Batman (TV series)

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Template:Infobox television Batman was the title of an exceptionally popular 1960s TV series based on the comic-book character Batman that aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) for 2 1/2 seasons from 12 January, 1966 to 14 March, 1968.

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The series

The series was produced in the United States of America and debuted at 7:30, Wednesday evening, January 12, 1966 on ABC television, at a time when other popular TV series included The Monkees and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. The Batman series set a standard that identifies it as a product of the 1960s. It was known for its silly high camp humour and continues to be the version some associate with the Batman character despite it being least reflective of the Batman mythos. It ran for a total of 120 25-minute episodes.

The show revolved around the adventures of the crimefighter Batman (Adam West) and his sidekick Robin (Burt Ward) in Gotham City. Batman's dual identity was that of the debonair millionaire Bruce Wayne, who lived outside the city in "stately Wayne Manor." He lived with his youthful ward Dick Grayson (aka Robin), faithful butler Alfred (Alan Napier), and Aunt Harriet Cooper (Madge Blake). The adventures usually called for the heroes to fight supervillains such as the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin and John Astin), the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), and Catwoman (at various times Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt). Other main characters were Police Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton), Chief O'Hara (Stafford Repp) of the Gotham City Police, and Batgirl (Yvonne Craig). Quick action sequences, the voice of TV producer William Dozier as a pompous sounding narrator identified as Desmond Doomsday on the Batman Television Soundtrack Album providing the storylines, psychedelic sets and costumes, wild camera angles (with the criminals' lairs always being filmed with the camera at an angle to emphasize the "crooked" nature of the filthy criminals), and bright colors were all meant to evoke the four-color, campy world of the comic books of the 1950s and 1960s under the strict Comics Code Authority. The series is notable for its use of cliffhanger endings and the Batclimb cameo, which allowed top celebrities of the 1960s to appear in a small part. The fight scenes between the "Dynamic Duo" and the villains were interlaced with titles that reflected comic book style sound effects: WHAM! POW! Some observers contend the titles also helped cover low-quality stunts and missed punches.

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Chart of episodes and villains

