons, the set was moved to a larger stage and assembled together, and it has remained there since.
- #027
In the opening title sequence there is a still photograph of Martin Sheen's character, President Bartlet, leaning over a desk with his head bowed. We see him from behind. This was a direct homage to the famous photograph of President John F. Kennedy taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only difference was that JFK was holding a cigar.
- #028
In April 2006, executive producer Lawrence O'Donnell told the New York Times that, until John Spencer's death, the writers had planned for the Republican candidate Arnold Vinick to win, not the Democratic candidate Matthew Santos. O'Donnell said that after Spencer's death, the writers decided that Santos losing both his running mate and the election at the same time would be too sad for viewers.
- #029
In the sixth and seventh seasons, Toby's storyline involves a leak to the press about the existence of a previously secret U.S. military space plane. In 2012, seven years after those episodes first aired, the U.S. Air Force admitted that the previously secret, unmanned, Boeing-built, reusable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle had completed a classified 469-day military mission. In other words, a secret U.S. military space plane.
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Production Story (144)
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- #037
After leaving the show, Aaron Sorkin claimed that when he began watching the season five premiere (the first episode to be written without him) he turned it off after less than a minute, and never watched another episode. He likened the experience to "Watching someone make out with my girlfriend."
- #038
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- #041
This was the first American drama series to react to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Aaron Sorkin wrote a special episode ("Isaac and Ishmael") that was filmed and broadcast within only a couple of weeks. The episode, which featured the lead characters discussing a terrorist threat upon the U.S., and being locked down inside the White House, due to the name of a man on a Terrorist Watch List matching that of an innocent White House worker, was not considered part of this show's continuity.
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Aaron Sorkin told Entertainment Weekly that the first actor he and the producers wanted to play President Bartlet was Sidney Poitier. That idea was abandoned when Poitier's fee was, in Thomas Schlamme's words, "very high", and John Wells was able to ascertain that Poitier was not interested when his manager asked Wells to stop calling.
- #047
Each of the principal actors made approximately $75,000 per episode, with Martin Sheen's confirmed salary being $300,000. Rob Lowe left the series in the fourth season reportedly due to not getting a salary increase. Disparities in cast salaries led to very public contract disputes, particularly by Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer, and Bradley Whitford. During contract negotiations in 2001, the four were threatened with breach of contract suits by Warner Bros. However, by banding together, they were able to persuade the studio to more than double their salaries. Two years later, the four again demanded a doubling of their salaries, a few months after Warner Bros had signed new licensing deals with NBC and Bravo.
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- #050
During a 2014 Screen Actors Guild Foundation interview with Roger Rees, moderated by writer Rick Elice, Rees's husband, Elice said that Rees had originally auditioned to play Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, and it eventually came down to a choice between Rees and John Spencer, who won the role. After that process, Aaron Sorkin told Roger Rees that he would write a different part for him, which he did: Rees played the recurring character of British advisor (and eventually ambassador) Lord John Marbury throughout the show's run. Elice also said that Sorkin came to Rees for help with tracking down the composer of a piece of music that Sorkin remembered from the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1982 production of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" and wanted to use in the episode "Posse Comitatus"; Rees had played the title character in that production.
- #051
- #052
Janel Moloney was never supposed to be a regular. Co-star Bradley Whitford pointed out the obvious chemistry between the characters of Josh and Donna, and Aaron Sorkin agreed. Nevertheless, Moloney was credited as a guest star for the entire first season. The first time her name appears in the opening credits is in season two, episode one, "In The Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part I." To the horror of her father, in particular, her last name was misspelled. This was subsequently corrected.
- #053
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The show's ratings waned in later years following the departure of series creator Aaron Sorkin after the fourth season (Sorkin wrote or co-wrote 85 of the first 88 episodes), yet it remained popular among high-income viewers, a key demographic for the show and its advertisers, with around 16 million viewers.
- #055
- #056
Over the course of the series, fifteen different actors and actresses appeared in the main credits: Allison Janney, John Spencer, Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill, Rob Lowe, Joshua Malina, Stockard Channing, Mary McCormack, Jimmy Smits, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Alda, and Moira Kelly.
- #057
During an episode of the "West Wing Weekly" podcast hosted by Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway, Aaron Sorkin told the story of how Marlee Matlin came to play the character Joey Lucas on The West Wing: "Actually, it was because of you [Joshua Malina]. After the 'Dear Louise' episode of Sports Night, in which Jeremy [played by Malina] is writing a letter to his sister who's hearing-impaired, Marlee asked if she could meet with me. She'd seen the show the night before and wanted to persuade me to write the sister into a future episode so that she could play the part. Marlee swept me off my feet in the meeting; she's abundantly charming, brainy, and funny, and her signing is like watching a world-class ballerina. I was never able to come up with an idea for a Sports Night story for Jeremy's sister, but a year later I asked her if she wanted to play a campaign manager whose candidate is being treated badly by the DNC. Her character's Deafness would only be incidental to the story. Marlee hit it out of the park, and so I always looked for opportunities to have her on the show." Matlin first appeared as Joey Lucas in the first-season episode "Take this Sabbath Day"; in all, she appeared in 17 episodes over the run of the series.
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After Aaron Sorkin and Rick Cleveland won an Emmy for writing the episode "In Excelsis Deo", only Sorkin spoke at the awards ceremony. Cleveland published an article in Writers Guild Magazine expressing his disappointment at not being allowed to speak, because the homeless veteran aspect of the episode's plot was based on Cleveland's own father, who was a veteran who died a homeless alcoholic. Sorkin (writing under the user name "Benjamin", his real-life middle name) posted on the television message board mightybigtv.com (later renamed televisionwithoutpity.com) that he had written most of the episode and had only given Cleveland a co-writing credit as a courtesy, because Cleveland had worked on a previous draft that, according to Sorkin, bore no resemblance to the final shooting script. Sorkin also said that this was true of almost all of the The West Wing scripts written up to that point (mid-2001), that he was the true and only writer of nearly all West Wing episodes, and the rest of the writing staff only helped him with research and "kicking ideas around" - so he gave "them each a Story by credit on a rotating basis, by way of a gratuity." This internet posting attracted a great deal of mainstream press attention, which led Sorkin to post again, this time retracting his claim of exclusive writing credit. The "LemonLyman.com" subplot in the season three episode "The U.S. Poet Laureate" (in which Josh posts on a website dedicated to his fans and sees it come back to haunt him) is based on this series of events.
- #062
The series is set primarily in the West Wing of the White House, where the Oval Office and offices of presidential senior staff are located, during the fictitious Democratic administration of Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen).
The West Wing (1999): Martin Sheen and a person in uniform on setImage: Wikimedia Commons · U.S. Navy photo by Chief Journalist Daniel Ross., Public domain - #063
- #064
Former Senate aide Lawrence O'Donnell and former White House aide and presidential campaign speechwriter Eli Attie were both longtime writers on the show (O'Donnell for seasons 1-2 and 5-7, Attie for seasons 3-7). Former White House Press Secretaries Dee Dee Myers and Marlin Fitzwater and pollsters Patrick Caddell and Frank Luntz also served as consultants, advising the writing staff for part of the show's run. Other former White House staffers, such as Peggy Noonan and Gene Sperling, served as consultants for brief periods.
- #065
Contains a major spoiler — show
Following the departure of Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme after season four, Richard Schiff felt that most of the new writers didn't really understand the character of Toby, and would write him just as grumpy, without nuances. Schiff ended up being unhappy with his work on the show, especially disliking Toby's storyline as the leak in the last season.
- #066
Contains a major spoiler — show
The character of Mandy was abandoned after the first season. Aaron Sorkin and Moira Kelly both agreed that the character had run its course. The show never explained what happened to Mandy; the character just disappeared. This gave birth to the term "Mandyville", where characters go when they disappear from a series.
- #067
Contains a major spoiler — show
In a 2006 LA Times article, former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers, a consultant on the show, revealed that the relationship between press secretary C.J. Cregg and reporter Danny Concannon was based on her own relationship with, and eventual marriage to, former New York Times White House correspondent Todd Purdum. Unlike C.J. and Danny, Meyers and Purdum never dated until after Myers left the White House. The same article also revealed that Josh and Donna's relationship was also based on real White House staffers who never dated.
- #068
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Rob Lowe announced he would be leaving the show in the fourth season, among the names considered to replace him were Dermot Mulroney, Judd Nelson, Macaulay Culkin, and Jon Cryer. The job eventually went to Joshua Malina, a longtime friend of Aaron Sorkin, who has been in everything Sorkin has written since he appeared as a member of the ensemble in Sorkin's play "A Few Good Men."
- #069
Contains a major spoiler — show
According to an article in The New York Times (October 29, 2008), shortly after then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, The West Wing (1999) writer Eli Attie had several long telephone conversations with David Axelrod, a political consultant who was then working on Obama's U.S. Senate campaign. From those conversations, Attie modeled the character of Matthew Santos after Obama's political and personal life. Like Santos, Obama eventually won his race for the presidency. Likewise, according to an article in The Guardian (November 6, 2008), the character of Josh Lyman was modeled after Representative Rahm Emanuel; on the show, Lyman became President Santos' Chief of Staff, while Obama's first staffing announcement after his 2008 election was to name Emanuel as his Chief of Staff.
