In 1966, Jack Elam co-starred with Clint Walker in the Western film "The Night of the Grizzly". In 1968, Elam had a cameo in Sergio Leone's celebrated spaghetti Western "Once Upon a Time in the West". In that film, he played one of a trio of gunslingers who were sent to kill Charles Bronson's character. Elam spent a good part of the scene trying to trap an annoying fly in his gun barrel. In 1967, Elam appeared in "The Way West" with Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, and Kirk Douglas as the light-hearted Preacher Weatherby taking part in a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. In 1969, he was given his first comedic role in "Support Your Local Sheriff!", which was followed two years later by "Support Your Local Gunfighter", both opposite James Garner. After his performances in those two films, Elam found his villainous parts dwindling and his comic roles increasing. (Both films were also directed by Burt Kennedy, who had seen Elam's potential as a comedian and directed him a total of 15 times in features and television.) Between those two films, he also played a comically cranky old coot opposite John Wayne in Howard Hawks's "Rio Lobo" (1970). In 1974-1975, he was cast as Zack Wheeler in the short-lived comedy series, "The Texas Wheelers", in which he played the long-lost father returning home to raise his four children after their mother dies. In 1979, he was cast as the Frankenstein monster in the CBS sitcom "Struck by Lightning", but the show was cancelled after only three episodes (the remaining eight were unaired (and remain so) in the U.S., though all 11 were aired in the UK in 1980). He then appeared in the role of Hick Peterson in a first-season episode of "Home Improvement" alongside Ernest Borgnine (season one, episode 20, "Birds of a Feather Flock to Tim").