This article appeared in the Summer 1985 issue of Comics Collector. By that time, I had already made a few freelance sales to Amazing Heroes magazine, which was published by Fantagraphics. This sale to Comics Collector was my first work for Krause Publications; I would go on to freelance for Krause for twenty-one years, most notably the twenty years I spent writing for Krause's record collectors' tabloid Goldmine (a story told in great detail here).
Whatever reputation I managed to build as a writer was cobbled together on the foundation of my work for Goldmine from 1986-2006, including my Goldmine interviews with the Ramones (expanded into book form in 2023), and including the little extra oomph of notoriety I was able to bring to the earliest years of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl.
And that all started with my first freelance sale to Krause Publications in 1985. Holy Entry Point!
And here it is, its text reprised intact from its 1985 publication. Were there errors and over-simplifications? Yep. Not fixing 'em now, this many decades after the fact, and I think I got most of it right anyway. Thanks to my Comics Collector editors Don and Maggie Thompson and their enforcer Kim Metzger for helping me get started in the wonderful world of Krause Publications.
To the Batpoles!
SAME BAT-TIME, SAME BAT CHANNEL
Batman: To comics fans and collectors, he is the dark avenger of evil, a weird figure of the night properly referred to as The Batman. However, to the larger world outside of fandom, the image of the Caped Crusader was formed, not by Neal Adams or Marshall Rogers, but by a highly successful 1966 television comedy-adventure program.
To hard-core Batman fans, the TV show was anathema, silly where it should have been spectacular, campy where it should have been captivating, and spotlighting a hero whom Newsweek described as "bungling, awkward, even stupid. Corseted in baggy tights with blue satin jockey shorts, he bears only mocking resemblance to the comic-book prototype."
Nevertheless, TV's Batman remains the only Batman that many people know, and no mere mention of Silver St. Cloud or The Joker's homicidal tendencies is likely to change that in the near future.
Like it or not, the Caped Crusader's cathode-ray caricature looms large in the legend of The Batman. If we're going to attempt a summation of Batman's career, we're going to have to consider how the TV show interpreted (or reinterpreted) our hero and how the comic books were later affected by that interpretation.
For our purposes, the story begins in 1964, 25 years after The Batman's first appearance. Julie Schwartz assumed editorship of both Batman and Detective Comics and began what was referred to as the "New Look" Batman. This New Look was designed to streamline and modernize Batman, scuttling the weak science-fantasy settings and lackluster art that had plagued the character for the last few years. The intent of the New Look was to make Batman a tad more realistic and down-to-earth, and the result was about two years of solid, entertaining Batman stories--one of the finest, most fondly-remembered periods in the character's illustrious history.
As legend has it, one of these New Look issues of Batman somehow caught the attention of a TV producer named William Dozier. The issue in question was Batman # 171, cover-featuring the return of that plundering Prince of Puzzlers, The Riddler. Dozier reportedly thought the book quite a howl, and something in the enterprising producer's mind clicked.
At the time, America was in the midst of a pop art revolution/fad (take your pick), and much had been written on the subject of camp humor, which deals with something that's so bad it's good. In Dozier's view, that description summed up Batman and Robin perfectly. Dozier shelved his plans for a Green Hornet series (which eventually made it to the screen in Batman's wake) and set to work on his plans for the Dynamic Duo. ABC, the network that aired Batman, might have initially preferred a straight, action-adventure treatment of the character, but Dozier insisted that the whole project's chances of success hinged upon a camp approach. Dozier's viewpoint prevailed, and camp was in.
Batman the television program made its debut at 7:30 p.m. on January 13, 1966. Dozier and head writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. designed the show as a colorful pop-art explosion, an elaborate parody of its comic-book roots. Taking advantage of its twice-a-week time slot, the show ended each Wednesday night with a cliffhanger (effectively parodying old movie serials as well as comic books), with Thursday night's installment resolving the good guys' predicament and showing how justice again triumphed over evil.
Batman and Robin, as portrayed by Adam West and Burt Ward respectively, came across as four-cornered, overgrown Boy Scouts, gaudy goody-two-shoes with a penchant for funny clothes and corny sayings. The camp silliness of the whole affair soon caught on, and Batman was a ratings winner.