- #070
Contains a major spoiler — show
In April 2006, executive producer Lawrence O'Donnell told the New York Times that until the death of John Spencer, the writers had planned to have the Republican candidate, Arnold Vinick, win the election, not the Democratic candidate, Matthew Santos. O'Donnell said that after Spencer's death, the writers decided that it would be too sad for the audience if Santos lost both his running mate and the election at the same time.
- #071
It was the first American drama series to respond to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Aaron Sorkin wrote a special episode ("Isaac and Ishmael") that was filmed and aired within just a few weeks. The episode dealt with the main characters discussing a terrorist threat against the US and being locked down in the White House because a name on a Terror Watch List matched an innocent White House employee, and it was not considered part of the series continuity.
- #072
- #073
After Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme left following the fourth season, Richard Schiff felt that most of the new writers did not truly understand the character of Toby and wrote him merely as a grumpy person. Schiff was unhappy with his work on the series and particularly disliked the leak storyline in the final season.
- #074
The character of Mandy was abandoned after the first season. Aaron Sorkin and Moira Kelly agreed that the character had served her purpose. The series never explained what happened to Mandy; the character simply disappeared. This led to the coining of the term "Mandyville" for characters who vanish from a series.
- #075
- #076
Each of the lead actors earned approximately $75,000 per episode, while Martin Sheen's salary was $300,000. Rob Lowe left the series because he did not receive a pay increase in the fourth season. Inequalities in actor salaries led to public contract disputes, particularly involving Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer and Bradley Whitford. During the 2001 contract negotiations, the four actors were threatened by Warner Bros with a lawsuit for breach of contract. However, by banding together they persuaded the studio to more than double their salaries. Two years later, a few months after Warner Bros signed new licensing deals with NBC and Bravo, the four actors again demanded that their salaries be doubled.
- #077
After Aaron Sorkin and Rick Cleveland won an Emmy for the script of the episode "In Excelsis Deo", only Sorkin spoke at the ceremony. Cleveland published an article in Writers Guild Magazine expressing his frustration at not being allowed to speak, because the part of the episode about the homeless veteran was based on Cleveland's father, who died as a homeless alcoholic. Sorkin (using the username "Benjamin", his real name) wrote on the television message board mightybigtv.com (later renamed televisionwithoutpity.com) that he had written most of the episode himself and had given Cleveland a co-writing credit only as a courtesy, because Cleveland had worked on an earlier draft but that draft bore no resemblance to the final shooting script. Sorkin also said that this had been the case for almost all of the The West Wing scripts written up to that point (mid-2001), that he was the sole and true writer of nearly all the episodes, and that the other writers only helped with research and "discussing ideas". For this reason, he stated, he gave them alternating "Story by" credits as a gesture. This internet post attracted great attention in the mainstream press and led Sorkin to withdraw his claim to sole writing credit by writing again. The "LemonLyman.com" subplot in the third season episode "The U.S. Poet Laureate" (Josh writing for a website dedicated to his fans and it getting him into trouble) is based on this series of events.
- #078
In April 2006, producer Lawrence O'Donnell told the New York Times that until John Spencer's death, the writers had planned for the Republican candidate Arnold Vinick to win the election, not the Democratic candidate Matthew Santos. O'Donnell said that after Spencer's death, the writers decided that Santos losing both his running mate and the election at the same time would be too sad for viewers.
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- #083
According to an article published in the New York Times (29 October 2008), shortly after then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, The West Wing (1999) writer Eli Attie had several long phone conversations with political consultant David Axelrod, who was then working on Obama's US Senate campaign. Drawing on these conversations, Attie modeled the character of Matthew Santos on Obama's political and personal life. Like Santos, Obama ultimately won the presidential race. Similarly, according to an article published in The Guardian (6 November 2008), the character of Josh Lyman was inspired by Representative Rahm Emanuel; in the series, Lyman became President Santos's Chief of Staff, while Obama's first staffing announcement after the 2008 election was to appoint Emanuel as his Chief of Staff.
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Former Senate aide Lawrence O'Donnell and former White House aide and presidential campaign speechwriter Eli Attie were long-serving writers on the series (O'Donnell in seasons 1-2 and 5-7, Attie in seasons 3-7). Former White House Press Secretaries Dee Dee Myers and Marlin Fitzwater, along with pollsters Patrick Caddell and Frank Luntz, also served as consultants and advised the writers on one episode of the series. Other former White House staffers such as Peggy Noonan and Gene Sperling also served briefly as consultants.
- #090
In the first season, Stockard Channing and Allison Janney received Emmy nominations for Supporting Actress. Janney, who ultimately won, spent the entire season as a regular cast member. Channing, by contrast, appeared in three episodes as a Special Guest Star. A similar situation arose in the third season; Channing, Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker were nominated for Supporting Actress. Channing, who appeared in ten episodes and was by then in the credits, won. Moloney spent the entire season as a regular cast member, while Parker appeared as a Guest Star in only seven episodes. In the sixth season, Alan Alda was nominated for Supporting Actor after appearing in six episodes as a Special Guest Star. He won the following year, but in the final season he was a regular cast member.
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In the 2001-2002 season, nine cast members were nominated for Emmys. Allison Janney, John Spencer and Stockard Channing each won an Emmy (for Lead Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress respectively). The other nominees were Martin Sheen (Lead Actor), Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill and Bradley Whitford (Supporting Actor), and Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker (Supporting Actress). That same year, Mark Harmon, Tim Matheson and Ron Silver were also nominated in the Guest Actor category (though none of them won). This earned the series the record for the most acting nominations in a single year (including the guest actor category): 12 acting nominations. A total of twenty-one individual Emmys were awarded to writers, cast members and crew. Allison Janney holds the record for the most wins by an actor, with four Emmys in total. The West Wing won at least one Emmy in every season except the sixth.
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- #098
Once, while the series was filming at Georgetown around three in the morning, an angry woman in a bathrobe came outside with a group of men. "What's going on? I have work at the State Department early in the morning, and by the way, your show doesn't even have a Secretary of State, it should, and it should be a woman," she said. The woman was Madeleine Albright.
- #099
- #100
The set was the largest ever built up to that time for both a pilot and a television series. It was so large that in the first season it had to be placed on two separate stages, each with the same yellow corridor for continuity. During the break between the first and second seasons, the set was moved to a larger stage and combined; it has stood there ever since.
- #101
The series frequently used the technique of characters talking while walking through office corridors or from one meeting to another. In television jargon this is called a 'walk and talk' scene, though some West Wing fans called these dialogues 'pedeconferences.' This element became so identified with the series that a 'Mad TV' parody consisted almost entirely of characters walking (and then running) through White House corridors, and when Aaron Sorkin appeared on 30 Rock, his role was to walk in a large circle with Tina Fey (Liz) while talking about television writing. In a 2019 episode of 'Mom' starring Allison Janney, there was a dream sequence in which Janney, as President, walked the corridors with Richard Schiff.
- #102
The Oval Office set, designed by Michael J. Taylor, was first built for the film Dave (1993), then used in The American President (1995), written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Martin Sheen, Joshua Malina and Anna Deavere Smith. It was also used during the filming of Contact (1997), and the carpet made by the original firm had to be replaced at a cost of $28,000.
- #103
A documentary special in the third season compared the series' depiction of the West Wing with the real thing. Many people applauded the series' depiction, including former West Wing adviser David Gergen, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
- #104
- #105
At the start of the series' sixth season, the Israeli ambassador flew from Washington to Los Angeles to visit the set. He met much of the crew and told them details of Israel's relations with the United States. This helped the crew during filming because the sixth season focused on Middle East relations.
- #106
The 'West Wing' entrance most frequently filmed in the series is actually a set used to cover the large door of one of the two soundstages the production company used. It is located at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California, and can be seen from the street when looking from Forest Lawn Drive (though it is usually hidden by the many trailers used by the cast).
- #107
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The West Wing is known for its long Steadicam tracking shots of 'walk-and-talk,' in which characters walk through corridors while having long conversations. In a typical 'walk-and-talk' shot, the camera follows two characters down a corridor as they talk with each other. One of the characters usually peels off and another character joins the remaining one, starting a new conversation while they continue walking. These 'walk-and-talks' give an otherwise long expository dialogue a dynamic feel and have become a staple of dialogue-heavy television series.
- #109
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Lily Tomlin (Deborah Fiderer) joined the series in the 22nd episode of the third season, but her character had been mentioned in the third episode of the first season as Debbie DiLaguardia. This discrepancy in names is explained when she tells Charlie that she is no longer married to DiLaguardia and that her surname is Fiderer.
- #113
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- #116
In an article published in the LA Times in 2006, former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers revealed that the relationship between C.J. Cregg and journalist Danny Concannon was based on her own relationship. Myers and Todd Purdum began dating after Myers left the White House. The same article noted that Josh and Donna's relationship was also based on real White House staffers who never dated.
- #117
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- #119
On the West Wing Weekly podcast, Aaron Sorkin explained how Marlee Matlin got the role of Joey Lucas: 'Actually, it's thanks to you (Joshua Malina). After the 'Dear Louise' episode of Sports Night, Marlee wanted to meet with me. She had seen the episode and was so impressed by me that I wanted to write a role for her. I couldn't come up with an idea for Sports Night, but a year later I asked her if she wanted to play the campaign manager of a candidate who had been mistreated by the DNC. Her character's deafness would only be incidentally part of the story. Marlee played her role wonderfully, and so I looked for opportunities to include her in the show.' Matlin first appeared in the first-season episode 'Take this Sabbath Day' and appeared in a total of 17 episodes.