Episode(s) Title(s) Date* Villain Actor
1 & 2 Hi Diddle Riddle/Smack in the Middle 1/12/66 Riddler Frank Gorshin
3 & 4 Fine Feathered Finks/The Penguin's a Jinx 1/19/66 Penguin Burgess Meredith
5 & 6 The Joker Is Wild/Batman Is Riled 1/26/66 Joker Cesar Romero
7 & 8 Instant Freeze/Rats Like Cheese 2/2/66 Mr. Freeze George Sanders
9 & 10 Zelda the Great/A Death Worse Than Fate 2/9/66 Zelda Anne Baxter
11 & 12 A Riddle a Day Keeps the Riddler Away/When the Rat's Away, The Mice Will Play 2/16/66 Riddler Frank Gorshin
13 & 14 The Thirteenth Hat/Batman Stands Pat 2/23/66 Mad Hatter David Wayne
15 & 16 The Joker Goes to School/He Meets His Match, The Grisly Ghoul 3/2/66 Joker Cesar Romero
17 & 18 True or False-Face/Holy Rat Race 3/9/66 False Face Malachi Throne (uncredited)
19 & 20 The Purr-Fect Crime/Better Luck Next Time 3/16/66 Catwoman Julie Newmar
21 & 22 The Penguin Goes Straight/Not Yet, He Ain't 3/23/66 Penguin Burgess Meredith
23 & 24 The Ring of Wax/Give 'Em the Axe 3/30/66 Riddler Frank Gorshin
25 & 26 The Joker Trumps an Ace/Batman Sets the Pace 4/6/66 Joker Cesar Romero
27 & 28 The Curse of Tut/The Pharoah's in a Rut 4/13/66 King Tut Victor Buono
29 & 30 The Bookworm Turns/While Gotham City Burns 4/20/66 Bookworm Roddy McDowall
31 & 32 Death in Slow Motion/The Riddler's False Notion 4/27/66 Riddler Frank Gorshin
33 & 34 Fine Finny Fiends/Batman Makes the Scenes 5/4/66 Penguin Burgess Meredith
35 & 36 Shoot a Crooked Arrow/Walk the Straight and Narrow 9/7/66 Archer Art Carney
37 & 38 Hot Off the Griddle/The Cat and the Fiddle 9/14/66 Catwoman Julie Newmar
39 & 40 The Minstrel's Shakedown/Barbecued Batman 9/21/66 Minstrel Van Johnson
41 & 42 The Spell of Tut/Tut's Case Is Shut 9/28/66 King Tut Victor Buono
43 & 44 The Greatest Mother of Them All/Ma Parker 10/5/66 Ma Parker Shelley Winters.{Julie Newmar as Catwoman and Milton Berle had cameo roles}
45 & 46 The Clock King's Angry Crimes/The Clock King Gets Crowned 10/12/66 Clock King Walter Slezak
47 & 48 An Egg Grows in Gotham/The Yegg Foes in Gotham 10/19/66 Egghead Vincent Price
49 & 50 The Devil's Fingers/The Dead Ringers 10/26/66 Chandell & evil twin Harry Liberace
51 & 52 Hizzonner the Penguin/Dizzonner the Penguin 11/2/66 Penguin Burgess Meredith
53 & 54 Green Ice/Deep Freeze 11/9/66 Mr. Freeze Otto Preminger
55 & 56 The Impractical Joker/The Joker's Provokers 11/16/66 Joker Cesar Romero
57 & 58 Marsha, Queen of Diamonds/Marsha's Scheme of Diamonds 11/23/66 Marsha, Queen of Diamonds Carolyn Jones
59 & 60 Come Back, Shame/It's How You Play the Game 11/30/66 Shame Cliff Robertson
61 & 62 The Penguin's Nest/The Bird's Last Jest 12/7/66 Penguin Burgess Meredith
63 & 64 The Cat's Meow/The Bat's Cow Tow 12/14/66 Catwoman Julie Newmar
65 & 66 The Puzzles Are Coming/The Duo Is Slumming 12/21/66 Puzzler Maurice Evans
67 & 68 The Sandman Cometh/The Catwoman Goeth 12/28/66 Sandman & Catwoman Michael Rennie & Julie Newmar
69 & 70 The Contaminated Cowl/The Mad Hatter Runs Afoul 1/4/67 Mad Hatter David Wayne
71-73 The Zodiac Crimes/The Joker's Hard Times/The Penguin Declines 1/11/67 Joker & Penguin Cesar Romero & Burgess Meredith
74 & 75 That Darn Catwoman/Scat, Darn Catwoman 1/19/67 Catwoman Julie Newmar
76-78 Penguin Is a Girl's Best Friend/Penguin Sets a Trend/Penguin's Disastrous End 1/26/67 Penguin & Marsha, Queen of Diamonds Burgess Meredith & Carolyn Jones
79 & 80 Batman's Anniversary/A Riddling Controversy 2/8/67 Riddler John Astin
81 & 82 The Joker's Last Laugh/The Joker's Epitaph 2/15/67 Joker Cesar Romero
83 & 84 Catwoman Goes to College/Batman Displays His Knowledge 2/22/67 Catwoman Julie Newmar
85 & 86 A Piece of the Action/Batman's Satisfaction 3/1/67 Colonel Gumm Roger C. Carmel
87 & 88 King Tut's Coup/Batman's Waterloo 3/8/67 King Tut Victor Buono
89 & 90 Black Widow Strikes Again/Caught in the Spider's Den 3/15/67 Black Widow Talullah Bankhead
91 & 92 Pop Goes the Joker/Flop Goes the Joker 3/22/67 Joker Cesar Romero
93 & 94 Ice Spy/The Duo Defy 3/29/67 Mr. Freeze Eli Wallach
95 Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin 9/14/67 Penguin Burgess Meredith
96 Ring Around the Riddler 9/21/67 Riddler Frank Gorshin
97 The Wail of the Siren 9/28/67 Siren Joan Collins
98 & 99 The Sport of Penguins/A Horse of Another Color 10/5/67 Penguin & Lola Lasagne Burgess Meredith & Ethel Merman
100 The Unkindest Tut of All 10/19/67 King Tut Victor Buono
101 Louie, the Lilac 10/26/67 Louie the Lilac Milton Berle
102 & 103 The Ogg and I/How to Hatch a Dinosaur 11/2/67 Egghead Vincent Price
104 Surf's Up! Joker's Under! 11/16/67 Joker Cesar Romero
105-107 The Londinium Larcenies/The Foggiest Notion/The Bloody Tower 11/23/67 Lord & Lady Ffogg Rudy Vallee & Glynis Johns
108 Catwoman's Dressed to Kill 12/14/67 Catwoman Eartha Kitt
109 The Ogg Couple 12/21/67 Egghead Vincent Price
110 & 111 The Funny Feline Felonies/The Joke's on Catwoman 12/28/67 Joker & Catwoman Cesar Romero & Eartha Kitt
112 Louie's Lethal Lilac Time 1/11/68 Louie the Lilac Milton Berle
113 Nora Clavicle and the Ladies' Crime Club 1/18/68 Nora Clavicle Barbara Rush
114 Penguin's Clean Sweep 1/25/68 Penguin Burgess Meredith
115 & 116 The Great Escape/The Great Train Robbery 2/1/68 Shame & Calamity Jan Cliff Robertson & Dina Merrill
117 I'll Be a Mummy's Uncle 2/22/68 King Tut Victor Buono
118 The Joker's Flying Saucer 2/29/68 Joker Cesar Romero
119 The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra 3/7/68 Dr. Cassandra Spellcraft Ida Lupino
120 Minerva, Mayhem and Millionaires 3/14/68 Minerva Zsa Zsa Gabor
  • NOTE: Two-part episodes premiering before September 1967 appeared on consecutive days. The date given here is the date the first episode in a multi-part episode appeared. The second episode from January 1966 to August 1967 appeared the following day. Exceptions are the three part episodes. #72 was first seen 1/12/67 and #73 on 1/18/67. #74 was first seen 1/19/67 and #75 on 1/25/67. #76 premiered on 1/26/67, #77 on 2/1/67, and #78 on 2/2/67. Beginning September 1967, the series appeared only once a week and the additional parts of multi-episodes appeared the following week or weeks.
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Genesis of the series

