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Post by berkley on Dec 14, 2014 22:13:48 GMT -5
I definitely remember being excited to watch it as a small kid. I haven't seen it much since then, but one of these days I wouldn't mind watching it again.
Has everyone seen Lookwell, the pilot Adam West made in the early 90s? Conan O'Brien was one of the show-creators and writers. I wish it had lasted at least one season so there'd be more episodes to watch.
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Post by badwolf on Dec 15, 2014 10:52:43 GMT -5
I loved it when I was a kid and didn't get that it was "camp" at all. When I got older I think I felt that it was making fun of comics so I didn't like it. Now it just has a weird sort of nostalgia.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 16, 2014 4:24:30 GMT -5
Once you get old enough to appreciate the satire, and the 60's pop-art influences, it's brilliant. It's amusing to me how dry the humor was, particularly Adam West's dialog. The funniest moment in the whole series actually took place in the 1966 movie when Batman and Robin made a forced landing right on top of a "foam rubber convention."
I can't remember if it was my first introduction to Batman or not, funny enough, but it might have been and this might be why I became a Marvel fan first. I liked it, but the Spider-Man and Hulk cartoons in the 80's seemed more "serious." It was certainly either the TV show or Superfriends.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 16, 2014 16:33:18 GMT -5
I first saw it in reruns in the late 60s or early 70s. Even then I didn't really care for it. It ranked up there with Lost In Space in enjoyment factor for me (the characters all annoyed me and even then I knew the science made no sense). Every time I watched Batman, I felt like the actors were saying I was a complete moron for watching.
Many have said here that they liked it because it was fun. I've read and enjoyed many comics and watched many shows that were fun, so I get that, but I just never saw much fun in Batman. It was characters acting like idiots spouting lines that made me feel like an idiot for watching.
Not to mention the show struck a blow to comics that they have never recovered from. Look at any mainstream news article about comics and what words are guaranteed to be in it? Zap! Pow! Bam! It's an attitude towards comics that is all because of this series. Comics will never live it down.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2014 18:22:06 GMT -5
I have met Adam West a couple times in my life and he was a genuine and likable fellow that loves to talk to his fans about his short, but celebrated series BATMAN in the sixties. I just loved the camp atmosphere, the guest stars that appeared, and most importantly the pop cultural aspects as well. To me, it was fun, entertaining, colorful, and full of style and substance that you will not get it anywhere else.
Adam West was perfect for Batman and his approach to this show was spot on and I believe that he tried his best to maintain a certain degree of comedy, drama, intensity, style, and grace that helped this show to become a pop cultural enjoyment for all fans - young and old.
He told me that ABC once decided to drop Burt Ward as Robin and replace him with Yvonne Craig as Batgirl for the proposed 4th season because Burt is getting too old for a teenage Robin and that alone combined with other factors that causes the show to not get a 4th season. I was told by him (Adam West) that he was stunned by ABC stupidity to burn down the sets of Batman and a couple weeks later NBC wanted to take over the production of Batman by asking ABC to hand over the sets and wanted to do the series and restore it back to the original format. They wanted to keep Burt Ward for another year and during that time frame (they would look for another Robin) and they could had done this with very little problem whatsoever.
I was stunned when I heard this and according to Adam West - NBC was committed to do Batman if ABC was willing to give them the sets of Batman for a certain price and once the sets were burned; NBC dropped the ball and decided it was not a good investment to rebuild the Batman sets that would cost them a pretty penny back then.