- #120
When President Bartlet's longtime secretary and friend Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) died, she was replaced by Deborah Fiderer (Lily Tomlin). Joosten later took a recurring role on Desperate Housewives (2004). When the producers wanted to add a sister to Joosten's character, they chose Lily Tomlin.
- #121
When Rob Lowe announced he would leave the show in the fourth season, the names considered to replace him included Dermot Mulroney, Judd Nelson, Macaulay Culkin and Jon Cryer. The role ultimately went to Aaron Sorkin's close friend Joshua Malina; Malina had appeared in everything Sorkin had written since his play 'A Few Good Men'.
- #122
- #123
One of the show's early storylines was that Charlie (Dulé Hill) and Zoey (Elisabeth Moss) began dating and received threatening letters because they were an interracial couple. In an interview with the New York Times in September 2021, Dulé Hill said that while he was a young actor on The West Wing, he received a large number of racist hate letters for playing a black man in a relationship with a white woman. Hill asked for these letters and hung them on the wall of his trailer as inspiration.
- #124
John Spencer (Leo McGarry) died of a heart attack on December 16, 2005; roughly a year earlier, his character had also suffered a fatal heart attack. Martin Sheen gave a short tribute before the first new episode aired after Spencer's death. The loss of John Spencer's character was addressed in the episode 'Election Day: Part 1', which aired on April 2, 2006.
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- #127
In the series' version of American history, Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) is described as the first Hispanic president, whereas Martin Sheen, who played President Bartlet, is half Hispanic (his father was a Cuban Spanish immigrant). The West Wing writers never stated that Bartlet shared Sheen's Hispanic heritage.
- #128
Teri Polo, who joined the cast in the sixth season as Senator Santos's wife, posed fully nude for Playboy to revive her career. It did not work; many of her friends even said it damaged her career and that Polo had to file for bankruptcy years later. Polo later said she had no regrets, stating, 'It was one of the best experiences of my life. The human body is beautiful, and it's a shame to make certain things taboo.'
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It was the first American drama series to respond to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Aaron Sorkin wrote a special episode ("Isaac and Ishmael") that was shot and aired within just a few weeks. The episode dealt with the main characters discussing a terrorist threat against the US and being locked down in the White House because a name on a Terror Watch List matched an innocent White House employee, and it was not considered part of the series continuity.
- #134
- #135
After Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme left following the fourth season, Richard Schiff felt that most of the new writers did not really understand the character of Toby and wrote him merely as a grumpy person. Schiff was unhappy with his work on the series and particularly disliked the leak storyline in the final season.
- #136
- #137
Each of the lead actors earned approximately $75,000 per episode, while Martin Sheen's salary was $300,000. Rob Lowe left the series because he did not receive a pay increase in the fourth season. Inequalities in actor salaries led to public contract disputes, particularly involving Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer and Bradley Whitford. During the 2001 contract negotiations, the four actors were threatened by Warner Bros with a breach-of-contract lawsuit. However, by banding together they persuaded the studio to more than double their salaries. Two years later, a few months after Warner Bros signed new licensing deals with NBC and Bravo, the four actors again demanded that their salaries be doubled.
- #138
After Aaron Sorkin and Rick Cleveland won an Emmy for the script of the episode "In Excelsis Deo", only Sorkin spoke at the ceremony. Cleveland published an article in Writers Guild Magazine expressing his frustration at not being allowed to speak, because the part of the episode concerning the homeless veteran was based on Cleveland's father, who died as a homeless alcoholic. Sorkin (using the username "Benjamin", his real name) wrote on the television message board mightybigtv.com (later renamed televisionwithoutpity.com) that he had written most of the episode himself and had given Cleveland a co-writing credit only as a courtesy, because Cleveland had worked on an earlier draft but that draft bore no resemblance to the final shooting script. Sorkin also said that this had been the case for almost all of the The West Wing scripts written up to that point (mid-2001), that he was the sole and true author of nearly all the episodes, and that the other writers only helped with research and "discussing ideas". For this reason, he stated, he gave them alternating "Story by" credits as a gesture. This internet post attracted great attention in the mainstream press and led Sorkin to retract his claim of sole writing credit by writing again. The "LemonLyman.com" subplot in the third-season episode "The U.S. Poet Laureate" (Josh writing on a website dedicated to his fans and it getting him into trouble) is based on this chain of events.
- #139
In April 2006, producer Lawrence O'Donnell told the New York Times that until John Spencer's death, the writers had planned for Republican candidate Arnold Vinick to win the election, not Democratic candidate Matthew Santos. O'Donnell said that after Spencer's death, the writers decided that Santos losing both his running mate and the election at the same time would be too sad for viewers.
- #140
- #141
According to an article published in the New York Times (29 October 2008), shortly after then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, The West Wing (1999) writer Eli Attie had several long phone conversations with political consultant David Axelrod, who was at that time working on Obama's US Senate campaign. Drawing on these conversations, Attie modeled the character of Matthew Santos on Obama's political and personal life. Like Santos, Obama eventually won the presidential race. Similarly, according to an article published in The Guardian (6 November 2008), the character of Josh Lyman was inspired by Representative Rahm Emanuel; in the series Lyman became President Santos's Chief of Staff, while Obama's first staffing announcement after the 2008 election was to appoint Emanuel as his Chief of Staff.
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Former Senate aide Lawrence O'Donnell and former White House aide and presidential campaign speechwriter Eli Attie were longtime writers on the series (O'Donnell in seasons 1-2 and 5-7, Attie in seasons 3-7). Former White House Press Secretaries Dee Dee Myers and Marlin Fitzwater, along with pollsters Patrick Caddell and Frank Luntz, also served as consultants and advised the writers on one episode of the series. Other former White House staffers such as Peggy Noonan and Gene Sperling also served briefly as consultants.
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In the first season, Stockard Channing and Allison Janney received Emmy nominations for Supporting Actress. Janney, who ultimately won, spent the entire season as a regular cast member. Channing, meanwhile, appeared in three episodes as a Special Guest Star. A similar situation arose in the third season; Channing, Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker were nominated for Supporting Actress. Channing, who appeared in ten episodes and was by then in the credits, won. Moloney spent the entire season as a regular cast member, while Parker appeared in only seven episodes as a Guest Star. In the sixth season, Alan Alda was nominated for Supporting Actor after appearing in six episodes as a Special Guest Star. He won the following year, but in the final season he was a regular cast member.
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In the 2001-2002 season, nine cast members were nominated for Emmys. Allison Janney, John Spencer and Stockard Channing each won an Emmy (Lead Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress respectively). The other nominees were Martin Sheen (Lead Actor), Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill and Bradley Whitford (Supporting Actor), and Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker (Supporting Actress). That same year, Mark Harmon, Tim Matheson and Ron Silver were also nominated in the Guest Actor category (though none of them won). This gave the series the record for the most acting nominations in a single year (including the guest actor category): 12 acting nominations. A total of twenty-one individual Emmys were awarded to writers, cast members and crew. Allison Janney holds the record for the most wins by an actor, with four Emmys in total. The West Wing won at least one Emmy in every season except the sixth.
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Leo's "Big Block of Cheese" story is real. Andrew Jackson had received a giant block of cheese as a gift from the people of New York. When he did not touch it for two years, he gave the cheese to the people of Washington, D.C. to celebrate Washington's birthday. The public finished the cheese in two hours.
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Traditionally, a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt hangs in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House during a Republican administration, while a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt hangs there during a Democratic administration (the first a Republican, the second a Democrat). In the Roosevelt Room in Bartlet's White House, portraits of both Roosevelts hang.
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In a 2011 interview with The New York Times, Kal Penn said that on his first day of work in the White House Office of Public Engagement under the Obama administration, he stayed in the office until 11:00 p.m. and suggested ordering Chinese food for his colleagues. When his new co-workers told him that ordering food to the White House was in fact not allowed, Penn's response was, "But they do it on The West Wing!"
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When Josh says that C.J. Cregg likes "goldfish," Danny Concannon mistakenly brings her a live goldfish instead of a snack. The goldfish and its bowl become a permanent part of C.J.'s office decor, and whenever the bowl appears on camera, the ornament inside is always changed to match that episode's theme or the relevant holiday season — for example, a turkey, a Christmas tree, a space shuttle, a podium, and so on.
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On January 24, 2014, the Obama administration announced that, in honor of both Andrew Jackson's spirit and this series, they would hold a real "Big Block of Cheese Day." At the event, White House officials would answer questions from ordinary Americans (online, not face to face as in the series). The announcement was launched with a video posted on the official White House website featuring series stars Bradley Whitford and Joshua Malina along with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. The first real Big Block of Cheese Day took place on Wednesday, January 29, 2014. On January 16, 2015, the White House announced once again that they would hold a Big Block of Cheese Day. This time the announcement video (titled "Big Block of Cheese Day Is Back and Whiter Than Ever") featured White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and West Wing cast members Bradley Whitford, Joshua Malina, Mary McCormack, Dulé Hill, Richard Schiff, Allison Janney and Martin Sheen. The video described the event as "like Reddit, but without the weird stuff." The third real "Big Block of Cheese Day" took place on January 13, 2016, one day after President Obama delivered the final State of the Union address of his presidency. Vice President Joe Biden, Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Senator Cory Booker and many more senior White House staff, cabinet members and members of Congress answered questions from the public online throughout the day.
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In the opening credits there is a still photograph of President Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, leaning on a desk with his head bowed. We see him from behind. This was a direct homage to the famous photograph of President John F. Kennedy taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only difference was that JFK was holding a cigar.