In the early 1960s, Ed Graham Productions optioned the TV rights to Batman, and planned a straightforward juvenile adventure show, much like The Adventures of Superman and The Lone Ranger, for CBS on Saturday mornings. Mike Henry, who would later go on to star in the Tarzan franchise, and is best known for his portrayal of Jackie Gleason's dipstick son in the Smokey and the Bandit movies, was set to star as Batman. Reportedly, DC Comics commissioned publicity photos of Henry in a Batman costume. Around this same time, the Playboy Club in Chicago was screening the Batman serials on Saturday nights. It became very popular, as the hip partygoers would cheer and applaud the Dynamic Duo, and boo and hiss the villains. An east coast ABC executive named Yale Udoff, who was a Batman fan in childhood, attended one of these parties at the Playboy Club and was impressed with the reaction the serials were getting. He contacted west coast ABC executives Harve Bennett and Edgar Scherick, who were already considering developing a TV 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..

When negotiations between CBS and Graham stalled, DC quickly reeled the rights back in and made the deal with ABC. ABC farmed the rights out to 20th Century Fox to produce the series. Fox, in turn, handed the project to William Dozier and his Greenway Productions. Where as ABC and Fox were expecting a hip and fun, yet still serious, adventure show, Dozier, who loathed comic books, concluded the only way to make the show work was to do it as a pop art camp comedy. Dozier may or may not have screened Andy Warhol's Batman Dracula film, made without DC's permission, which is believed to be the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. Originally, mystery novelist Eric Ambler was to write the motion picture that would launch the TV series, but he dropped out after learning of Dozier's camp comedy approach.

By time ABC pushed up the debut date to January 1966, thus foregoing the movie until the summer hiatus, Lorenzo Semple Jr. had signed on as head script writer. He wrote the pilot script, and generally kept his scripts more on the side of pop art adventure, making those episodes the best of the series. Stanley Ralph Ross, Stanford Sherman, and Charles Hoffman were script writers who generally leaned more toward camp comedy, and in Ross' case, sometimes outright slapstick and satire. Instead of producing a one-hour show, Dozier and Semple decided to have the show air twice a week in half-hour installments with a cliffhanger connecting the two episodes, echoing the old movie serials. Initially, Dozier wanted Ty Hardin to play Batman, but he was unavailable, filming Westerns in Europe. Eventually, two sets of screen tests were filmed, one with Adam West and Burt Ward, the other with Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell, with West and Ward winning the roles.

