Batman
was a 1960s American live action television series, based on the DC
comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman
and Burt Ward as Robin, two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham
City. It aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network for
three seasons from January 12, 1966 to March 14, 1968. The show was
aired twice weekly for its first two seasons, resulting in the
production of a total of 120 episodes.
In the early 1960s, Ed
Graham Productions optioned the television rights to the comic strip
Batman and planned a straightforward juvenile adventure show, much
like Adventures of Superman and The Lone Ranger, to air on CBS on
Saturday mornings.
Former American football
linebacker and actor Mike Henry was originally set to star as Batman
in a more dramatic interpretation of the character. Henry reportedly
posed for publicity photographs in costume but didn't land the role.
Around this same time, the Playboy Club in Chicago was screening the
Batman serials (1943's Batman and 1949's Batman and Robin) on
Saturday nights. It became very popular. East coast ABC executive
Yale Udoff, a Batman fan in his childhood, attended one of these
parties at the Playboy Club and was impressed with the reaction the
serials were eliciting. He contacted ABC executives Harve Bennett and
Edgar J. Scherick, who were already considering developing a
television series based on a comic strip action hero, to suggest a
prime time Batman series in the hip and fun style of The Man from
U.N.C.L.E. When negotiations between CBS and Graham stalled, DC
Comics quickly reobtained rights and made the deal with ABC, who
farmed the rights out to 20th Century Fox to produce the series.
In
turn, 20th Century Fox handed the project to William Dozier and his
Greenway Productions. ABC and Fox were expecting a hip and fun, yet
still serious, adventure show. However, Dozier, who had never before
read comic books, concluded, after reading several Batman comics for
research, that the only way to make the show work was to do it as a
pop art camp comedy. Ironically, the Batman comic books had recently
experienced a change in editorship which marked a return to serious
detective stories after decades of tales with aliens, dimensional
travel, magical imps and talking animals. Originally, espionage
novelist Eric Ambler was to write a TV-movie that would launch the
television series, but he dropped out after learning of Dozier's camp
comedy approach. Eventually, two sets of screen tests were filmed,
one with Adam West and Burt Ward and the other with Lyle Waggoner
(above) and Peter Deyell, with West and Ward winning the roles while
Waggoner would get his chance to appear in a superhero series 10
years later as Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman.
By
that time, ABC had pushed up the debut date to January 1966, thus
forgoing the movie until the summer hiatus. The film would be
produced quickly to get into theatres prior to the start of Season
Two of the television series. Lorenzo Semple, Jr. had signed on as
head script writer. He wrote the pilot script, and generally wrote in
a pop art adventure style. Stanley Ralph Ross, Stanford Sherman, and
Charles Hoffman were script writers who generally leaned more toward
camp comedy, and in Ross's case, sometimes outright slapstick and
satire. Originally intended as a one-hour show, ABC only had two early-evening
time slots available, so the show was split into two parts, to air
twice a week in half-hour installments with a cliffhanger, originally
to last only through a station break, connecting the two episodes,
echoing the old movie serials.
The Joker, the Penguin, the
Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, and Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter, all
of whom are regular Bat-Villains, appear in the series, which was
deliberately villain-driven as well as action-comedy-heavy.
The
typical story began with a villain (often one of a short list of
recurring villains, the first being The Riddler played by Frank
Gorshin) committing a crime, such as stealing a fabulous gem or
taking over Gotham City. This was followed by a scene inside
Commissioner Gordon's office, where he and Chief O'Hara would deduce
which villain was responsible. Commissioner Gordon would press a
button on the Batphone, a bright red telephone located on a pedestal
in his office. The scene would then cut to 'stately Wayne Manor'
where Alfred (the butler) would answer the Batphone, which sat like a
normal everyday telephone on the desk in Bruce Wayne's study (though
often it would be seen under a glass cover on another pedestal).
Frequently, Wayne and his ward, Dick Grayson, would be found talking
with Dick's aunt, Harriet Cooper, who was unaware of Bruce's and
Dick's secret identities. Alfred would discreetly interrupt so they
could excuse themselves to go to the Batphone. Upon learning which
criminal he would face, Wayne would turn a switch concealed within a
bust of Shakespeare that stood on his desk. This would cause a
bookcase to slide back and reveal two fireman's poles. "To the
Batpoles!" Wayne would exclaim, and he and Grayson would slide
down to the Batcave, activating an unseen mechanism on the way that
dressed them as their alter egos. The title sequence often began at
this point.