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In 2012, actors Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Melissa Fitzgerald, Joshua Malina, Lily Tomlin, Mary McCormack and Martin Sheen appeared as their "West Wing" characters in a video supporting Michigan Supreme Court candidate Bridget Mary McCormack (and also raising awareness about the nonpartisan section of the ballot in Michigan and many other states). Bridget Mary McCormack won the election. She is Mary McCormack's sister.
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In 2010, for Entertainment Weekly's 20th anniversary, EW brought together Martin Sheen (President Josiah Bartlet), Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg), Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman), Elisabeth Moss (Zoey Bartlet), Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Janel Moloney (Donna Moss), Kathryn Joosten (Dolores Landingham) and Stockard Channing (Abigail Bartlet) for a photo shoot and interview, and asked them to offer their ideas about the hypothetical future lives of their characters. Allison Janney thought C.J. was on the lecture circuit and making a lot of money talking about her White House years; Elisabeth Moss thought Charlie and Zoey had stayed together; and Bradley Whitford thought Josh and Donna were working at a think tank (though Donna quit after her children were born).
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In the sixth season, NiCole Robinson (Margaret) became pregnant. Although the series acknowledged that Margaret was also pregnant, no hint was ever given about the identity of the baby's father, whether Margaret was married or in a relationship, or even whether Margaret kept the baby herself or gave it up for adoption. Because the series never addressed these matters, they became the subject of fan speculation, and in an interview with TV Guide after the series finale, Robinson said her two best guesses for the baby's father were either Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver) or the "UPS guy."
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Before the 2020 presidential election (and also during a global pandemic), many of the West Wing cast members came together to stage a live reading of the episode "Hartsfield's Landing" for the benefit of When We All Vote, a non-profit, non-partisan organization aimed at increasing voter turnout and closing the race and age gap in elections. Among the West Wing regulars who reprised their roles were Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Allison Janney (C. J. Cregg), Rob Lowe (Sam Seaborn), Janel Moloney (Donna Moss), Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler), Martin Sheen (President Bartlet) and Bradley Whitford (Joshua Lyman). Because John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on the series, died in 2005, Sterling K. Brown stepped into his role. The benefit event also featured When We All Vote co-founders Lin-Manuel Miranda (a West Wing superfan) and Michelle Obama as interstitial guests.
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In the first season's nineteenth episode, "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet," during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room about gay soldiers, Toby drives the point home by asking sarcastically, "What's going on at Lackland Air Force Base?" This is a reference to the famous line in the 1992 film A Few Good Men in which Jack Nicholson says to Kiefer Sutherland, "What's going on in Bravo company, Matthew?" Both the series and A Few Good Men were written by Aaron Sorkin.
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The theme music of the news program "Capitol Beat," anchored by Mark Gottfried (Ted McGinley), is actually the theme music of the United Kingdom's Independent Television News (ITN) bulletins News At Ten and Night Time News, a real and award-winning news program. The theme is a short segment taken from Johnny Pearson's piece "The Awakening," which is itself part of a longer composition titled "20th Century Portrait."
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In an interview with New York Magazine in July 2015, Lin-Manuel Miranda said that the TV series The West Wing (1999) had a "huge" influence on the 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton: "Like Hamilton, [The West Wing] pulls back the curtain on how decision-making happens at the highest level, or at least how you hope it would be. The amount of information Aaron Sorkin packs into a scene gave me the courage to trust the audience to keep up." Many lyrics in Hamilton are quotations or rephrasings of West Wing scenes. In the song "The Schuyler Sisters," Angelica sings, "Eliza, I'm looking for a mind at work!" a reference to Sam Seaborn telling Ainsley Hayes, "Before I look for anything, I look for a mind at work." In the song "That Would Be Enough," Eliza sings, "As long as you come home at the end of the day, that would be enough," a reference to President Bartlet telling his daughter Ellie, "The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy was come home at the end of the day." After his final Hamilton performance on Broadway, Miranda took his bow as the West Wing theme played.
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The series frequently reused the same names for different characters throughout its run. Josh went to two different psychiatrists named "Stanley"; a Senator named "Gianelli" is mentioned (but never seen), and later Ron Silver's character Bruno Gianelli becomes a regular in the third season. Two regular characters, played by Renée Estevez and Anna Deavere Smith, were both named "Nancy." In the second season episode "Bartlet's Third State of the Union," the (unseen) President of Colombia is named Santos, and later the Congressman and eventual President played by Jimmy Smits is named Matt Santos. The Secretary of Agriculture played by Harry Groener is named Roger Tribbey, and the White House Counsel played by John Larroquette is named Lionel Tribbey. Both Donna's and C.J.'s memorable high school English teachers are named "Molly," and after a Secret Service Agent killed in the line of duty while protecting Zoey Bartlet is also named "Molly," Toby names his baby daughter after her.
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Two characters in this series share the same distinctive names as two people associated with Nixon's presidency. Ronald L. Ziegler was Nixon's Press Secretary, while the Communications Director in this series is named Toby Ziegler. Alexander Butterfield was Nixon's Deputy, while the Secret Service Agent assigned to President Bartlet is named "Ron Butterfield."
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The real-world issues tackled on The West Wing include: the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, tense relations between India and Pakistan and their brinkmanship, the passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the formation of the Minuteman Project, peacemaking and terrorism in Palestine and Israel, genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, the Northern Ireland peace process, the War on Drugs and conflict in Colombia, the debate over Intelligent Design in schools, brinkmanship and potential conflict between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China over Taiwan's political status, federal government shutdowns, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the anthrax attacks on the Bush administration, federal funding for the arts, peak oil and the consequences of declining global oil production, federal subsidies for ethanol fuel for corn growers, student loan forgiveness for teachers, and the use of the 25th Amendment for an Acting President while the President is preoccupied with personal problems.
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Although critics generally praised The West Wing for its writing, others criticized the series for being unrealistically optimistic and sentimental. Much of this criticism stemmed from the characters' perceived purity. Television critic Heather Havrilesky asked, "Which rock did these morally pure creatures crawl out from under, and more to the point, how do you go from innocent millipede to White House staffer without becoming soiled or disillusioned by the dirty realities of politics along the way?"
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The series has a strong connection to the Revenge of the Nerds franchise. Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman) played Roger in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987). Timothy Busfield (Danny Concannon) was Arnold Poindexter in the first two films. Ted McGinley (Mark Gottfried) played Stan Gable in the first, third and fourth films. James Hong (Chinese Ambassador) played Snotty in the second film. John Goodman (President Glenallen Walken) was the football coach in Revenge of the Nerds (1984). James Cromwell (former President Newman) played Mr. Skolnick in all four films. F. William Parker (Reverend Caldwell) was a policeman in the first film.
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In the season 4 episode "Evidence of Things Not Seen," Will Bailey (Joshua Malina) stops by a staff poker game before heading out on a military assignment. His assignment is to investigate an Air Force crew that failed to launch its missiles when ordered. In an odd coincidence, John Spencer (Leo McGarry) played an Air Force missile silo commander in the 1983 film "WarGames" who had failed to launch his missiles during a test.
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Several times throughout the series, someone uses the phrase "column inches above the fold." The fold refers to the outer fold of a newspaper. Everything above the fold (the title, the headline and the main three or four stories) is the most important part of the newspaper. Column inches refers to the vertical length of a column of text in a newspaper. The term "column inches" usually refers to the length of an article in its entirety, including where it continues on another page. The correct term they should use is simply "inches above the fold." With the internet, the "fold" refers to the bottom of the screen when looking at the top of a web page, similar to a newspaper's front page before it is unfolded.
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The threat letters in the episode "Six Meetings Before Lunch" are said, according to one of the characters, to have been sent by the band Graveland's young fans because of a phrase matching the band's "first record." Graveland is indeed an ambient/black metal band from Poland, but the record in question was actually the band's eleventh album, not its first.
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Throughout the series, when the President enters the Situation Room, someone calls those inside, most of whom are military personnel and members, to attention. The President's next words vary, but they are always inappropriate. When it comes to the military in particular, he should say "As you were," since he wants them to relax and get to work. This releases them from attention and orders them to return to whatever they were doing just before the call to attention (whether "small talk" or serious business).
Behind the Scenes (34)
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The show frequently employed a device in which characters have conversations while walking through the office halls or from one meeting to another. In television parlance, this is called a "walk and talk" scene, though some West Wing fans also dubbed the exchanges "pedeconferences". In 2019, an episode of Mom starring Allison Janney had a dream sequence with Janney as President walking through the halls with Richard Schiff in a parody of The West Wing.
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Once, while the show was filming in Georgetown at about three o'clock in the morning, an irate lady reportedly came out in a bathrobe with a bunch of guys. She said, "What the hell's going on? I have an early morning at the State Department, and, by the way, you people don't even have a Secretary of State on your show, and I think you should have one, and it should be a woman." The woman was Madeleine Albright.
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One day on the set of the series, Allison Janney entertained the cast and crew by lip-syncing to an obscure spoken jazz piece called "The Jackal" by Ronny Jordan. Aaron Sorkin liked it so much that he wrote it into the next episode of the show, "Six Meetings Before Lunch", as a ritual of C.J.'s.
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At the beginning of the show's sixth season, Israel's ambassador flew from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles to visit the set of the show. He met with most of the crew, and explained to them the details of Israel's relations with the U.S. This helped the crew while filming, as the sixth season of the show is dedicated to Middle Eastern relations.
