Batman (TV series)


Batman is an American live-action television series based on the DC Comics character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin—two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City from a variety of archvillains. It is known for its camp style and upbeat theme music, as well as its intentionally humorous, simplistic morality aimed at its preteen audience. The 120 episodes aired on the ABC network for three seasons from January 12, 1966, to March 14, 1968, twice weekly during the first two seasons, and weekly for the third. A companion feature film was released in 1966 between the first and second seasons of the TV show.
Batman held the record for the longest-running live-action superhero television series until it was surpassed by Smallville in 2007.

Overview

The series focuses on Batman and Robin as they defend Gotham City from its various criminals. Although the lives of their alter-egos, millionaire Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson are frequently shown, it is usually only briefly, in the context of their being called away on superhero business or in circumstances where they need to employ their public identities to assist in their crime-fighting. The "Dynamic Duo" typically comes to the aid of the Gotham City Police Department upon the latter being stumped by a supervillain, who is usually accompanied in their appearances by several henchmen, often with nicknames themed around the criminal or the crime, and, in the case of male villains, an attractive female companion. Throughout each episode, Batman and Robin follow a series of seemingly improbable clues to discover the supervillain's plan, then figure out how to thwart that plan and capture the criminal.
For the first two seasons, Batman aired twice a week on consecutive nights. Every story is a two-parter, except for two three-parters featuring villainous team-ups in the second season. The titles of each multi-part story usually rhyme. The third and final season, which aired one episode a week and introduced Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, consists of self-contained stories. Each third-season story ends with a teaser featuring the next episode's guest villain, except for the series finale. The cliffhangers between multiple-part stories consist of villains holding someone captive, usually Batman and/or Robin, with the captive being threatened by death, serious injury, or another fate. These cliffhangers are resolved early in follow-up episodes, with captives escaping the traps.
Ostensibly a crime series, the show's style is intentionally campy and tongue-in-cheek. It exaggerates situations and plays them for laughs, while the characters take the absurd situations very seriously.

Cast and characters

Regular cast

  • Adam West as Bruce Wayne / Batman:
A multi-millionaire industrialist whose parents were murdered when he was a child and who now secretly uses his vast fortune to fight crime as the superhero Batman. Producer William Dozier cast Adam West in the role after seeing him perform as the James Bond-like spy Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik television commercial. Lyle Waggoner had screen-tested for the role, though West ultimately won out because, it was said, he was the only person who could deliver his lines with a straight face. West later voiced an animated version of the title character on The New Adventures of Batman while Waggoner would appear in a later superhero TV series of his own, as Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman.
  • Burt Ward as Dick Grayson / Robin:
Batman's sidekick, dubbed the "Boy Wonder," is a high school student noted for his recurring interjections in the form of "Holy ________, Batman!" The series avoids referencing Robin's origins as Bruce Wayne's fellow "crime orphan" and Wayne's appointment as Dick Grayson's legal guardian. Ward later voiced this character on the 1977 animated TV series The New Adventures of Batman.
Batman's loyal butler and Batgirl's discreet confidant. He is the only person who knows the true identities of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Barbara Gordon.
The Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department and one of Batman's two primary police contacts. He summons the Dynamic Duo via the Batphone or the Bat Signal.
Gotham City's Chief of Police and Batman's other primary police contact. The character was created by Semple for the series as someone for Gordon to talk to and later briefly added to the comics. In 2013, DC revealed this incarnation's first name as "Miles" in their Batman' 66 comics.
Dick Grayson's maternal aunt. She first appeared in the comics two years prior to the series to give Bruce and Dick a reason to be secretive about their dual identities.
  • Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon / Batgirl:
Commissioner Gordon's daughter, Gotham City librarian, and crime-fighting partner for Batman and Robin in the third season. Occasionally, this threesome was nicknamed the "Terrific Trio".
  • William Dozier as the Narrator.
According to West's memoir Back to the Batcave, his first exposure to the series concept was through reading a sample script in which Batman enters a nightclub in full costume and requests a booth near the wall, as he "shouldn't wish to attract attention". The scrupulously formal dialogue and the way that Batman earnestly believed he could avoid standing out while wearing a skintight blue-and-grey costume convinced West of the character's comic potential.

