Varges de la Cosa, the Wildside gunsmith who “respected” but didn’t trust firearms, sported a sexy gaucho costume and never carried a gun.  His “superpower” was precision knife throwing; he also brought down the bad guys with his bolo.  Unlike William Smith’s knife-throwing character in Laredo, who often left his adversary with a big hunting knife in the gut, Varges’ knives were never lethal in this Disney version of the wild West.  His knives pinned guns to the wall, tripped adversaries and cut through ropes.  He could toss a tea cup in the air, catch it by the edge on the tip of his knife and balance it.   He could also duck bullets because he was able to see the bullet leave the gun.  Varges had an interesting relationship with Alice Freeze who ran the county mortuary.  He paid for his funeral in advance before the Chamber of Commerce embarked on any of their “hunting trips”.  He was perturbed by, but fascinated with, her enthusiasm for all aspects of undertaking profession.

Wildside was apparently John Di Aquino’s only venture into the Western genre.  He has a fairly lengthy list of TV guest credits and a few TV & theatrical movie credits.  He was spectacularly sexy as Ulysses in an episode of Xena, Warrior Princess.   He appeared in a three other short-lived series: “Dirty Dozen: The Series” [1988], “Shades of L.A.” [1990] and “SeaQuest DSV” [1993-94].  Check him out in the new Comedy Central Series "That's My Bush" by the creators of South Park