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During the sixth season, NiCole Robinson (Margaret) became pregnant. Although the show did choose to acknowledge Margaret as also being pregnant, there was never any clue given about the identity of the baby's father, whether or not Margaret was married or partnered, or even whether Margaret kept the baby herself, or gave it up for adoption. Since these things were never addressed on the show itself, they were the subject of rampant fan speculation, and when Robinson was interviewed by TV Guide after the show's finale, she said that her two best guesses for the baby's father were either Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver) or "the UPS guy."
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The set was the largest constructed for both a pilot and a television series to date. It was so large that during the first season, it had to be housed on two stages, each with an identical yellow corridor for continuity. During the hiatus between the first and second seasons, the set was moved to a larger stage, and put together, where it has remained ever since.
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The drive-up "West Wing" entrance most often filmed for the show is actually a set used to cover a large door to one of the two sound stages used by the production company. It's located at the Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California, and can be seen from the street by looking in off Forest Lawn Drive (although often obscured by the many trailers used by the show's cast members).
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After being advised by Josh that "she (C.J. Cregg) likes goldfish", Danny Concannon mistakenly gives C.J. a live goldfish in a bowl, as opposed to the snack-food variety. The goldfish and goldfish bowl then become permanent parts of C.J.'s office decor, and whenever the bowl appears on camera, the centerpiece decoration is always changed to match a popular theme from that episode, or the relevant holiday season, for example, a turkey, a Christmas tree, a space shuttle, a podium, and so on.
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The Oval Office set originally designed by Michael J. Taylor was constructed for Dave (1993) and then subsequently used for The American President (1995), which was also written by Aaron Sorkin and included Martin Sheen, Joshua Malina, and Anna Deavere Smith in its cast. It was also used during the filming of Contact (1997), when the carpet, made by the original company, had to be replaced for $28,000.
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The West Wing is noted for developing the "walk-and-talk" long Steadicam tracking shots showing characters walking down hallways while involved in long conversations. In a typical "walk-and-talk" shot, the camera leads two characters down a hallway as they speak to each other. One of these characters generally breaks off and the remaining character is then joined by another character, who initiates another conversation as they continue walking. These "walk-and-talks" create a dynamic feel for what would otherwise be long expository dialogue, and have become a staple for dialogue-intensive television show scenes.
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Once, while the series was filming at Georgetown around three in the morning, an angry woman in a bathrobe came outside with a group of men. "What's going on? I have business at the State Department early in the morning, and by the way, your show doesn't even have a Secretary of State — it should, and it should be a woman," she said. The woman was Madeleine Albright.
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The set was the largest ever built for both a pilot and a television series up to that time. It was so large that in the first season it had to be placed on two separate stages, each with the same yellow corridor for continuity. During the break between the first and second seasons, the set was moved to a larger stage and combined; it has remained there ever since.
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The series frequently used the technique of characters talking while walking through office corridors or from one meeting to another. In television jargon this is called a 'walk and talk' scene, though some West Wing fans dubbed these dialogues 'pedeconferences.' This element became so identified with the series that a 'Mad TV' parody consisted almost entirely of characters walking (and then running) through White House corridors, and when Aaron Sorkin appeared on 30 Rock, his role was to walk in a big circle with Tina Fey (Liz) while talking about television writing. In a 2019 episode of 'Mom' starring Allison Janney, there was a dream sequence in which Janney, as President, walked the corridors with Richard Schiff.
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The Oval Office set, designed by Michael J. Taylor, was first built for the film Dave (1993), then used in The American President (1995), written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Martin Sheen, Joshua Malina and Anna Deavere Smith. It was also used during the filming of Contact (1997), where the carpet made by the original firm had to be replaced at a cost of $28,000.
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A documentary special in the third season compared the series' depiction of the West Wing with the reality. Many people applauded the series' portrayal, including former West Wing adviser David Gergen, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
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At the start of the series' sixth season, the Israeli ambassador flew from Washington to Los Angeles to visit the set. He met much of the crew and told them details of Israel's relations with the United States. This helped the crew during filming, as the sixth season focused on Middle East relations.
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The most frequently filmed 'West Wing' entrance in the series is actually a set used to cover the large door of one of the two soundstages the production company used. It is located at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California, and can be seen from the street when looking from Forest Lawn Drive (though it is usually hidden by the many trailers used by the cast).
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The West Wing is known for its long 'walk-and-talk' Steadicam tracking shots in which characters walk through corridors while delivering long speeches. In a typical 'walk-and-talk' shot, the camera follows two characters as they talk to each other in a corridor. One of the characters usually peels off and another character joins the remaining one, starting a new conversation while they continue walking. These 'walk-and-talks' add a dynamic feel to what would otherwise be long expository dialogue and have become a staple of dialogue-heavy television series.
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Characters & Cast (97)
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When Danny asks C.J. out on a date, he says "I enjoy movies, I enjoy music, I'm not wild about ice-skating, but what the hell, I'll do it." Allison Janney trained throughout her childhood to be an Olympic figure skater. She would also go on to win an Academy Award playing the mother of figure skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya (2017).
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In the DVD extras for season four, John Spencer and Stockard Channing both say that in the Abbey-Jed-Leo relationship dynamic, Abbey is (of course) Jed's wife, and Leo is Jed's mistress. Spencer hastened to add that he meant "political mistress", but Channing did not qualify the assessment.
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Martin Sheen has played the U.S. President many times throughout his career, most notably as John F. Kennedy in a 1983 miniseries. He has also played Robert F. Kennedy, John Dean (White House counsel under Richard Nixon) and Confederate General Robert E. Lee (in Gettysburg (1993)). In addition, he played the White House Chief of Staff in Aaron Sorkin's film The American President (1995).
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Contains a major spoiler — show
When President Bartlet's longtime secretary and friend, Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) died, her character was replaced by a new secretary, Deborah Fiderer (Lily Tomlin). Joosten's next long-term recurring role on a television show was on Desperate Housewives (2004). When the producers introduced a sister for Joosten's character, they cast Lily Tomlin in the role.
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Each of the lead actors earned roughly $75,000 per episode, while Martin Sheen's salary was confirmed at $300,000. Rob Lowe reportedly left the series in the fourth season after failing to receive a raise. Pay disparities among the actors led to public contract disputes, particularly among Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer and Bradley Whitford. During the 2001 contract negotiations, the four were threatened by Warner Bros with breach-of-contract lawsuits. They banded together, however, and managed to persuade the studio to more than double their salaries. Two years later, a few months after Warner Bros signed new licensing deals with NBC and Bravo, the four again demanded that their salaries be doubled.
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Lily Tomlin (Deborah Fiderer) joined the show in the 22nd episode of the third season, but her character had been mentioned in the third episode of the first season as Debbie DiLaguardia. This discrepancy in names is explained when she tells Charlie that she is no longer married to DiLaguardia and that her surname is Fiderer.
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In an article published in the LA Times in 2006, former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers revealed that the relationship between C.J. Cregg and journalist Danny Concannon was based on her own relationship. Myers and Todd Purdum began dating after Myers left the White House. The same article noted that Josh and Donna's relationship was based on real White House staffers who never dated.
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Martin Sheen played the US President many times over his career; most notably, he played John F. Kennedy in a 1983 miniseries. He also played Robert F. Kennedy, John Dean and General Robert E. Lee. In Aaron Sorkin's film The American President (1995), he played the White House Chief of Staff.
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Janel Moloney was never planned to be in the main cast. Her co-star Bradley Whitford noticed the obvious chemistry between the characters Josh and Donna, and Aaron Sorkin agreed. Despite this, Moloney was credited as a guest star throughout the first season. Her name first appeared in the credits in the first episode of the second season, but her surname was misspelled. This was later corrected.
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On the West Wing Weekly podcast, Aaron Sorkin explained how Marlee Matlin got the role of Joey Lucas: 'It was actually thanks to you (Joshua Malina). After the 'Dear Louise' episode of Sports Night, Marlee wanted to meet me. She had seen the episode and was so impressed by me that I wanted to write a role for her. I couldn't come up with an idea for Sports Night, but a year later I asked her if she wanted to play the campaign manager of a candidate who was mistreated by the DNC. Her character's deafness would only be incidentally part of the story. Marlee played her role wonderfully, and so I kept looking for opportunities to include her in the show.' Matlin first appeared in the first season's 'Take this Sabbath Day' episode and appeared in a total of 17 episodes.
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When Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten), President Bartlet's longtime secretary and friend, died, she was replaced by Deborah Fiderer (Lily Tomlin). Joosten later took a recurring role on Desperate Housewives (2004). When the producers wanted to add a sister to Joosten's character, they chose Lily Tomlin.
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When Rob Lowe announced he would leave the show in the fourth season, the names considered to replace him included Dermot Mulroney, Judd Nelson, Macaulay Culkin and Jon Cryer. The role ultimately went to Aaron Sorkin's close friend Joshua Malina, who had appeared in everything Sorkin had written since his play 'A Few Good Men'.
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One of the show's early storylines was Charlie (Dulé Hill) and Zoey (Elisabeth Moss) starting to date and receiving threatening letters because they were an interracial couple. In an interview with the New York Times in September 2021, Dulé Hill said that while he was a young actor on The West Wing, he received a large number of racist hate letters for playing a Black man in a relationship with a white woman. Hill requested these letters and hung them on the wall of his trailer as inspiration.