That's all I have to share for now.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 16, 2014 18:40:28 GMT -5
I first saw it in reruns in the late 60s or early 70s. Even then I didn't really care for it. It ranked up there with Lost In Space in enjoyment factor for me (the characters all annoyed me and even then I knew the science made no sense). Every time I watched Batman, I felt like the actors were saying I was a complete moron for watching. Many have said here that they liked it because it was fun. I've read and enjoyed many comics and watched many shows that were fun, so I get that, but I just never saw much fun in Batman. It was characters acting like idiots spouting lines that made me feel like an idiot for watching. Not to mention the show struck a blow to comics that they have never recovered from. Look at any mainstream news article about comics and what words are guaranteed to be in it? Zap! Pow! Bam! It's an attitude towards comics that is all because of this series. Comics will never live it down. I see this a lot but from what I've read that Zap!Pow!Bam! attitude was the way people viewed comics long before the Batman show hit the scene. Did the show perhaps cement that idea into people's heads? Sure, but they would have thought that way anyway because that was just the culture. As for talking down to the audience though? That's a new one on me. It was purposely a comedy and it was played that way and I don't know why that's a bad thing. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 16, 2014 20:40:39 GMT -5
I first saw it in reruns in the late 60s or early 70s. Even then I didn't really care for it. It ranked up there with Lost In Space in enjoyment factor for me (the characters all annoyed me and even then I knew the science made no sense). Every time I watched Batman, I felt like the actors were saying I was a complete moron for watching. Many have said here that they liked it because it was fun. I've read and enjoyed many comics and watched many shows that were fun, so I get that, but I just never saw much fun in Batman. It was characters acting like idiots spouting lines that made me feel like an idiot for watching. Not to mention the show struck a blow to comics that they have never recovered from. Look at any mainstream news article about comics and what words are guaranteed to be in it? Zap! Pow! Bam! It's an attitude towards comics that is all because of this series. Comics will never live it down. I get what you're saying, but I view the show, in a lot of ways, as an "intervention" that mainstream comics, and comics fans, needed. As silly as the Zap! Pow! stuff is, that was basically what was going on in the comics before the show started. Marvel was just hitting its stride at this time, so the idea that superhero comics could be more than mindless kids fair (the more serious tone of the late 30's and early 40's was forgotten or unknown to most people by this time) was beyond the keen of most people in Hollywood at this point. I of view the eventual creative backlash of the show as a wake up call for DC, which lead directly into the revitalization of Batman in the late 60's and early 70's. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 16, 2014 22:09:40 GMT -5
I first saw it in reruns in the late 60s or early 70s. Even then I didn't really care for it. It ranked up there with Lost In Space in enjoyment factor for me (the characters all annoyed me and even then I knew the science made no sense). Every time I watched Batman, I felt like the actors were saying I was a complete moron for watching. Many have said here that they liked it because it was fun. I've read and enjoyed many comics and watched many shows that were fun, so I get that, but I just never saw much fun in Batman. It was characters acting like idiots spouting lines that made me feel like an idiot for watching. Not to mention the show struck a blow to comics that they have never recovered from. Look at any mainstream news article about comics and what words are guaranteed to be in it? Zap! Pow! Bam! It's an attitude towards comics that is all because of this series. Comics will never live it down. I get what you're saying, but I view the show, in a lot of ways, as an "intervention" that mainstream comics, and comics fans, needed. As silly as the Zap! Pow! stuff is, that was basically what was going on in the comics before the show started. Marvel was just hitting its stride at this time, so the idea that superhero comics could be more than mindless kids fair (the more serious tone of the late 30's and early 40's was forgotten or unknown to most people by this time) was beyond the keen of most people in Hollywood at this point. I of view the eventual creative backlash of the show as a wake up call for DC, which lead directly into the revitalization of Batman in the late 60's and early 70's. I don't think it was much of a wake up call for DC, or that there was really any back lash as it was well received by the viewers and critics alike. Also Batman was already begun to be revitalized by Schwartz and Carmine Infantino in 1964, two years before the show. They created a Batman that was more detective-oriented and lived in a more contemporary world; the camp of the TV series was not a part of the comics in the 60's so although it is largely said that Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams were making a deliberate effort to distance Batman from the campy TV series this has nothing to do with the content of the books themselves. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2014 22:53:32 GMT -5
I liked it when I was really small. I mean like pint-size Jez.
Then I read about both Adam and Burt being a bunch of sex maniacs with a whole bunch of Bat-groupies...cripes, almost 50 years ago.
Nowadays I can look back at the series as some campy fun with an unforgettable theme...but as I got older I really grew to dislike 60s Batman comics which were as campy if not worse. Yeah, yeah, I just dissed 60s Batman nyah nyah...but it's my opinion.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 16, 2014 23:01:21 GMT -5
I liked it when I was really small. I mean like pint-size Jez. Then I read about both Adam and Burt being a bunch of sex maniacs with a whole bunch of Bat-groupies...cripes, almost 50 years ago. Nowadays I can look back at the series as some campy fun with an unforgettable theme...but as I got older I really grew to dislike 60s Batman comics which were as campy if not worse. Yeah, yeah, I just dissed 60s Batman nyah nyah... but it's my opinion.
