Of all the superheroes adapted for the big screen, none has received so many drastically different iterations as Batman. Since the 1940s, every generation has had its own cinematic interpretation of the character and each has been quite different.
In the 1940s, the Caped Crusader was a government agent battling bad guys on an obvious nondescript movie set, wearing an ill-fitting costume with a cowl that had floppy ears and a cape that slipped off during one fight scene (though it was magically fastened again when the film cut to another camera angle).
In the 1990s, Batman became a freaky hero battling even freakier villains in an art deco-style Gotham. And in the 2000s, the Dark Knight trilogy made him an even edgier figure and occasionally generated controversy.
There was also a movie in 1966 that was spun off of the campy television program, following its enormously popular first season.
The “Batman” TV series played out in a colorful, broadly played comic-book landscape filled with a bright pastel palette of pop-art costumes, sets and backgrounds, enhanced by off-kilter camera angles, deadpan pun-filled repartee, and fights that were accompanied by dialogue balloons that appeared onscreen with “Pow!” and “Kerplop!” and “Zowie!” — and more than 80 other exclamations over the course of the series.
Oh, did I mention that the show was a comedy?
As it happens, all of the live-action “Batman” adaptations cited above have been on home video for years — except the TV series. Even the 1966 TV-spinoff movie has been on DVD for a dozen years.
No wonder fans have been clamoring for a video release of the show for decades — so they should all be doing bat-flips … er, backflips … with this week’s release of “Batman: The Complete Television Series” (Warner/Blu-ray/Digital, 1966-68, 13 discs, 120 episodes, featurettes; 32-page episode guide, 32-page scrapbook, 44 vintage trading cards, Hot Wheels Batmobile; also available are an 18-disc DVD series set and Season 1 as a stand-alone set).
Hey, it took nearly 50 years, but yes, it’s finally here.
I was in high school when “Batman” premiered on ABC and I have fond memories of not only the show but also of the so-called “Batmania” that accompanied it.
The series didn’t begin until January 1966, so it was absent for the first half of the fall-spring TV season and aired for just 17 weeks. Yet it still managed to land in two top-10 spots on the 1965-66 year-end ratings charts.
“Batman” aired new half-hour episodes twice each week — on Wednesday with a cliffhanger and then on Thursday to resolve the story. And when the Nielsen ratings were released in spring 1966, “Batman” came in at both No. 5 (for the Thursday shows) and No. 10 (the Wednesday shows), an unprecedented record that has never been duplicated.
In keeping with the homage to old theatrical cliffhanger serials, the show had phony rear-projection location backgrounds, B-movie-style posturing, and Batman and Robin scaling tall buildings that were obviously flat sets on the ground that the actors were simply crawling over (with a star like Jerry Lewis or Sammy Davis Jr. occasionally sticking his head out of a window for a gag).
Plots revolved around the villain of the week, arguably the most popular being the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith) and, of course, Catwoman (Julie Newmar). They were all over-the-top performances offering a counterpoint to Adam West, stiff and stoic as Batman, and Burt Ward, naïve and wide-eyed as Robin.
The show was a ratings phenomenon, but the mania that accompanied it was truly nuts. Merchandising was everywhere and included a “Batman ’66” comic book that closely adhered to the TV series, trading cards, a hit recording of the famous “Batman Theme” by Neil Hefti, Batmobile model kits, board games, a View-Master set and much more.
I remember a joke book of Batman-related puns that were just awful, but my friends and I went around quoting them, as well as making up our own. And then there were the “holy” exclamations by Robin that we’d parrot each week, like “Holy Houdini, Batman!” or “Holy bargain basements!” or “Holy Hot Foot!”
Then, somewhere during the second season, the mania began to flame out and Season 3 was reduced to single half-hour weekly episodes as ratings continued to fall and the show was canceled. Even the addition of Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) didn’t help.
But there remains a rabid fan-base for the “Batman” TV series, whose adherents can be easily found on the Web, and this new Blu-ray/DVD release is for them.
In fact, this is one of the most meticulously remastered vintage TV shows I’ve ever seen. These high-definition episodes really pop with all those vivid colors.
So holy Blu-ray, what are you waiting for? Quick, to the Bat-Store. There’s not a moment to lose!
Chris Hicks is the author of "Has Hollywood Lost Its Mind? A Parent’s Guide to Movie Ratings." He also writes at www.hicksflicks.com and can be contacted at hicks@deseretnews.com.