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John Spencer (Leo McGarry) died of a heart attack on 16 December 2005; roughly a year earlier, his character had also suffered a fatal heart attack. Martin Sheen gave a short tribute before the first new episode aired after Spencer's death. The loss of John Spencer's character was addressed in the episode 'Election Day: Part 1', broadcast on 2 April 2006.
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In a 2014 Screen Actors Guild Foundation interview, Roger Rees's wife Rick Elice said that Rees had actually auditioned for the role of Leo McGarry and that it ultimately came down to John Spencer and Rees, with Spencer winning the part. Aaron Sorkin told Rees he would write him a different role and created the character Lord John Marbury. Elice also noted that Sorkin asked for Rees's help in finding the composer of a piece of music he wanted to use in the episode 'Posse Comitatus'; Rees had starred in that production.
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In the series' version of American history, Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) is described as the first Hispanic president, whereas Martin Sheen, who played President Bartlet, is part Hispanic (his father was a Cuban Spanish immigrant). The West Wing writers never stated that Bartlet shared Sheen's Hispanic ancestry.
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Fifteen different actors appeared in the main credits over the course of the series: Allison Janney, John Spencer, Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill, Rob Lowe, Joshua Malina, Stockard Channing, Mary McCormack, Jimmy Smits, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Alda and Moira Kelly.
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Teri Polo, who joined the cast in the sixth season as Senator Santos's wife, posed fully nude for Playboy to revive her career. It did not work; many of her friends even said it damaged her career and that Polo had to file for bankruptcy years later. Polo later said she had no regrets, stating, 'It was one of the best experiences of my life. The human body is beautiful and it's a shame to make certain things taboo.'
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Annabeth Schott's (Kristin Chenoweth) résumé states that she graduated first in her class from Barwood High School, earned a bachelor's degree from Business Administration University and a degree in political science from Georgetown University. It also notes that she worked as a senator's secretary, as an executive assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State and as an assistant to the President of Cultural Affairs at the University of Maryland.
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Leo's "Big Block of Cheese" story is real. Andrew Jackson received a giant block of cheese as a gift from the people of New York. After leaving it untouched for two years, he gave the cheese to the people of Washington, D.C. to celebrate Washington's birthday. The public finished the cheese in two hours.
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By tradition, during a Republican administration the portrait of Theodore Roosevelt hangs in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, while during a Democratic administration the portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt hangs there (the first a Republican, the second a Democrat). In the Roosevelt Room of Bartlet's White House, portraits of both Roosevelts hang.
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In a 2011 interview with The New York Times, Kal Penn said that on his first day of work in the White House Office of Public Engagement under the Obama administration, he stayed in the office until 11:00 p.m. and suggested ordering Chinese food for his colleagues. When his new co-workers told him that ordering food to the White House was in fact not allowed, Penn's response was "But they do it on West Wing!"
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When Josh says that C.J. Cregg likes "goldfish," Danny Concannon mistakenly brings her a live goldfish rather than the snack. The goldfish and its bowl become a permanent part of C.J.'s office decor, and whenever the bowl appears on camera, the decoration inside it is always changed to match that episode's theme or the relevant holiday season; for example, a turkey, a Christmas tree, a space shuttle, a podium, and so on.
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On January 24, 2014, the Obama administration announced, in honor of both the spirit of Andrew Jackson and this series, that they would hold a real "Big Block of Cheese Day." At the event, White House officials would answer questions from ordinary Americans (online, not face-to-face as in the series). The announcement was launched with a video posted on the official White House website featuring the series' stars Bradley Whitford and Joshua Malina along with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. The first real Big Block of Cheese Day took place on Wednesday, January 29, 2014. On January 16, 2015, the White House once again announced that they would hold a Big Block of Cheese Day. This time the video announcement (titled "Big Block of Cheese Day Is Back and Whiter Than Ever") featured White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and West Wing cast members Bradley Whitford, Joshua Malina, Mary McCormack, Dulé Hill, Richard Schiff, Allison Janney and Martin Sheen. The video described the event as "like Reddit, but without the weird stuff." The third real "Big Block of Cheese Day" took place on January 13, 2016, a day after President Obama delivered the final State of the Union address of his presidency. Vice President Joe Biden, Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Senator Cory Booker and many more senior White House staff, cabinet members and members of Congress answered the public's questions online throughout the day.
- #281
In the opening credits there is a still frame in which President Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, leans on a desk with his head bowed. We see him from behind. This was a direct tribute to the famous photograph of President John F. Kennedy taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only difference was that JFK was holding a cigar in his hand.
- #282
In the sixth and seventh seasons, Toby's storyline concerns the leaking to the press of a previously secret U.S. military space shuttle. Seven years after these episodes aired, in 2012, the U.S. Air Force acknowledged that the previously secret, unmanned, Boeing-built, reusable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle had completed a 469-day classified military mission. In other words, a secret U.S. military space shuttle.
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In 2012, actors Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Melissa Fitzgerald, Joshua Malina, Lily Tomlin, Mary McCormack and Martin Sheen appeared as their "West Wing" characters in a video supporting Michigan Supreme Court candidate Bridget Mary McCormack (and also raised awareness about the nonpartisan section of the ballot in Michigan and many other states). Bridget Mary McCormack won the election. She is Mary McCormack's sister.
- #286
- #287
In 2010, for Entertainment Weekly's 20th anniversary, EW brought together Martin Sheen (President Josiah Bartlet), Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg), Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman), Elisabeth Moss (Zoey Bartlet), Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Janel Moloney (Donna Moss), Kathryn Joosten (Dolores Landingham) and Stockard Channing (Abigail Bartlet) for a photo shoot and interview, asking them to speculate on the hypothetical future lives of their characters. Allison Janney imagined C.J. on the lecture circuit, making a lot of money talking about her White House years; Elisabeth Moss thought Charlie and Zoey stayed together; and Bradley Whitford pictured Josh and Donna working at a think tank (though Donna quit after having children).
- #288
During the sixth season, NiCole Robinson (Margaret) became pregnant. Although the series acknowledged that Margaret was also pregnant, it gave no hint about the identity of the baby's father, whether Margaret was married or in a relationship, or even whether she kept the baby or gave it up for adoption. Because the show never addressed these questions, they became the subject of fan speculation, and in an interview with TV Guide after the series finale, Robinson said her two best guesses for the baby's father were either Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver) or "the UPS guy."
- #289
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election (and also during a global pandemic), many of The West Wing's cast members came together to stage a reading of the episode "Hartsfield's Landing" to benefit When We All Vote, a non-profit, non-partisan organization aimed at increasing voter turnout and closing the race and age gap in elections. The West Wing regulars who reprised their roles included Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Allison Janney (C. J. Cregg), Rob Lowe (Sam Seaborn), Janel Moloney (Donna Moss), Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler), Martin Sheen (President Bartlet) and Bradley Whitford (Joshua Lyman). Because John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on the series, died in 2005, Sterling K. Brown took over his role. The benefit event also featured When We All Vote co-founders Lin-Manuel Miranda (a West Wing superfan) and Michelle Obama as interstitial guests.
- #290
In "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet," the nineteenth episode of the first season, during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room about gay soldiers, Toby drives the point home by asking sarcastically, "What's going on at Lackland Air Force Base?" This is a reference to the famous line in the 1992 film A Few Good Men in which Jack Nicholson says to Kiefer Sutherland, "What's going on in Bravo company, Matthew?" Both the series and A Few Good Men were written by Aaron Sorkin.
- #291
The theme music for the news program "Capitol Beat," anchored by Mark Gottfried (Ted McGinley), is actually the theme music for the United Kingdom's Independent Television News (ITN) bulletins News At Ten and Night Time News, a real and award-winning news program. The theme is a short segment taken from Johnny Pearson's piece "The Awakening," which is itself part of a longer composition titled "20th Century Portrait."
- #292
In an interview with New York Magazine in July 2015, Lin-Manuel Miranda said the TV series The West Wing (1999) had a "huge" influence on the 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton: "Like Hamilton, [The West Wing] pulls back the curtain on how decision-making happens at the highest level, or at least how you hope it would. The amount of information Aaron Sorkin packs into a scene gave me the courage to trust the audience to keep up." Many lyrics in Hamilton are quotes from or rephrasings of West Wing scenes. In "The Schuyler Sisters," Angelica sings, "Eliza, I'm looking for a mind at work!" a reference to Sam Seaborn telling Ainsley Hayes, "Before I look for anything, I look for a mind at work." In "That Would Be Enough," Eliza sings, "As long as you come home at the end of the day, that would be enough," a reference to President Bartlet telling his daughter Ellie, "The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy was come home at the end of the day." After his final Hamilton performance on Broadway, Miranda took his bow as The West Wing theme played.
- #293
The series frequently reused the same names for different characters throughout its run. Josh went to two different psychiatrists named "Stanley"; a Senator named "Gianelli" is mentioned (but never seen), and later Ron Silver's character Bruno Gianelli became a regular in the third season. Two regular characters, played by Renée Estevez and Anna Deavere Smith, were both named "Nancy." In the second-season episode "Bartlet's Third State of the Union," the (unseen) President of Colombia is named Santos, and the Congressman and eventual President later played by Jimmy Smits is named Matt Santos. The Secretary of Agriculture played by Harry Groener is named Roger Tribbey, and the White House Counsel played by John Larroquette is named Lionel Tribbey. Both Donna's and C.J.'s memorable high school English teachers are named "Molly," and after a Secret Service Agent killed in the line of duty while protecting Zoey Bartlet is named "Molly," Toby names his baby daughter after her.