The title sequence featured
animated versions of Batman and Robin, drawn in the then-current
style of the comic books, running towards camera and then fighting an
assortment of villains (including several "marquee"
villains like the Joker).
Similar in style and
content to the 1940s serials, Batman and Robin would arrive in the
Batcave in full costume and jump into the Batmobile, with Batman in
the driver's seat. Robin would say, "Atomic batteries to power,
turbines to speed." Batman would respond, "Roger, ready to
move out." With that, after fastening their seatbelts, the two
would drive out of the cave at high speed. As the Batmobile
approached the mouth of the cave (actually a tunnel entrance in Los
Angeles' Bronson Canyon) a camouflaged door would swing open and a
hinged barrier outside the Batcave would drop down to allow the car
to exit onto the road. Scenes of Batman and Robin sliding down the
Batpoles and getting into the Batmobile, the Batmobile exiting the
Batcave, and the arrival at Commissioner Gordon's building (while the
episode credits are shown), are reused footage utilized in nearly all episodes.
After being summoned to
Commissioner Gordon's office via the Batphone, the initial discussion
of the crime usually led to Batman and Robin conducting their
investigation alone. This investigation usually resulted in a meeting
with the villain, with the heroes engaging in a fistfight with the
villain's henchmen, and the villain getting away, leaving a series of
unlikely clues for the two to investigate. Later, they would face the
villain's henchmen again, and he or she would capture one or both of
the heroes and place them in a deathtrap leading to a cliffhanger
ending, which was usually resolved in the first few minutes of the
next episode.
The second part of the
episode (until late in Season Two) would begin with a brief recap of
part one. After the opening credits and the theme music, the
cliffhanger was resolved.
The
same pattern of plot was repeated in the following episode until the
villain was defeated in a major brawl where the action was punctuated
by superimposed words, as in comic book fight scenes
("POW!", "BAM!", "ZONK!", etc.). Not
counting five of the Penguin's henchmen who disintegrate or get blown
up in the associated Batman theatrical movie, only three criminal
characters die during the series: the Riddler's moll Molly (played by
Jill St. John in Episode 2 pictured at left) who accidentally falls
into the Batcave's atomic reactor, and two out-of-town gunmen who
shoot at Batman and Robin but kill each other instead (toward the end
of "Zelda The Great/A Death Worse Than Fate"). Twice,
Catwoman (Julie Newmar) appears to fall to her death (into a
bottomless pit and from a high building into a river), but since she
returned in later episodes, it is presumed that as a "cat",
she has nine lives and thus has several more left to go. In
"Instant Freeze", Mr. Freeze freezes a butler solid and
knocks him over, causing him to smash to pieces, although this is
implied rather than seen. There is a later reference suggesting the
butler survived. In "Green Ice", Mr. Freeze freezes a
policeman solid; it is left unclear whether he survived. In "The
Penguin's Nest", a policeman suffers an electric shock at the
hands of the Penguin's accomplices, but he is presumed to survive, as
he appears in some later episodes. In "The Bookworm Turns",
Commissioner Gordon appears to be shot and falls off a bridge to his
death, but Batman deduces that this was actually an expert high diver
in disguise, employed by The Bookworm as a ruse (implying that the
diver survived the fall).
Robin,
in particular, was especially well known for saying "Holy
(insert), Batman!" whenever he encountered something startling.
The series utilized a
narrator (producer William Dozier, uncredited) who parodied both the
breathless narration style of the 1940s serials and Walter Winchell's
narration of The Untouchables. He would end many of the cliffhanger
episodes by intoning, "Tune in tomorrow — same Bat-time,
same Bat-channel!".
Only two of the series'
guest villains ever discovered Batman's true identity: Egghead by
deductive reasoning, and King Tut on two occasions (once with a bug
on the Batmobile and once by accidentally mining into the Batcave).
Egghead was tricked into disbelieving his discovery, as was Tut in
the episode when he bugged the Batmobile. In the episode when Tut
tunnelled into the Batcave, he was hit on the head by a rock which
made him forget his discovery and jarred him back into his identity
as a mild-mannered Professor of Egyptology at Yale University. While
under the spell of the Siren (Joan Collins), Commissioner Gordon
found the Batcave beneath Wayne Manor and deduced Batman's true
identity, but Alfred gassed him to prevent his informing her, the
memory of the discovery gone after leaving the Siren's spell.