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Plot summary

A typical episode began with the daring Bat-villain doing something bad like robbing a bank. This was followed up by a scene inside Police Commissioner Gordon's office where he and Chief O'Hara would work out exactly which villain they were to face in that week's episode. Gordon would press a button on the Batphone, signaling a cut to Wayne Manor where faithful butler Alfred would answer the phone and say a line like "I'll just get him for you, sir." Alfred would then interrupt Master Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson (usually talking with Aunt Harriet) with a pretext to draw them away to answer the Batphone. Upon hearing of his enemies' diabolical schemes, Bruce would push a button concealed within a bust of Shakespeare on his desk, opening a hidden door in a bookcase revealing two poles. Wayne and Grayson would slide down the poles and emerge in the Batcave in full costume, where after colorful starting titles would jump into the Batmobile. Robin would say "Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed" and Batman would respond "Roger, ready to move out" and would race off out of the cave at high speeds.

After arriving at Commissioner Gordon's office, the initial discussion of the crime usually led to the Dynamic Duo conducting their investigation alone. In the investigation, a meeting with the villain would usually ensue with the heroes getting involved in a fight and the villain getting away only to come back and fight again later in the show in which he would capture one or many of our heroes and place them in a deathtrap with a cliffhanger ending which was usually resolved in the first few minutes of the next episode.

The same shenanigans were repeated in the following episode until the villain was defeated.

In Season 2, the show suffered from repetition, as the same formula was adhered to militantly. This, combined with Lorenzo Semple Jr. contributing fewer scripts and having less of an impact on the series, caused viewers to tire of the show, and for critics to justifiably complain, if you've seen one episode of Batman, you've seen them all.

By Season 3, due to falling ratings, Batgirl was added to attract young female viewers as well as older male viewers. The show was reduced to once a week, with mostly self-contained episodes, although the next week's villain would be in a tag at the end of the episode, giving the series a bit of a soap opera feel. It also looked more bizarre because of the cheap cardboard cut out back drops one would expect at a high school play. The show became very surreal in the third season, and very "Saturday morning-esque" in the negative definition of the phrase. At the end of the third season, ABC planned to cut the budget even more by eliminating Chief O'Hara and Robin, while making Batgirl Batman's full time partner. Both Dozier and West vetoed this idea, and ABC cancelled the show. Weeks later, NBC offered to pick the show up for a fourth season, and even restore it back to its twice a week format. Unfortunately, Fox had already torn down the sets. NBC didn't want to pay to rebuild, so the offer was withdrawn.

In 1972, Burt Ward and Yvonne Craig reunited as Robin and Batgirl, with Dick Gautier stepping in as Batman (Adam West was at the time, trying to distance himself from the Batman role) for a Women's Lib Equal Pay public service announcement. In 1979, West, Ward and Gorshin reunited on NBC for Hanna-Barbara's two Legends of the Superheroes TV specials, which also featured Captain Marvel, The Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman.

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Theme music

The title theme to Batman is one of the best-known theme tunes of all time. Composed by Neal Hefti, the song is built around a minimalistic and foreboding but catchy guitar hook reminiscent of spy film scores and surf music. It is a simple twelve bar blues progression using only three chords until the coda. The lyrics to the theme are sung by a female chorus and comprise ten repetitions of "Batman!" followed by a coda of "Dadadadadadadadadadadadada...Batman!"

The famously minimal song has been widely parodied in the decades since its debut, and remains a prominent pop-culture subject to this day. The theme has been re-recorded by dozens of artists, the most notable including Link Wray, The Ventures, The Kinks, The Who, and The Jam.

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Popularity

Image:TVGuidebatman.jpg Many sports, music, and media personalities, and a number of Hollywood actors, looked forward to and enjoyed their appearances as villains on the Batman show. They were generally allowed to overact and enjoy themselves on a high-rated TV series, guaranteeing them considerable exposure (and thus boosting their careers). The most popular villains on the show included Cesar Romero as the Joker; Burgess Meredith as The Penguin; Frank Gorshin as The Riddler; and Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Other famous names from the "rogues gallery" in the comic book series made appearances on the show (notably The Mad Hatter), and some were taken from other superheroes, such as The Archer and The Puzzler (Superman's villains) and The Clock King (Green Arrow's villain). Many other villains were created especially for the TV show, and never did appear in the comic books (such as "The Siren", "Chandelle", "Bookworm", "King Tut", "Lord Ffogg", "Dr. Cassandra", and "Louie the Lilac"), while some were hybrids. The comics' "Mr. Zero" was renamed "Mr. Freeze" (a name change that was copied in the comics with lasting effect), and the comics' "Brainy Barrows" was reworked as "Egghead". Other celebrities often appeared in scenes where the Dynamic Duo are scaling a building wall and the celebrity would suddenly open a window and have a short conversation with the superheroes. So many celebrities wanted to appear on the show that some, such as Elizabeth Taylor, even had to be turned away.