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Two characters on the show share the same distinctive names as two figures from the Nixon administration. Ronald L. Ziegler was Nixon's Press Secretary, while the Communications Director on the show is named Toby Ziegler. Alexander Butterfield was Nixon's Deputy, while the Secret Service agent assigned to President Bartlet is named "Ron Butterfield."
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Real-world issues addressed on The West Wing include: the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, tense relations between India and Pakistan and being on the brink of war, the passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the formation of the Minuteman Project, peacemaking and terrorism in Palestine and Israel, genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Northern Ireland peace process, the War on Drugs and conflict in Colombia, the debate over Intelligent Design in schools, being on the brink of war and potential conflict between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China over Taiwan's political status, the federal government shutdown, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the anthrax attacks on the Bush administration, federal funding for the arts, peak oil and the consequences of declining global oil production, federal subsidies for ethanol fuel for corn growers, student loan forgiveness for teachers, and the invocation of the 25th Amendment for an Acting President while the President is preoccupied with personal problems.
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Although critics generally praised The West Wing for its writing, others criticized the series for being unrealistically optimistic and sentimental. Much of this criticism stemmed from the characters' perceived naivety. Television critic Heather Havrilesky asked, "Where did these morally pure creatures crawl out from under which rock, and more importantly, how do you go from an innocent centipede to White House staff without being tainted or disillusioned by the dirty realities of politics along the way?"
- #302
The series has a strong connection to the Revenge of the Nerds series. Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman) played Roger in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987). Timothy Busfield (Danny Concannon) was Arnold Poindexter in the first two films. Ted McGinley (Mark Gottfried) played Stan Gable in the first, third and fourth films. James Hong (Chinese Ambassador) played Snotty in the second film. John Goodman (President Glenallen Walken) was a football coach in Revenge of the Nerds (1984). James Cromwell (former President Newman) played Mr. Skolnick in all four films. F. William Parker (Father Caldwell) was a policeman in the first film.
- #303
In the season 4 episode "Evidence of Things Not Seen," Will Bailey (Joshua Malina) stops by a staff poker game before heading out on a military assignment. His assignment is to investigate an Air Force crew that failed to launch its missiles when ordered. In a strange coincidence, John Spencer (Leo McGarry) played an Air Force missile silo commander in the 1983 film "War Games" who had failed to launch his missiles during a test.
- #304
- #305
Several times throughout the series, someone uses the phrase "column inches above the fold." The fold refers to the outer fold of a newspaper. Everything above the fold (the title, the headline and the main three or four stories) is the most important part of the newspaper. Column inches refer to the vertical length of a column of text in a newspaper. The term "column inches" usually refers to the length of an article in its entirety, including where it continues on another page. The correct term they should use is simply "inches above the fold." With the internet, the "fold" refers to the bottom of the screen when looking at the top of a web page, similar to the front page of a newspaper before it is unfolded.
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The threat letters in the episode "Six Meetings Before Lunch" are said, according to one of the characters, to have been sent by the band Graveland's young fans because of a phrase that matched the band's "first record." Graveland is indeed an ambient/black metal band from Poland, but the record in question was actually the band's eleventh album, not its first.
- #310
Throughout the series, when the President enters the Situation Room, someone among those inside — most of them military personnel and staff — calls them to attention. The President's next words vary, but they are always inappropriate. When it comes to the military in particular, he should say "As you were," since he wants them to relax and get on with their work. This releases them from attention and orders them to return to whatever they were doing just before the call to attention — whether "idle chatter" or serious business.
Easter Eggs & References (32)
- #311
In a July 2015 interview with New York Magazine, Lin-Manuel Miranda says that the TV series The West Wing (1999) was a "huge" influence on his 2015 Broadway musical, Hamilton: "Like Hamilton, [The West Wing] pulls back the curtain on how decision-making happens at the highest level, or at least how you hope it would be. The amount of information Aaron Sorkin packs into a scene gave me this courage to trust the audience to keep up." Several song lyrics in Hamilton are quotations or paraphrases of West Wing scenes. In the song "The Schuyler Sisters," Angelica sings, "Eliza, I'm looking for a mind at work!," a reference to Sam Seaborn telling Ainsley Hayes, " before I look for anything, I look for a mind at work." In "That Would Be Enough," Eilza sings, "So long as you come home at the end of the day. That would be enough," a reference to President Bartlet telling his daughter Ellie, "The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy was come home at the end of the day." When Miranda took his curtain call after his final Broadway performance as Hamilton, the West Wing theme played for his bow.
- #312
Although Lily Tomlin (Deborah Fiderer) did not join the cast until season three, episode twenty-two in 2002, her character was mentioned all the way back in season one, episode three ("A Proportional Response") as Debbie DiLaguardia, the White House personnel employee who first sent Charlie's resumé to Josh's attention. The name discrepancy is explained when she corrects Charlie (who has warmly greeted her as Mrs. DiLaguardia) by pointing out that she is no longer married to Mr. DiLaguardia, and she's plain old Ms. Fiderer now.
- #313
The show has a strong connection to the Revenge of the Nerds franchise. Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman) played Roger in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987). Timothy Busfield (Danny Concannon) was Arnold Poindexter in the first two movies. Ted McGinley (Mark Gottfried) played Stan Gable in the first, third, and fourth movies. James Hong (the Chinese Ambassador) played Snotty in the second movie. John Goodman (President Glenallen Walken) was the football coach in Revenge of the Nerds (1984). James Cromwell (former President Newman) played Mr. Skolnick in all four movies. F. William Parker (Reverend Caldwell) was a policeman in the first movie.
- #314
Traditionally, during a Republican administration, a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt is hung in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, and during a Democratic administration, a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt is hung there (the former Roosevelt being a Republican and the latter a Democrat). In the Roosevelt Room of the Bartlet White House, portraits of both Roosevelts are hung.
- #315
The theme music for "Capitol Beat", the news show hosted by Mark Gottfried (Ted McGinley), is actually the theme music for the UK's Independent Television News (ITN)'s News At Ten and Night Time News bulletin, a genuine and award winning news program. The theme is a short passage taken from a piece by Johnny Pearson, called "The Awakening", itself part of a longer composition called "20th Century Portrait".
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On January 24, 2014, the Obama White House announced that in the spirit of both Andrew Jackson and this show, they would host a real version of the show's "Big Block of Cheese Day", in which White House officials would be available to answer questions from ordinary Americans (albeit online instead of in person, as the "cheese day" meetings were on the show). This announcement was kicked off by a video, posted on the White House's official website, that featured this show's stars Bradley Whitford and Joshua Malina, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. The first real Big Block of Cheese Day took place on Wednesday, January 29, 2014. On January 16, 2015, the White House announced that they would again be holding a Big Block of Cheese Day. This time, the video announcement (titled "Big Block of Cheese Day Is Back, and It's Feta Than Ever") featured White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and West Wing cast members Bradley Whitford, Joshua Malina, Mary McCormack, Dulé Hill, Richard Schiff, Allison Janney, and Martin Sheen. The video described the event as "like Reddit, but without the weird stuff." The third real "Big Block of Cheese Day" took place on January 13, 2016, the day after President Obama delivered the last State of the Union address of his Presidency. Various Senior White House staff, Cabinet officials, and members of Congress were available to answer public questions online at various times during the day, including such people as Vice President Joe Biden, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, First Lady Michelle Obama, HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Senator Cory Booker, and many others.
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Annabeth Schott's (Kristin Chenoweth's) résumé says that she was a valedictorian at Barwood High School, got a B.A. from Business Administration University, and a political science degree from Georgetown University. Her résumé also says she served as the secretary to a Senator, Executive Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State, and Assistant to the President of Cultural Affairs at Maryland University.
- #322
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Two characters on this show share the same distinctive names as two people involved with the Nixon Presidency. Ronald L. Ziegler was Nixon's Press Secretary, while the Director of Communications in this show is called Toby Ziegler. Alexander Butterfield was a Deputy Assistant to Nixon, while the Secret Service Agent assigned to President Bartlet is named "Ron Butterfield".
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In the opening credits, there is a still shot of Martin Sheen's character, President Bartlet, leaning on a desk with his head bowed, seen from the back. This was a direct tribute to the famous photograph of President John F. Kennedy taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only difference is that JFK was holding a cigar in his hand.
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During Season 4, in the episode "Evidence of Things Not Seen", Will Bailey (Joshua Malina) stops in at a staff poker game before leaving on a military assignment. He is headed to investigate an Air Force crew who failed to launch their missiles when ordered to. In a strange coincidence, John Spencer (Leo McGarry), while playing an Air Force missile silo commander in the 1983 movie WarGames, failed to launch his missiles during a test.
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The threatening letters from "Six Meetings before Lunch" are said to have been sent by teenage fans of the band "Graveland", due to the presence of a phrase which matched the band's "first record", according to one of the characters. "Graveland" are, indeed, an ambient/black metal group from Poland, although the record in question was actually the group's eleventh release, rather than first.
- #332
In season one, episode nineteen, "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet", during the meeting in the Roosevelt room about gay soldiers in the military, Toby makes his point by sarcastically asking "What the hell is going on at Lackland Air Force Base?" This is a reference to the famous quote from A Few Good Men (1992), when Jack Nicholson asks Kiefer Sutherland "What the hell is going on in Bravo company, Matthew?" This show and A Few Good Men were written by Aaron Sorkin.