By Season 3, ratings were
falling and the future of the series seemed uncertain. A promotional
short featuring Yvonne Craig as Batgirl and Tim Herbert as Killer
Moth was produced, since the Batgirl character had made her major
debut in a 1966 issue of Detective Comics. The producers, wanting to
keep up with the comic book, added her to the TV series. The short
was convincing enough for ABC executives to pick up Batman for
another season, and for Dozier to introduce Batgirl as a regular on
the show in an attempt to attract more female viewers. One would
asume Yvonne Craig would attrack more male than female viewers but
who knows how a TV executive's mind works. Batgirl's alter ego was
Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon's daughter. A mild-mannered (they
are always mild-mannered) librarian at the Gotham City Library. The
show was reduced to once a week, with mostly self-contained episodes,
although the following week's villain would be in a tag at the end of
the episode, similar to a soap opera. Accordingly,
the narrator's cliffhanger phrases were eliminated, with most of the
episodes ending with him saying something to encourage viewers to
watch the next episode.
Aunt Harriet was reduced to
just two cameo appearances during the third season, due to Madge
Blake's poor health (Aunt Harriet was also mentioned in another
episode, but was not seen; her absence was explained by her being in
shock upstairs). Another cast change for the final season saw Julie
Newmar, who had been a popular recurring guest villain as Catwoman
for the first two seasons, being replaced by singer-actress Eartha
Kitt for season 3 (Newmar was at the time working on the film
Mackenna's Gold and was unable to appear in season three), though
Frank Gorshin, the original actor to play the Riddler, returned after
a one-season hiatus during which John Astin played the character.
The nature of the scripts
and acting started to enter into the realm of surrealism. For
example, the set's backgrounds became mere two-dimensional cut-outs
against a stark black stage. In addition, the third season was much
more topical, with references to hippies, mods, and distinctive 1960s
slang, which the previous two seasons avoided.
Near the end of the third
season, ratings had dropped significantly, and ABC cancelled the
show. A few weeks later, NBC offered to pick the show up for a fourth
season and even restore it to its original twice-a-week format, if
the sets were still available for use. However, 20th-Century Fox had
already demolished the sets a week before. NBC had no interest in
paying the $800,000 for the rebuild, so the offer was withdrawn.
But since the series had
been broadcast twice a week for most of its run, 120 episodes were
produced in a little more than two years which were more than enough
episodes for 20th Century Fox to distribute as reruns to local
stations. Reruns of the series have been seen on a regular basis in
the United States and much of the world since 1968.
Many
sports, music, and media personalities, and a number of Hollywood
actors, looked forward to and enjoyed their appearances as villains
on the Batman show. They were generally allowed to overact and enjoy
themselves on a high-rated television series, guaranteeing them
considerable exposure (and thus boosting their careers). The most
popular villains on the show included Cesar Romero as the Joker,
Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, and
Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Other famous names from the "rogues
gallery" in the comic book series made appearances on the show
(notably Mad Hatter), and some were taken from other superhero
comics, such as Puzzler and Archer (Superman villains) and The Clock
King (a Green Arrow villain, who was again portrayed as a Batman
villain in the 1990s animated series).
Many other villains were
created especially for the television show, and never appeared in the
comic books (e.g., Shame, Lorelei "The Siren" Circe,
Chandell/Fingers, the Bookworm, Lord Marmaduke Ffogg, Dr. Cassandra
Spellcraft, and Louie the Lilac), while some were hybrids. The
comics' Mr. Zero was renamed Mr. Freeze, a name change that was
copied in the comics with lasting effect, and the comics' Brainy
Barrows was reworked as Egghead. The comics featured Eivol Ekdol and
his partner in crime the Great Carnado. The television show used
Ekdol, but replaced Carnado with Zelda the Great. A 2009 comic book
featured the first appearance of a version of King Tut.
A film based on the
television show, Batman, was released in 1966. It did not initially
perform well at the cinema. Originally, the movie had been conceived
to help sell the television series abroad, but the success of the
series in America was sufficient publicity. The film was shot after
season one was filmed. The movie's budget allowed for producers to
build the Batboat and Batcopter, which were used in the second and
third seasons of the television show.
Batman / Bruce Wayne
played by Adam West
Based on the comic book
character of the same name, in the first episode it is very briefly
mentioned that his parents were killed by criminals when he was a
boy. He is presented as a well established superhero and legally
deputized member of law enforcement.