Except they weren't campy, the 50's books were definitely out there but the new look Batman wasn't all that different than the bronze age Batman. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2014 23:08:10 GMT -5
I liked it when I was really small. I mean like pint-size Jez. Then I read about both Adam and Burt being a bunch of sex maniacs with a whole bunch of Bat-groupies...cripes, almost 50 years ago. Nowadays I can look back at the series as some campy fun with an unforgettable theme...but as I got older I really grew to dislike 60s Batman comics which were as campy if not worse. Yeah, yeah, I just dissed 60s Batman nyah nyah... but it's my opinion.
Except they weren't campy, the 50's books were definitely out there but the new look Batman wasn't all that different than the bronze age Batman. Bronze age Batman wasn't fighting aliens and giant fish and having imaginary sons and turning into King Kong...which was happening in the early 60s too. Neal Adams gave us the Joker's 5-Way Revenge...in the 60s we got this twerp. Is Gaggy *really* on the same comparable scale?  But I'm not going into my New 52 Batman is better mantra....it's Christmas and I'm in no mood for Bat snowballs. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Dec 17, 2014 1:40:02 GMT -5
It's true that the show brought in the specific 60's Mod/Pop-Art zeitgeist of the day, but the producer (if memory served) was influenced by the Batman comics that came just before the early New Look issues. Campy might not be the specific term for late 50's and early 60's Batman, but it was certainly goofy and silly a lot of the time.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 17, 2014 12:06:56 GMT -5
Except they weren't campy, the 50's books were definitely out there but the new look Batman wasn't all that different than the bronze age Batman. Bronze age Batman wasn't fighting aliens and giant fish and having imaginary sons and turning into King Kong...which was happening in the early 60s too. Neal Adams gave us the Joker's 5-Way Revenge...in the 60s we got this twerp. Is Gaggy *really* on the same comparable scale? But I'm not going into my New 52 Batman is better mantra....it's Christmas and I'm in no mood for Bat snowballs. He didn't really fight weird aliens past the 50's and I wouldn't call Batman # 186 camp either, in fact using circus folk as henchmen is fairly creepy and is an element that has been used by modern writers as well. |
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Post by MDG on Dec 17, 2014 14:46:50 GMT -5
Not to mention the show struck a blow to comics that they have never recovered from. Look at any mainstream news article about comics and what words are guaranteed to be in it? Zap! Pow! Bam! It's an attitude towards comics that is all because of this series. Comics will never live it down. But how much did the series do to make comics seem like an economically viable business? Circulation in general went up, to the extent that new lines like Tower and Fass appeared. I'm sure it made licensing a lot more lucrative for DC (and Marvel too) with more toys and other products emblazoned with characters. I'm not sure if DC or Marvel would've been as attractive for Kinney or Cadence to buy them if the show hadn't revitalized the industry. And that led to the Bronze Age expansion of both companies. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Dec 17, 2014 15:04:08 GMT -5
Not to mention the show struck a blow to comics that they have never recovered from. Look at any mainstream news article about comics and what words are guaranteed to be in it? Zap! Pow! Bam! It's an attitude towards comics that is all because of this series. Comics will never live it down. But how much did the series do to make comics seem like an economically viable business? Circulation in general went up, to the extent that new lines like Tower and Fass appeared. I'm sure it made licensing a lot more lucrative for DC (and Marvel too) with more toys and other products emblazoned with characters. I'm not sure if DC or Marvel would've been as attractive for Kinney or Cadence to buy them if the show hadn't revitalized the industry. And that led to the Bronze Age expansion of both companies. That's possible, because it definitely did increase circulation. Unfortunately it lands in the "who knows" category because it's so far in the past. Would the comics have continued into the Bronze Age without the sales bump from Batman? Would they have increased even further in quality without the detour into the "camp craze"? Perhaps a subject for debate? |
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