- #333
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Several times throughout the series someone uses the phrase, "column inches above the fold." The fold refers to the outer fold of a newspaper. Everything above the fold (the banner, the headline, and the main three or four stories) are the most important parts of the newspaper. Column inches refer to the vertical length of a column of text in a newspaper. The term "column inches" usually refers to the length of an article in its entirety, including where it is continued on another page. The correct term they should use is simply "inches above the fold". With the Internet, the "fold" refers to the bottom of the screen when viewing to top of a web page, which is analogous to the front page of a newspaper before it is unfolded.
- #335
In several episodes, we see Sam wearing monogrammed shirts. The initials are embroidered on his chest are "sNs". The characters full name is Samuel Norman Seaborn, so his initials in order are SNS, but a monogram should have the last name in the center. It should have been embroidered "sSn".
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Throughout the series, when the President enters the Situation Room, someone calls those assembled, many of whom are military officers and members, to attention. The President's next words vary, but are always improper. Certainly in the case of the military, since he evidently wants them to relax and get down to the business at hand, he should say "As you were." This releases them from the position of attention and instructs them to return to whatever activities they were engaged in immediately prior to being called to attention, whether it be "shooting the bull" or serious business.
- #338
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In the opening credits, there is a still shot of Martin Sheen's character, President Bartlet leaning on a desk with his head bowed. We see him from the back. This was a direct tribute to the famous photograph of President John F. Kennedy taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only difference is that JFK was holding a cigar in his hand.
- #340
Contains a major spoiler — show
This show often reused the same names for different characters over the course of the series. Josh visited two different psychiatrists named "Stanley;" A Senator named "Gianelli" is mentioned (but never seen) before Ron Silver's character Bruno Gianelli becomes a regular character in season three;. Both the regular characters played by Renée Estevez and Anna Deavere Smith are named "Nancy". In the season two episode, "Bartlet's Third State of the Union", the (unseen) President of Colombia is named Santos, and later in the series, the U. S. Representative, and eventual President, played by Jimmy Smits, is named Matt Santos. The Secretary of Agriculture, played by Harry Groener, is named Roger Tribbey, and the White House Counsel, played by John Larroquette, is named Lionel Tribbey. Both Donna and C.J. had memorable high school English teachers named "Molly", and after a Secret Service Agent named "Molly" is killed in the line of duty, while guarding Zoey Bartlet, Toby names his baby daughter "Molly", after her.
- #341
Contains a major spoiler — show
During the sixth and seventh seasons, Toby's storyline concerns a leak to the press about the existence of a previously secret U.S. military space shuttle. In 2012, seven years after those episodes first aired, the U.S. Air Force admitted to having completed a classified 469-day military mission of a previously secret, unmanned, Boeing-built, reusable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. In other words, a secret U.S. military space shuttle.
- #342
Deeper Meaning (5)
- #343
Real world issues explored in The West Wing include: North Korean and Iranian nuclear ambitions, strained relations and a state of brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, legislation of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the formation of the Minuteman Project, peacemaking and terrorism in Palestine and Israel, the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Northern Ireland peace process, the War on Drugs and conflict in Colombia, controversy over intelligent design in schools, brinkmanship and potential conflict between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China over Taiwan's political status, a federal government shutdown, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, anthrax attacks against the Bush Administration, federal funding for the arts, peak oil and the consequences of a decline in global oil production, federal subsidies for ethanol fuel given to corn growers, student loan forgiveness for teachers, and invoking the 25th Amendment for an Acting President while the President is preoccupied with personal problems.
- #344
While critics often praised The West Wing for its writing, others faulted the show as unrealistically optimistic and sentimental. A large part of this criticism came from the perceived naiveté of the characters. Television critic Heather Havrilesky asked, "What rock did these morally pure creatures crawl out from under and, more important, how do you go from innocent millipede to White House staffer without becoming soiled or disillusioned by the dirty realities of politics along the way?"
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Contains a major spoiler — show
In the show's version of American history, Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) is identified as the first Hispanic president, even though the actor who plays President Bartlet, Martin Sheen, is half Hispanic (his father was an immigrant from Cuba of Spanish extraction). The West Wing writers never indicated that Bartlet shared any of Sheen's Hispanic ancestry.
- #347
Career & Awards (24)
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For the 2001-2002 season, nine cast members were nominated for Emmys. Allison Janney, John Spencer and Stockard Channing each won an Emmy (for Lead Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress respectively). The others nominated were Martin Sheen (for Lead Actor), Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill and Bradley Whitford (for Supporting Actor), and Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker (for Supporting Actress). In addition, that same year Mark Harmon, Tim Matheson and Ron Silver were each nominated in the Guest Actor category (although none won the award). This gave the series an Emmy Award record for most acting nominations overall (including guest performer category) in a single year, with 12 acting nominations. Twenty individual Emmys were awarded to writers, actors, and crew members. Allison Janney is the record holder for most wins by a cast member, with a total of four Emmys. The West Wing won at least one Emmy in each of its seasons except the sixth.
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During the run-up to the 2020 presidential election (and also during a global pandemic), many members of the West Wing cast reunited in person to perform a staged reading of the episode "Hartsfield's Landing" as a benefit for When We All Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that aims to increase voter participation and close the race and age gap in elections. West Wing regulars reprising their roles included Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Allison Janney (C. J. Cregg), Rob Lowe (Sam Seaborn), Janel Moloney (Donna Moss), Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler), Martin Sheen (President Bartlet), and Bradley Whitford (Joshua Lyman). Because John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on the series, died in 2005, Sterling K. Brown stepped into his role. The benefit also featured interstitial guest appearances from When We All Vote co-founders Lin-Manuel Miranda (a West Wing superfan) and Michelle Obama.
The West Wing (1999): Bradley Whitford speaking into a microphoneImage: Wikimedia Commons · Jay Murdock, CC BY-SA 4.0 - #357
In 2012, cast members Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Melissa Fitzgerald, Joshua Malina, Lily Tomlin, Mary McCormack, and Martin Sheen appeared as their "West Wing" characters in a video supporting Michigan State Supreme Court candidate Bridget Mary McCormack (as well as raising awareness of the non-partisan section of the ballots in Michigan and many other states). Bridget Mary McCormack won her election. She is the sister of Mary McCormack.
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For the first season, Stockard Channing and Allison Janney received Emmy nominations for Supporting Actress. Janney, who eventually won, did the whole season as a regular cast member. Channing did three episodes as a Special Guest Star. A similar thing happened for the third season, when Channing, Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker were nominated for Supporting Actress. Channing won, having done ten episodes, but was now part of the opening sequence. Moloney did the whole season as a regular cast member, and Parker only did seven episodes as a Guest Star. For the sixth season, Alan Alda was nominated for Supporting Actor having done six episodes as a Special Guest Star. He won the following year, but for the last season, he was a regular on the show.
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The year she joined the cast in season six as Senator Santos' wife, Teri Polo posed fully nude for Playboy to try and boost her career with higher profile roles. But it didn't help. In fact many of her friends felt it damaged it to the point where Polo had to file for bankruptcy years later. When asked afterward if she regretted posing for the magazine, Polo replied she didn't, saying, "It was one of the best experiences of my life. I'm very proud. We shouldn't be ashamed of the human body. The human body is beautiful, and it's a shame we put such a taboo on certain things. Why be ashamed? It's such a beautiful thing."
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Contains a major spoiler — show
In 2010, for the 20th anniversary of Entertainment Weekly Magazine, EW reunited Martin Sheen (President Josiah Bartlet), Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg), Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman), Elisabeth Moss (Zoey Bartlet), Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Janel Moloney (Donna Moss), Kathryn Joosten (Dolores Landingham), and Stockard Channing (Abigail Bartlet) for a photo shoot and interview, and asked them to opine on the hypothetical futures of their characters' lives. Alison Janney thought C. J. was touring on the lecture circuit and making a lot of money speaking about her White House years; Elisabeth Moss thought Charlie and Zoey had stayed together; and Bradley Whitford thought Josh and Donna both worked at a think tank (but Donna quit working after their child was born).
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Martin Sheen played the President of the United States many times over his career, most notably as John F. Kennedy in a 1983 miniseries. He also portrayed Robert F. Kennedy, John Dean (a White House counsel under Richard Nixon) and Confederate General Robert E. Lee (in Gettysburg, 1993). He also played the White House Chief of Staff in Aaron Sorkin's film The American President (1995).
Life & Family (6)
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An early storyline in the series involves Charlie (Dulé Hill) and Zoey (Elisabeth Moss) starting to date and then receiving hate mail and threats because they are an interracial couple. In a September 2021 New York Times interview with Alexis Soloski, Dulé Hill said that he himself also received a lot of racist hate mail while a young actor on The West Wing just because he was a Black man playing a role in which he was in a relationship with a white woman. "It was shocking to me," Hill recalled. "I said, 'Wow. It runs deep in this country. It runs deep.'" Hill requested those letters and taped them up in his West Wing trailer as a peculiar kind of inspiration.
- #377
Contains a major spoiler — show
John Spencer (Leo McGarry) died of a heart attack on December 16, 2005, about a year after his character experienced a nearly fatal heart attack on the show. Martin Sheen gave a brief memorial message before "Running Mates (2006)", the first new episode that aired after Spencer's death. The loss of John Spencer's character was addressed beginning with the episode "Election Day: Part 1 (2006)", which aired on April 2, 2006.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- Wikipedia
- IMDb
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work