Robin / Dick Graysonplayed
by Burt Ward
Based on the comic book
character of the same name, no actual origin is provided for the
character in the series. He is presented as well established as Bruce
Wayne's ward and Batman's sidekick.
Batgirl / Barbara Gordon
played by Yvonne Craig
Created in conjunction with
the character introduced in the comic books the same year. Unlike the
comic books, no actual origin is provided within the series.
Aunt Harriet Cooperplayed
byMadge
Blake
Based on the comic book
character of the same name. While the character began as a regular
supporting character, her appearances became less frequent during the
second season and almost nonexistent in the third. This was due to
Blake's declining health.
Commissioner James
Gordon played by Neil Hamilton
Based on the comic book
character of the same name.
Chief Miles O'Haraplayed
by Stafford Repp
Created specifically for
the series, the character would later be mentioned and adapted to DC
Comics publications.
Alfred Pennyworthplayed
by Alan Napier
Based on the comic book
character of the same name.
RECURRING
GUEST VILLANS
Catwoman played by Julie
Newmar (season 1 & 2), Lee Meriwether (film), Eartha Kitt (season 3)
Based on the comic book
character of the same name, no origin for the character is provided
within the series. Meriwether (above) was cast for the film role when
producers learned that Newmar (below left) would not be available for
filming after the production of the first season wrapped. Due to
prior commitments to the film Mackenna's Gold, Newmar was also
unavailable for the production of the third season and Kitt (below
top right) was cast for the role. Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and Lee
Meriwether are pictured together (below bottom right) at the 2nd
Annual TV Land Awards in Hollywood, March 7th, 2004
Joker played by Cesar Romero
Based on the comic book
character of the same name, no origin for the character is provided
within the series. Since Cesar Romero refused to shave his trademark
mustache, his white pancake makeup was applied over it.
Penguin played by
Burgess Meredith
Based on the comic book
character of the same name, no origin for the character is provided
within the series.
Riddler played by Frank
Gorshin (season 1 & 3) and John Astin (season 2)
Based on the comic book
character of the same name, no origin for the character is provided
within the series. Leading into the production of the second season,
Gorshin held out for higher wages. This resulted in the writers
putting off Riddler-themed episodes in case the issue was resolved.
Late in the production, they reworked one script to use the Puzzler
and finally produced a Riddler story for which John Astin was cast.
The issue was resolved before the third season with Gorshin returning
to the role.
Mister Freeze
played by George
Sanders,
Otto Preminger
and Eli
Wallach
Based on the comic book
character originally known as Mr. Zero but later changed to match the
new name from the show, an abbreviated origin for the character is
provided within the series. What is related that Batman had
accidentally spilled cryonic chemical on him during a previous
arrest. This renders him incapable of living in temperatures above -50°F.
Egghead played by
Vincent Price
Egghead was created
specifically for the series and is presented as a master criminal
with a fixation on eggs. Egghead, among others created for the
series, were adapted for a 2009 episode of the animated television
series Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
King Tut played by
Victor Buono
King Tut was created
specifically for the series and was provided with an origin story.
Within the episodes, Professor William McElroy is an Egyptologist at
Yale University. He suffers a blow to the head during a student riot
that results in amnesia. His subconscious creates a new personality
as the reincarnation of King Tut. Each time he is struck on the head,
his personalities reverse. King Tut was also adapted for a 2009
episode of the animated television series Batman: The Brave and the
Bold voiced by John DiMaggio. Due to FOX holding the rights to the
King Tut name, the character was renamed Pharaoh. Later that year,
the character was adapted to the comics.
Mad Hatter played by
David Wayne
Based on the comic book
character of the same name, no origin for the character is provided
within the series. This version was based on the Imposter Mad Hatter.
The live action television
show was extraordinarily popular, called "the biggest TV
phenomenon of the mid-1960s". At the height of its popularity,
it was the only prime-time television show other than Peyton Place to
be broadcast twice in one week as part of its regular schedule,
airing at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. Episodes of the show
were filmed as two-part cliffhangers, with each storyline beginning
on Wednesday and ending on the Thursday night episode. (In the second
season, a pair of three-parters were also seen; at the very end of
the Thursday night segment, a brief tag featuring the next week's
villain would be shown, such as, "Next week: Batman jousts with
The Joker again!" This started on the third week of the series'
run and continued until the end of season two. The first episode of a
storyline would typically end with Batman and Robin being trapped in
a deathtrap, while the narrator (Dozier) would tell viewers to watch
the next night with the repeated phrase: "Tune in tomorrow —
same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!" Even many years after the
show ceased production, this catch-phrase still remained a
long-running punchline in popular culture.