Adam West enjoys the story that he was almost part of two of the 3 big B's of the 1960s, Batman, The Beatles and Bond. West says he actually was invited to play Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service based on his popularity as Batman, but declined the role as he felt it should be played by a British actor.

The popularity of the TV show did not translate well to the silver screen, however. A movie version of the TV show was released to theaters (see Batman (1966 film)), but it did not become a large box office hit, even though creatively, the movie was just as good as the first season episodes, and superior to most of the second and third season episodes. The movie continued to be profitably rereleased to theaters, TV, and video for decades. Originally, the movie had been created to help sell the TV series abroad, but the success of the series in America sold itself, and the movie was brought out after season one had already been aired.

The live-action TV show was extraordinarily popular. At the height of its popularity, it was the only prime time TV show other than Peyton Place to be broadcast twice in one week as part of its regular schedule, airing at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. Episodes of the show were often filmed as two-part cliffhangers, with each storyline beginning on Wednesday and ending on the Thursday night episode. The first episode of a storyline would typically end with Batman and Robin being trapped in a ridiculous deathtrap, while the narrator would tell viewers to watch the next night with the repeated phrase: "Tune in tomorrow — same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!" Even now, many years after the show ceased production, this catch-phrase is still a long-running punchline in popular culture.

The show even contributed to the careers of two real-life New York City policemen, David Greenberg and Robert Hantz. This pair had a remarkable career as police officers, so much so that they were given street nicknames of "Batman and Robin". Their careers were fictionalized in the 1974 movie The Super Cops.

Despite the show's popularity, many Batman fans abhor the series for its campy presentation, and critics claim the series has not aged well since the 1970s. The series is seen by some as a black mark on the medium of comic books, as it cast comics as silly, light-weight entertainment meant strictly for children — an image that comic books have never completely rid themselves of, though the publication of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in 1986 (and the Tim Burton directed movie 1989) did finally succeed in reshaping Batman's image outside of comic books. The fact that the TV series typically depicted women in a stereotypical fashion (with a few noted exceptions like Batgirl) dates it further.

Adam West acknowledges those criticisms in his autobiography Back to the Batcave, but argues that it was the wrong era for a 'straight' Batman TV show, and the series was responsible for saving the character for future generations to enjoy, as the comic was in danger of being cancelled before the TV show revived sales.

TV critics and historians note that the real appeal of the show lay in its array of oddball, outrageous, and often charismatic villains. The hippie counterculture of the 1960s enjoyed the fact that even though they would eventually win and put the bad guys in jail, Batman and Robin portrayed the forces of "law and order" as being woefully humorless, "square", and unaware of the fact that the world was laughing at them. The villains, on the other hand, had the chance to rebel against society, wear gaudy, flashy costumes, and have all the fun... until they were required to lose and be captured by Batman and Robin. The series had the advantage of appealing to two major age groups for entirely different reasons; adults viewed it as a humorous spoof while children enjoyed it as a flashy adventure show.

The series' stars, Adam West and Burt Ward, were typecast for decades afterwards, with West especially finding himself unable to escape the reputation the series gave him as a hammy, campy actor. However, years after the series' impact faded, West found fame and respect among comic book and animation fans, who appreciated his work on the TV series. One of the more popular episodes of Batman: The Animated Series paid tribute to West with an episode entitled "The Grey Ghost." In this episode, West played the role of an aging star of a campy superhero TV series Bruce Wayne watched as a child and would be inspired by as a crimefighter, who found new popularity with the next generation of fans. In addition, the most frequent visual influence is that later Batmobiles usually have a rear rocket thruster that usually fires as the car makes a fast start.