Recurring villains

A clown-themed, prank-loving villain and Batman's arch-enemy who leaves behind jokes as clues to his crimes.
A penguin-themed gentleman thief who commits crimes using multipurpose umbrellas.
A criminal who leaves behind riddles as clues to his crimes.
A cat-themed jewel thief and cat burglar in a complicated love-hate relationship with Batman.
An Egyptologist who developed a split personality after being struck on the head during a student protest. Each time he is hit on the head, he switches between the personalities of a university professor and a reincarnated version of the pharaoh Tutankhamun.
A mad scientist who now needs sub-zero temperatures to survive after exposure to a freeze solution. His weapon of choice is a freeze-blast gun, capable of freezing its target solid. In his first appearance, the gun can also produce a heat/incendiary beam.
A formally dressed villain with an obsession for collecting hats.
A smug, bald genius whose crimes and speech patterns involve eggs.
A criminal with a fondness for jewelry.
A Western-themed villain whose partners at various times include Okie Annie and Calamity Jan. The three of them spoof famous Western characters from the movies.
A Russian villainess often paired with Egghead. Before this role, Baxter appears in one story as "Zelda the Great", a magician criminal.
A gangster with a fondness for flowers.
Producers developed several tentative scripts for Two-Face but never produced any of them. Clint Eastwood was allegedly considered for the role shortly before the series was canceled.

Episodes

Production

Origin

In the early 1960s, Ed Graham Productions optioned the television rights to the comic book Batman and planned a straightforward juvenile adventure show much like Adventures of Superman and The Lone Ranger, to air on CBS on Saturday mornings.
East Coast ABC executive Yale Udoff, a Batman fan in his childhood, 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.
As well, in 1964, film buff Hugh Hefner screened all 15 chapters of the 1943 Batman serial at the Playboy Mansion. The trendy event received much notice in the press, prompting Columbia to offer the unedited serial to theaters in 1965 as An Evening with Batman and Robin in one long, marathon showing. This re-release was successful enough to inspire the development of a television series based on the property. When negotiations between CBS and Graham stalled, DC Comics quickly reobtained the rights and made a deal with ABC, which 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 production company, Greenway Productions. ABC and Fox expected a hip, fun, yet 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 campy comedy. Originally, espionage novelist Eric Ambler was to have scripted a TV movie that would launch the television series. However, he dropped out after learning of Dozier's campy comedy approach. Eventually, two sets of screen tests were filmed, one with Adam West and Burt Ward and the other with Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell, with West and Ward winning the roles.

Season 1

had signed on as head scriptwriter. 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 campy comedy, and in Ross's case, sometimes outright slapstick and satire. It was initially intended as a one-hour show, but as ABC executives changed the premiere date from fall 1966 to January and the network having only two early-evening half-hour time slots available, the show was split into two parts to air in 30-minute installments on Wednesdays and Thursdays. A cliffhanger connected the two episodes, echoing the old movie serials.
Some ABC affiliates were unhappy that ABC included a fourth commercial minute in every episode of Batman. One affiliate refused to air the series. The network insisted it needed the extra advertising revenue.
The Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, and the Mad Hatter, villains who originated in the comic books, all appeared in the series, the plots of which were deliberately villain-driven. According to the producers, Frank Gorshin was selected to portray Riddler because he had been a Batman fan since childhood. Catwoman was portrayed by three different actresses during the series run: by Julie Newmar in the first two seasons, by Lee Meriwether in the feature film based on the series, and by Eartha Kitt in the third and final season.
Burgess Meredith improvised the Penguin's "quacking" to avoid coughing out loud from smoke getting caught in his throat from the cigarette required for the role.
The show was extraordinarily popular, and was considered "the biggest TV phenomenon of the mid-1960s".