Several
cast members recorded music tied in to the series. Adam West
released a single titled "Miranda", a country-tinged pop
song that he actually performed in costume during live appearances in
the 1960s. Frank Gorshin released a song titled "The
Riddler", which was composed and arranged by Mel Tormé.
Burgess Meredith recorded a spoken word single called "The
Escape" backed with "The Capture", which consisted of
The Penguin narrating his recent crime spree to a jazz beat. Burt
Ward recorded a song called "Boy Wonder, I Love You",
written and arranged by Frank Zappa.
In 1972, Burt Ward and
Yvonne Craig reunited as Robin and Batgirl for an Equal Pay public
service announcement. Dick Gautier played Batman because Adam West
was, at the time, trying to distance himself from the role. It was
narrated by William Dozier. In 1977, Adam West and Burt Ward returned
as voice actors for the Filmation-produced animated series, The New
Adventures of Batman. West would once again reprise his role as
Batman in animated form when he succeeded Olan Soule in the final two
seasons of Super Friends. In 1979, West, Ward, and Frank Gorshin
reunited on NBC for Hanna-Barbera's two Legends of the Superheroes
television specials. In the 1980s, several cast members teamed up for
a series of celebrity editions of Family Feud.
The
series' stars, Adam West and Burt Ward, were typecast for decades
afterwards, with West especially finding himself unable to escape the
reputation of a hammy, campy actor. However, years after the series'
impact faded, an episode of Batman: The Animated Series paid tribute
to West with an episode titled "Beware The Gray Ghost". In
this episode, West played the role of an aging star of a superhero
television series Bruce Wayne had watched as a child and from which
he later found inspiration. This gave West new popularity with the
next generation of fans. He also played Gotham City's Mayor Grange as
a somewhat recurring role in The Batman.
In 2003, West and Ward
reunited for a tongue-in-cheek television movie titled Return to the
Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt which combined dramatized
recreations of the filming of the original series (with younger
actors standing in for the stars), with modern day footage of West
and Ward searching for a stolen Batmobile. The film included cameo
appearances by Newmar, Gorshin, and Lee Meriwether, as well as Lyle
Waggoner, who had been an early candidate for the role of Batman.
Yvonne Craig did not appear in the movie, she reportedly disliked the
script. The movie received high ratings and was released on DVD in
May 2005.
Having a distinctive voice,
Adam West has built a post-Batman career doing voice-over work on a
number of animated series (often as himself), including appearances
on The Simpsons, Futurama, Rugrats, The Critic, The Boondocks,
Histeria!, Kim Possible and Johnny Bravo. He also appeared in many
episodes of Nickelodeon's cartoon, The Fairly OddParents, as a
cat-obsessed version of himself who is famous for playing a superhero
called Catman, and who actually believes he is Catman. A later
appearance of Adam West in The Fairly OddParents world was a parody
of himself, hired to play the role of the Crimson Chin in the movie
of the same name. Yet another appearance on the show had him as
himself in a Fairy-sponsored video about how to cope with losing
one's fairy godparents.
Since 2000, West has made
regular appearances on the animated series Family Guy, on which he
plays Mayor Adam West, the lunatic mayor of Quahog, Rhode Island. His
role has given him a new wave of popularity since Batman. Family Guy
creator Seth MacFarlane wrote several episodes of the cartoon series
Johnny Bravo. West played a similarly intense and
eccentric rendition of himself in an episode written by MacFarlane,
"Johnny Meets Adam West!", first broadcast in December
1997. In the episode, West's fictionalized persona displays similar
deluded characteristics to the later Family Guy character, such as
believing a race of megalomaniac mole-people live under a local golf
course. MacFarlane found West's character and performance in Johnny
Bravo so funny that he created a similar character for Family Guy. In
an A.V. Club interview, MacFarlane commented, “The character
we've created is kind of this alternate-universe Adam West where he's
mayor of this town, and we deliberately have not made any references
to Batman, because we like keeping that separate."
Some of West's other
voice-over performances were playing the role of Uncle Art in the
Disney film Meet the Robinsons, and voicing the young Mermaid Man
(along with Burt Ward, who voiced the young Barnacle Boy) in the
cartoon show SpongeBob SquarePants.