In 2003, West and Ward reunited for a tongue-in-cheek telefilm entitled Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt which combined dramatized recreations of the filming of the original series (with younger actors standing in for the stars), with modern day footage of West and Ward searching for a stolen Batmobile. The film included cameo appearances by Newmar and Gorshin, as well as Lee Meriwether who had played Catwoman in the 1966 film and Lyle Waggoner, who had been an early candidate for the role of Batman. The movie received high ratings and was released on DVD May 2005.

Despite much popular demand, no DVD release of the series has to date occurred in North America, and this situation seems unlikely to be resolved in the near future. The problem as explained by the website TVShowsonDVD.com is that Warner Bros. owns the Batman character, while 20th Century Fox owns the TV series (Warner did not take over DC until 1976), and the two companies have, to date, yet to come to an agreement regarding home video/DVD release of the series (it was later revealed that Warner Bros. isn't involved). This is why no VHS release of the series occurred, either. As a result, the 1966 feature film remains the only element of the original series officially available for non-broadcast viewing in North America. This even affected Return To The Batcave, which was only able to make use of footage from the 1966 movie.

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Trivia

  • The Batman theme was the most recorded song of 1966. In addition to Neal Hefti's original version, and the official soundtrack version by Nelson Riddle, the theme was covered by The Who, The Marketts, Dan and Dale, The Ventures, Al Hirt, and Jan and Dean, who released an entire concept album titled Jan & Dean Meet Batman. Then there were the groups who seemed to exist just to cover the theme, such as "Bruce and the Robin Rockers" and "The Sensational Batboys".
  • In the pilot episode, "Hi Diddle Riddle...Smack in the Middle", Batman is more of an outsider. If in court, he would have to remove his mask, exposing his secret identity. Later episodes ignore this fact and not only have Batman in court in full costume, but make him pure "establishment" by having him substitute for the district attorney. Also, an early draft of the script gives Batman a dark edge. He "allows" Molly to fall to her death in the Batcave. DC protested and the scene was rewritten to have Batman desperately attempting to save Molly unsuccessfully. This is also the only instance on the show where a character dies without comedic intent.
  • A line spoken by Robin (Chris O'Donnell) in Batman Forever is a straight homage to Robin's catch-phrase. During the movie he says "Holey Rusted Metal, Batman" (referring to the island's land-scape which is made from metal and has holes in it) which sounds intentionally similar to lines spoken by Robin beginning with the word "Holy" and ending with "Batman".
  • Two-Face was considered too gruesome a character and so never appeared on the show. However his inclusion was considered for a while and apparently Clint Eastwood was considered for the role during this period.
  • Jill St. John in a Robin costume, from the pilot episode, may have inspired Frank Miller's creation of Carrie Kelley in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
  • Jim Carrey who played the Riddler in Batman Forever admits that his portrayal of the character was inspired by Frank Gorshin.
  • The show also cemented the name of the villain Mr. Freeze (previously known as Mr. Zero - and, on one occasion, Dr. Zero). Mr. Freeze is actually played by three actors on the show. The villain was originally played by George Sanders in one of the very first episodes. During the second season Otto Preminger (the famous Austrian film director) and Eli Wallach took turns playing the Frosty Fiend. Mr. Freeze tended to have had a "Germanic" element to his character, which was used again when Mr. Freeze re-appears in the 1997 film Batman and Robin. This time, Mr. Freeze is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went on to become Governor of California in 2003.
  • The one actor never given on-screen credit as a villain was Malachi Throne. He played Falseface, the master of disguises who, when not in one of said disguises, wore a plastic facial mask that rendered his real face unrecognizable. Playing along with this, the producers used the on-screen graphic "? as Falseface" on the show's credits. Not suprisingly his hideout is behind a "FALSE FRont" of an abandoned Movie studio; he also has a special "trick truck"; when his henchmen sing "Three cheers for False-face" he rewards them by saying "Thanks-I know you didn't mean it." The one unbearable word for F.F. is "Truth." Batman and Robin trick the master deceiver with a false batmobile and false Batman and Robin!!