Fans of the comic book Batman were furious; their heroes were being ridiculed on national TV twice a week. Fight scenes on the show were punctuated with large BIFFs, POWs and ZONKs superimposed on the screen to simulate comic-book sound effects. When Batman and Robin were needed, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson would slide down the Batpoles in stately Wayne Manor and emerge in the Batcave below, miraculously changed into their costumes. This was, perhaps, the TV show's most annoying affectation; even today, when I discuss Batman with trivia buffs who aren't familiar with the comics, the question is inevitably asked: "How did they change their clothes while sliding down those Batpoles, anyway?"
It seemed that the TV show provided no end of irritation for fans of the "real" Batman. Looking at the program objectively, however, one discovers that it was a well-produced, sometimes genuinely funny satire. Like all jokes that are so bad they're good, camp humor wore thin upon repeated exposure, but it was amusing for a while.
Although the Batman mythos was used as the vehicle for blunt parody, many of the details were almost painstakingly exact. Commissioner Gordon came across as much more constipated and flat than his cartoon counterpart, but the casting of certain villains was just delicious; in particular, Burgess Meredith and Frank Gorshin were letter-perfect in their respective roles as The Penguin and The Riddler, and Cesar Romero's Joker was likewise a fair recreation of how the Clown Prince of Crime was then being portrayed in the comics. The show burdened the Dynamic Duo with an overabundance of unnecessary Batgadgets and related paraphernalia (a Batcomputer, a Batgas spray can, the infamous Batthermal underweat, etc.), but comic book accessories like the Batmobile, Batarang, and Batsignal were reproduced faithfully.
Someone involved with the production of the TV show obviously researched the character, as elements of both the New Look comics and the mid-'50s Batman popped up frequently in the program. Many new super-villains were created for the show (King Tut, The Bookworm, Egghead, and others), but quite a few old villains were revived from the comics: The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler, The Catwoman (who had not appeared in a new adventure since the '50s), False Face, Eivol Ekdal, and Mr. Freeze (originally called Mr. Zero in the comics). In spite of (or because of?) its camp approach, the Batman TV series may have been the most faithful adaptation of a comic book super-hero ever to hit the home screen. Certainly, it was more faithful than The Adventures Of Superman, The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, or Wonder Woman, but it was all so demeaning....
With the phenomenal success of the TV show, it was inevitable that some camp influence would appear in the comics as well. Fan cartoonist Fred Hembeck once noted that the excellence of the New Look Batman ended the night the TV show premiered, and his statement was pretty accurate. By 1966, the New Look had already gained an increasing sense of flippancy, as Robin's wisecracking banter became more prevalent (A scene in Batman # 178 had Robin, seconds away from drowning, thinking to himself, "Haven't...even...breath...left...for...a...wise...crack..."
Fight scenes were also becoming more flamboyant, as Batman and Robin were able to battle armies of hoods and emerge unscahed (as in Batman # 180, the otherwise-excellent "Death Knocks Three Times"). Whereas the earliest stages of the New Look concentrated more on the villainy of down-to-earth gangsters and crime cartels like Hydra (Batman # 167), costumed super-criminals like the Grasshopper Gang, The Bouncer, and Death-Man, plus the ubiquitous Joker, Penguin, and Riddler, made their presence felt before the TV show took hold.
Although all of these events foreshadowed the effect of the TV show, it is within the realm of possibility that DC Comics had another influence in mind: Marvel Comics, whose popularity was skyrocketing with its own formula of wisecracking super-heroes, spectacular fight scenes, and colorful criminals.