West also played the voice
of General Carrington in the video game XIII, and has voiced other
video games like Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure,
Chicken Little: Ace in Action, Scooby Doo! Unmasked and Goosebumps:
Attack of the Mutant. For the online game Champions Online, his voice
is used in one of the website's videos. West has also done voice-over
work for superhero-themed commercials for the investment firm The
LendingTree and TV commercials for Hebrew National hot dogs.
Adam West died in Los
Angeles, California on June 9th, 2017, following a brief battle with
leukemia. He was 88. West pre-recorded 5 episodes of Family Guy as
Mayor Adam West that were released posthumously as part of Family
Guy's sixteenth season.
The
animated television series Batman: The Brave and the Bold is
influenced by the 1960s television series. The opening credits
feature Batman rope-climbing up a building, something that Adam West
and Burt Ward often did in the show. Several villains from the 1960s
show including King Tut, Egghead, Mad Hatter, Archer, Bookworm, False
Face, Black Widow, Siren, Marsha Queen of Diamonds, Louie the Lilac,
Ma Parker, and Shame make cameo appearances as prisoners at Iron
Heights prison in the episode "Day of the Dark Knight!".
They are all captured by Batman and Green Arrow during a mass escape
attempt. The episode "Game Over for Owlman!" shows a room
in the Batcave containing "souvenirs" of deathtraps that
the Joker employed in the 1960s series, with accompanying flashbacks:
the giant key from the "Human Key Duplicator" from "The
Impractical Joker", the slot machine-controlled electric chair
from "The Joker Goes to School", and the giant clam from
"The Joker's Hard Times". The episode "The Color of
Revenge!" begins with a flashback to the time of the 1960s
television series, using attributes such as the red Batphone, the
Shakespeare bust, the sliding bookcase, the Batpoles, Robin in his
old television-series costume, and the shot of Batman and Robin
fastening their seat belts in the Batmobile. Additionally, the Adam
West Batman briefly appears in "Night of the Batmen!" as
part of an army of Batmen gathered across the Multiverse.
The Young Justice episode
"Schooled" briefly references the show as well by featuring
a Shakespeare bust in Bruce's office at the Waynetech building in
Metropolis. As a further homage to the series, Bruce is shown
accessing an emergency Batsuit hidden in his desk by flipping a
switch concealed within the bust.
A line spoken by Robin
(Chris O'Donnell) in Batman Forever is a homage to the television
Robin's catch-phrase exclamations that started "Holy" and
sometimes ended "Batman!" - for instance "Holy bargain
basements, Batman!" and "Holy flypaper, Batman!".
During the movie, Robin says "Holy rusted metal, Batman!"
after the duo climb onto twisted metal girders beside some water.
This catchphrase also appeared for a time in "Batman" comic books.
In
2013, DC began publication of Batman '66, a comic book series
telling all-new stories set in the world of the 1966-1968 TV series.
Jeff Parker writes the series, which features cover art by Mike
Allred and interior art by different artists each issue. In the
Batman: Arkham Origins video game, exclusive DLC for the PlayStation
3 includes a Batman skin based on the Batman tv series.
There is no official home
entertainment release of the series, but under a Fox/ABC deal, is
still in syndication, and regularly shown on a number of channels
around the world. So far, only the 1966 feature film is available on
DVD for non-broadcast viewing in North America. This affected the
2003 television movie reunion Return to the Batcave: The
Misadventures of Adam and Burt, also released to DVD, which was only
able to make use of footage from the 1966 movie. Conflicting reports
of the reasons behind the non-release of the series point to a number
of different factors, including series ownership rights between
Greenway, ABC and Fox as well as the DC Comics character ownership
rights; some of the cameos were done as uncredited, unpaid walk-ons
meaning those scenes would have to be cut or an agreement reached
with the actors; rights issues concerning the design of the unique
Batmobile design used in the show, and possibly a separate issue
regarding some of the costumes. With Batman being unavailable for
home-video release, an unusual situation has occurred in which
material that would be considered DVD featurettes has been released
separately. In 2004, Image Entertainment released Holy Batmania, a
two-DVD set that included documentaries on the making of the series,
as well as rare footage such as the original screen tests of the cast
and Lyle Waggoner. In 2008, Adam West released a privately issued DVD
with the tongue-in-cheek title Adam West Naked for which he recorded
anecdotes regarding all 120 episodes of the series.
Use the links below to see the cards in
each of the classic 1966 sets
Check out the SuperHero Stuff Batman
merchandise page, your index to the finest assortment of Batman
products online. They specialize in Batman tees, but have dozens of
other awesome Batman products as well. Batman belts, hats, hoodies,
pajamas, wallets, key chains, bags and more. They even have Batman underwear!