  • When Joan Collins appeared as The Siren, it was not the first time in her career that she played a temptress based on Greek mythology who could entrance men. Collins had a similar role in 1962 in The Road to Hong Kong (the last of the famous "Road" movies starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby), when she played Diana, the Greek goddess of the moon.
  • Julie Newmar was not available for the final season, due to the filming of McKenna's Gold so Catwoman was played by Eartha Kitt
  • Lee Meriwether, who played Catwoman in the Batman movie, also played a minor role in an episode featuring King Tut. Her character, Lisa Carson, was the actual name of the wife of Stanley Ralph Ross (who wrote that particular episode and many others in the series).
  • Minerva, the series' final villain, was played by Zsa Zsa Gabor. The role had originally been intended for Mae West. Ms West was unavailable, due to her role in the film Myra Breckinridge, which was preparing to shoot at the same time.
  • Dr. Cassandra (played by Ida Lupino) was named for Cassandra - a girl who lived next door to Stanley Ralph Ross (and who constantly asked Ross to be put into a Batman story). When it became apparent that the series was winding down, Mr. Ross decided to accept the girl's request.
  • Many actors who had small roles in Batman episodes could be seen in other series of that time period. For example, Michael Pataki plays one of King Tut's henchmen. He also plays a Klingon in the classic Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", a New York City detective in All in the Family and appears in several episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati. Nancy Kovack and Phyllis Douglas (who both play henchwomen for the Joker) can also be found in Star Trek episodes. Lyn Peters, who played Lady Prudence in the 3 Londinium episodes, also had some small roles in Get Smart. Her real name was Lyn Paul, one of the members of the The New Seekers folk group.
  • Marianna Hill, who plays Cleo Patrick (one of King Tut's "Queens of the Nile") is a cousin of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. , who led the American forces in Operation Desert Storm. Her real name is Marianna Schwarzkopf.
  • William Dozier and Howard Horwitz, who served as producers on the show, also play cameo roles in the final episode (Minerva, Mayhem and Millionaires)
  • Some of the costumes used by the women of Batman could be seen in several episodes. The purple costume worn by Kathy Kersh as "Cornelia" (another of the Joker's henchwomen), was also used by Linda Gaye Scott (who plays "Moth", one of The Riddler's assistant). A purple and orange outfit used by Phyllis Douglas in her role as Josie Miller (yet another of the Joker's assistants) is later used by Ida Lupino in her role as Dr. Cassandra. Recycling costumes was probably a cost-saving measure on behalf of the show's wardrobe department.
  • Linda Gaye Scott is an heiress to the Scott Paper Company .
  • Although Frank Gorshin may be best known for playing The Riddler, he was a well known comedian and impressionist during the 1960s. Gorshin guested on many variety shows of the day, including one notable appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on the night of February 9, 1964. Unfortunately for Gorshin, that particular Sunday night is now remembered as the first North American television appearance of The Beatles.
  • Jacques Bergerac, who plays "French Freddie the Fence" in several Batman episodes, later became the president of the Revlon Cosmetics Company.
  • Dr. Cassandra (played by Ida Lupino) used several weapons in her attempts to defeat Batman - such as special vanishing pills that made her invisible, and which allowed her to spring several of Gotham City's arch-criminals from the Gotham State Penitentiary as part of her crime wave. One of them was called the "Alvino ray-gun" (which she used at Spiffany's Jewelry Store to "flatten" Batman, Robin and Batgirl), after first getting browbeaten by G. David Schine, the shop's proprietor. In original drafts of the script, the weapon was known as the "Ronald Ray-gun". While this was meant to poke fun at Ronald Reagan (who was Governor of California from 1967 to 1975), it seemed that this hit a bit too close to home to those in authority, who asked for a different name. The gun's eventual name was taken from Alvino Rey, a prominent band leader of the 1930s and 1940s. Neal Hefti, who wrote the show's theme, had worked with Rey - he was likely the one who suggested the new name.
  • Several cast members recorded records tied in to the series. Adam West released a single titled "Miranda", a country-tinged pop song that he actually performed in costume during live appearances in the 1960s. Frank Gorshin released a song titled "The Riddler" which was composed and arranged by Mel Torme. The track captures Gorshin's insane portrayal perfectly. Burgess Meredith recorded a spoken word single called "The Escape" backed with "The Capture", which was The Penguin narrating his recent crime spree to a jazz beat.
