Today, January 12, marks 60 years since the caped crusader hit the small screen. On that date in 1966, TV’s original Batman landed with a Bam! Pow! Splat! For me and other eight-year-olds in schoolyards across North America, it was a mind-blowing moment.
I can still recall the excitement of watching the very first episode. The producers were coy about showing Batman’s face for the first few minutes, building the suspense. To a kid in Grade 3, it played like high drama. The menace of the Riddler seemed real, driven home by Frank Gorshin’s maniacal laugh. By the end of the episode, I was left hanging until the two-part story, written by Lorenzo Semple, Jr., was resolved the next day: “same bat-time, same bat channel.”
As an adult, the whole series seems so camp you can see the tents. But noty back then. The tilted camera angles and wild colours shone through even on a black-and-white screen. Batman’s greyish costume looked like pyjamas compared with the warriorlike exoskeletons worn by George Clooney and Val Kilmer in big budget Batman blockbusters.
Still, there was something so right about the tilt of West’s jaw or the way he called everybody “citizen.” He and Robin (Burt Ward) worked in the coolest place, the Batcave. They had the best toys, including those handy utility belts. Imagine any Marvel Avenger superhero wearing anything labeled “utility” today.
Over the years at various Television Critics Association press tour events, critics got to re-live their childhoods at sessions featuring original Batman and Robin stars Adam West and Burt Ward. When UPN promoted “Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt” (2003), the two actors stuck around (despite early reviews) for an after party. That’s where they bat-grumbled about how the original producers ripped them off for all the merchandising rights.
Ward, now 80, was paid US$350 a week for playing Robin on the series – and he had to do most of his own stunts. Residuals did not make him any richer. Up until 1969, he explained, the Screen Actors Guild had a provision that actors were paid another five per cent of their salary, up until the tenth reruns of each episode — and then nothing. Those cheques stopped coming for Ward as early as 1971.
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West, who enjoyed a revival of sorts as a recognizable voice actor on Family Guy, passed away in 2017 at 88. A very likeable interview in person who never seemed to take himself too seriously, he eventually came to accept being typecast. “If you could make an agreement with a signature role and not become embittered or feel that you’re painted into a corner,” he told me in 2003, “it could be a wonderful thing.”
The actor seemed to understand what he meant to his young fans in the ’60s. The day after the series premiered, me and the other kids ran around our schoolyard at recess with towels tied around our necks as capes. Nobody ever pretended to be Commissioner Gordon or Chief O’Hara, which is why I never got that Fox series Gotham that limped along from 2014-19.
The original TV theme song, by Neal Hefti, was an instant hit. You had to go “Nananananananana” every time you popped wheelies on your bike — and it better have a banana seat and high handle bars.
By summer, half of us had the metal Corgi model of the Batmobile, re-released lately at around 40 bucks if the ads I’m seeing pop up on Instagram can be trusted.
Eventually we all outgrew Batman, even if some never got over Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Holy pre-puberty!