In
turn, 20th Century Fox handed the project to William Dozier and his
Greenway Productions. ABC and Fox were expecting a hip and fun, yet
still serious, adventure show. However, Dozier, who had never before
read comic books, concluded, after reading several Batman comics for
research, that the only way to make the show work was to do it as a
pop art camp comedy. Ironically, the Batman comic books had recently
experienced a change in editorship which marked a return to serious
detective stories after decades of tales with aliens, dimensional
travel, magical imps and talking animals. Originally, espionage
novelist Eric Ambler was to write a TV-movie that would launch the
television series, but he dropped out after learning of Dozier's camp
comedy approach. Eventually, two sets of screen tests were filmed,
one with Adam West and Burt Ward and the other with Lyle Waggoner
(above) and Peter Deyell, with West and Ward winning the roles while
Waggoner would get his chance to appear in a superhero series 10
years later as Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman.
By
that time, ABC had pushed up the debut date to January 1966, thus
forgoing the movie until the summer hiatus. The film would be
produced quickly to get into theatres prior to the start of Season
Two of the television series. Lorenzo Semple, Jr. had signed on as
head script writer. He wrote the pilot script, and generally wrote in
a pop art adventure style. Stanley Ralph Ross, Stanford Sherman, and
Charles Hoffman were script writers who generally leaned more toward
camp comedy, and in Ross's case, sometimes outright slapstick and
satire. Originally intended as a one-hour show, ABC only had two early-evening
time slots available, so the show was split into two parts, to air
twice a week in half-hour installments with a cliffhanger, originally
to last only through a station break, connecting the two episodes,
echoing the old movie serials.
The
typical story began with a villain (often one of a short list of
recurring villains, the first being The Riddler played by Frank
Gorshin) committing a crime, such as stealing a fabulous gem or
taking over Gotham City. This was followed by a scene inside
Commissioner Gordon's office, where he and Chief O'Hara would deduce
which villain was responsible. Commissioner Gordon would press a
button on the Batphone, a bright red telephone located on a pedestal
in his office. The scene would then cut to 'stately Wayne Manor'
where Alfred (the butler) would answer the Batphone, which sat like a
normal everyday telephone on the desk in Bruce Wayne's study (though
often it would be seen under a glass cover on another pedestal).
Frequently, Wayne and his ward, Dick Grayson, would be found talking
with Dick's aunt, Harriet Cooper, who was unaware of Bruce's and
Dick's secret identities. Alfred would discreetly interrupt so they
could excuse themselves to go to the Batphone. Upon learning which
criminal he would face, Wayne would turn a switch concealed within a
bust of Shakespeare that stood on his desk. This would cause a
bookcase to slide back and reveal two fireman's poles. "To the
Batpoles!" Wayne would exclaim, and he and Grayson would slide
down to the Batcave, activating an unseen mechanism on the way that
dressed them as their alter egos. The title sequence often began at
this point.
The
same pattern of plot was repeated in the following episode until the
villain was defeated in a major brawl where the action was punctuated
by superimposed words, as in comic book fight scenes
("POW!", "BAM!", "ZONK!", etc.). Not
counting five of the Penguin's henchmen who disintegrate or get blown
up in the associated Batman theatrical movie, only three criminal
characters die during the series: the Riddler's moll Molly (played by
Jill St. John in Episode 2 pictured at left) who accidentally falls
into the Batcave's atomic reactor, and two out-of-town gunmen who
shoot at Batman and Robin but kill each other instead (toward the end
of "Zelda The Great/A Death Worse Than Fate"). Twice,
Catwoman (Julie Newmar) appears to fall to her death (into a
bottomless pit and from a high building into a river), but since she
returned in later episodes, it is presumed that as a "cat",
she has nine lives and thus has several more left to go. In
"Instant Freeze", Mr. Freeze freezes a butler solid and
knocks him over, causing him to smash to pieces, although this is
implied rather than seen. There is a later reference suggesting the
butler survived. In "Green Ice", Mr. Freeze freezes a
policeman solid; it is left unclear whether he survived. In "The
Penguin's Nest", a policeman suffers an electric shock at the
hands of the Penguin's accomplices, but he is presumed to survive, as
he appears in some later episodes. In "The Bookworm Turns",
Commissioner Gordon appears to be shot and falls off a bridge to his
death, but Batman deduces that this was actually an expert high diver
in disguise, employed by The Bookworm as a ruse (implying that the
diver survived the fall).