Though the TV show did eventually exert its influence, the result was more subdued than one might have feared. Still under Julie Schwartz's guidance, the Batman comic book never quite succumbed to the unrestrained silliness of their video counterpart, preferring to leave high camp heroics to The Mighty Crusaders and Gold Key's The Owl. At first, the TV influence was minimal; the stories were pretty much the same as before, with the addition of a few extra BONKs and ZAPs and a slight change in the Boy Wonder's speech pattern. This was a minor but annoying item: drawing on the comic-book convention of exclamations like "Great Krypton!" "Suffering Sappho!" and The Legion of Super-Heroes' immortal "Popping Planets!" the TV show came up with a new series of epithets for Robin to cry out at appropriate moments. The idea was that, if the Dynamic Duo found themselves in a smoke-filled room, Robin would say "Holy smoke!" If Batman and The Catwoman became overly familiar with one another, Robin would exclaim, "Holy mush!" Got it?
The introduction of these expletives into the comics was particularly irritating. Otherwise fine stories like "Batman's Baffling Turnabout!" (Batman # 183) and "Hate Of The Haunted Hangman!" (Detective Comics # 355) were marred by the occasional "Holy TNT!" or "Holy hydrogen peroxide!" The appearance of these unnecessary exclamations on the covers of various issues frequently destroyed any possibility of dramatic tension.
The TV show had a few positive effects on the comics. Batman's faithful butler Alfred had been killed off in the early stages of the New Look in a well-intentioned and admirably executed bid to generate some excitement in the strip. However, Alfred was featured in the TV series, forcing the comics to revive this key figure in the Batman legend. As noted before, the TV show rescued The Catwoman from comic-book limbo and revived Mr. Zero under his new name (Robin commented on the Frozen Felon's name-change: "Mr. Freeze? That sounds like a campy name dreamed up for a villain in a television program!" --Detective Comics # 373).
In addition to all of this, the popularity of the TV show generated a remarkable jump in comic book sales, as Batman's sales figures topped the one million mark for the only time in its history.
But at what a cost! Even if the comics never quite reached the TV show's depths of absurdity, Batman and Robin were still buried under a growing pile of excess Batbaggage (Bat-freeze pills, the Batbook of crime), and the overall effect was far short of what the World's Greatest Detective deserved. Costumed villains overran the books, and the occasional non-costumed criminal was usually a boob of the first order, the sort of ineffectual adversary that George Reeves tangled with on The Adventures Of Superman.
There were a few good stories published in this period ("The Million Dollar Debut Of Batgirl!" was a fine debut in Detective # 359), but the series as a whole became bland at best and just plain bad at worst.
The depths were finally hit in Batman # 188 with "The Eraser Who Tried To Rub Out Batman!" a ludicrous tale of a figure from Bruce Wayne's past who helped criminals commit perfect crimes by erasing all clues at the scene of the crime--with his pencil-eraser headgear! Holy bottom-of-the-barrel!
By this time, the bat-backlash was setting in. There were complaints about the camp tone of the Caped Crusaders' exploits and about Batman's domination of The Justice League of America. Although the TV show was still fairly popular at the time, the editorial decision was made to excise camp elements from Batman and Detective Comics. The break from the TV show was accomplished with "The Round-Robin Death Threats!" in Detective # 366-367, a nifty two-parter accurately trumpeted as "a Batman thriller in the 'grand old' tradition!"
Subsequent stories varied from serious to (only slightly) silly, but the death of the batfad and the cancellation of the TV show also spelled an end to high sales figures. DC Comics went through a change in management, and Batman struggled through the end of the '60s. The TV show had damaged his credibility badly, and only the return of a "creature of the night" motif in the early '70s salvaged the character's dignity. Even today, however, the Caped Crusader's sales fall far short of what one might expect for such a famous character.
The success of the TV show was such that the video image of Batman is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate from the comic-book hero that spawned it. Batman deserves the respect of the general public; maybe the upcoming Batman feature film will help in that regard.
Meanwhile, we Batman fans can still enjoy our favorite super-hero's adventures and maybe learn to make the most of the TV show's legacy. I still find the "Holy jet-stream!" lines obnoxious, but Police Chief O'Hara, a creation of the TV show, put in an appearance in Steve Englehart's celebrated Batman serial a few years back. Doug Moench's writing on Batman and Detective Comics bears a superficial resemblance to the TV-show format, as he presents a series of two-part adventures with different Special Guest Villains.
The Batman legend grows.
And, personally, I rather hope the new movie makes use of "The Batman Theme," for old time's sake.
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/
If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
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