Robin,
in particular, was especially well known for saying "Holy
(insert), Batman!" whenever he encountered something startling.
Accordingly,
the narrator's cliffhanger phrases were eliminated, with most of the
episodes ending with him saying something to encourage viewers to
watch the next episode.
Many
sports, music, and media personalities, and a number of Hollywood
actors, looked forward to and enjoyed their appearances as villains
on the Batman show. They were generally allowed to overact and enjoy
themselves on a high-rated television series, guaranteeing them
considerable exposure (and thus boosting their careers). The most
popular villains on the show included Cesar Romero as the Joker,
Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, and
Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Other famous names from the "rogues
gallery" in the comic book series made appearances on the show
(notably Mad Hatter), and some were taken from other superhero
comics, such as Puzzler and Archer (Superman villains) and The Clock
King (a Green Arrow villain, who was again portrayed as a Batman
villain in the 1990s animated series).
Several
cast members recorded music tied in to the series. Adam West
released a single titled "Miranda", a country-tinged pop
song that he actually performed in costume during live appearances in
the 1960s. Frank Gorshin released a song titled "The
Riddler", which was composed and arranged by Mel Tormé.
Burgess Meredith recorded a spoken word single called "The
Escape" backed with "The Capture", which consisted of
The Penguin narrating his recent crime spree to a jazz beat. Burt
Ward recorded a song called "Boy Wonder, I Love You",
written and arranged by Frank Zappa.
The
series' stars, Adam West and Burt Ward, were typecast for decades
afterwards, with West especially finding himself unable to escape the
reputation of a hammy, campy actor. However, years after the series'
impact faded, an episode of Batman: The Animated Series paid tribute
to West with an episode titled "Beware The Gray Ghost". In
this episode, West played the role of an aging star of a superhero
television series Bruce Wayne had watched as a child and from which
he later found inspiration. This gave West new popularity with the
next generation of fans. He also played Gotham City's Mayor Grange as
a somewhat recurring role in The Batman.
and
eccentric rendition of himself in an episode written by MacFarlane,
"Johnny Meets Adam West!", first broadcast in December
1997. In the episode, West's fictionalized persona displays similar
deluded characteristics to the later Family Guy character, such as
believing a race of megalomaniac mole-people live under a local golf
course. MacFarlane found West's character and performance in Johnny
Bravo so funny that he created a similar character for Family Guy. In
an A.V. Club interview, MacFarlane commented, “The character
we've created is kind of this alternate-universe Adam West where he's
mayor of this town, and we deliberately have not made any references
to Batman, because we like keeping that separate."
The
animated television series Batman: The Brave and the Bold is
influenced by the 1960s television series. The opening credits
feature Batman rope-climbing up a building, something that Adam West
and Burt Ward often did in the show. Several villains from the 1960s
show including King Tut, Egghead, Mad Hatter, Archer, Bookworm, False
Face, Black Widow, Siren, Marsha Queen of Diamonds, Louie the Lilac,
Ma Parker, and Shame make cameo appearances as prisoners at Iron
Heights prison in the episode "Day of the Dark Knight!".
They are all captured by Batman and Green Arrow during a mass escape
attempt. The episode "Game Over for Owlman!" shows a room
in the Batcave containing "souvenirs" of deathtraps that
the Joker employed in the 1960s series, with accompanying flashbacks:
the giant key from the "Human Key Duplicator" from "The
Impractical Joker", the slot machine-controlled electric chair
from "The Joker Goes to School", and the giant clam from
"The Joker's Hard Times". The episode "The Color of
Revenge!" begins with a flashback to the time of the 1960s
television series, using attributes such as the red Batphone, the
Shakespeare bust, the sliding bookcase, the Batpoles, Robin in his
old television-series costume, and the shot of Batman and Robin
fastening their seat belts in the Batmobile. Additionally, the Adam
West Batman briefly appears in "Night of the Batmen!" as
part of an army of Batmen gathered across the Multiverse.
In
2013, DC began publication of Batman '66, a comic book series
telling all-new stories set in the world of the 1966-1968 TV series.
Jeff Parker writes the series, which features cover art by Mike
Allred and interior art by different artists each issue. In the
Batman: Arkham Origins video game, exclusive DLC for the PlayStation
3 includes a Batman skin based on the Batman tv series.