  • Lesley Gore , who plays "Pussycat" (one of Catwoman's henchwomen) , was a popular singer of the day with hits such as "It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To". Gore was also the niece of Howie Horwitz, one of the show's producers. "Pussycat" may have inspired Frank Miller's character of "Holly" in Batman: Year One. Gore was only one of a number of musical acts to appear on the show. Others included Paul Revere and the Raiders , Johnnie Green and His Green Men (see next entry) as well as Chad and Jeremy (who starred in a two part episode where Catwoman steals their voices).
  • A page on the 1966 Batman TV Tribute Site notes an intriguing connection between all the musical acts who performed on the show. Johnnie Green and His Green Men played during an episode featuring the Joker during the show's third season - where the Joker attempts to win the world surfing championship by kidnapping Gotham City's surfing hero Skip Parker. Charles FitzSimons (who served as the assistant to Executive Producer William Dozier) saw Johnny perform a fire-eating act in his office. Combined with the bright green hair color used by the band members, it was just "far out" enough that FitzSimons booked them for the show. Johnny and his band members were also friends of Chad and Jeremy and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Not only that, but during the 1970's the band recorded for AVI Records, a label owned by Liberace. And to bring this full circle, the site also mentions that Johnny dated Lesley Gore. Johnny told many of his stories to author Mark Starks for his book, "Johnny Green & the Greenmen"(2006).
  • At least one of the show's villains was based on a real-life criminal. Shelley Winters plays "Ma Parker", a woman who commits a series of crimes in Gotham City along with her children (and who actually manages to take over the Gotham State Penitentiary for a while). Her name was taken from Ma Barker , who headed a real-life criminal family in the 1930s.
  • Cliff Robertson plays "Shame" (described by Batman as the "Conniving Cowboy of Crime". His name is taken from the classic Western film Shane , which starred Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur. And when you watch the "Shame" episode, keep an eye out for the little boy who at the end, as Batman and Robin arrest Shame and his criminal gang cries out "Come back Shame, come back!" That too is a parody on Shane, where Joey yells out "Shane, Come back Shane".
  • Cliff Robertson was not the only family member in that Batman episode. His wife Dina Merrill plays Shame's henchwoman Calamity Jan - a parody on Calamity Jane. Her real name, incidentally, is Nedenia Marjorie Hutton, the daughter of Wall Street wizard Edward Francis Hutton and Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post.
  • Adam West pitched an idea to have Robert Lowery, who played Batman in the 1949 serial, on the show as Bruce's oft-mentioned but never seen "Uncle Phillip". Unfortunately, the deal never happened.
  • In the series only four villains "died": Riddler's girlfriend Stella (falls into the Batcave's atomic power plant), in "The Bookworm Turns", a fake "Commissioner Gordon" (shot and falls off a bridge), and in "Zelda the Great", two out-of-town gunmen try to shoot the Dynamic Duo while concealed in mummy cases (shoot themselves instead).
  • In the Batman movie, six villains "died": One of Penguin's henchman accidentally trips Joker's jack-in-box trap and falls into Penguin's "exploding octupus" and five of Penguin's henchmen are accidentally reanimated with "heavy" water and disappear at the slightest touch.
  • Only two of the series guest villains ever deduced Batman's true identity: Egghead by deductive reasoning, and King Tut on two occasions - once with a bug on the Batmobile and once by accidently mining into the batcave. Batman defeats them both: Egghead is thwarted by shorting out his memory egg-traction machine; King Tut is defeated once by being publicly discredited, and another by amenisa. Ironically, two of the series regular Guest Villains came close to discovering Batman's identity:
  • Joker once tried to follow the Batmobile in his "Jokermobile" with radar, but ended up finding a mini batcave model with the the note, "Laugh Criminals Laugh." In another episode, the Joker accidently came upon the Batpoles in Wayne Manor and slid down one (this is the only time in which the camera angle actually looks down a batpole). In the nick of time Alfred Pennyworth pushes a button which activates the Batpole cushion, causing the Joker to go up and down several times. The Joker is so terrified he never realizes that he's slid down into the Batcave.
  • Penguin once tricked Batman into bringing a bugged Penguin umbrella into the Batcave so he could plan crimes using the Caped Crusader's knowledge. However, unlike King Tut or Joker, he never used the bug as a tracking device.
  • Epsiodes "Death in Slow motion" and "The Riddler's False Notion" deal with silent movies: both Neil Hamilton and guest star Francis X. Bushman began their movie careers in silent pictures.
  • Guns were rarely used in the series by villains. Stella pulls a (dectivated) pistol on Batman; Joker had a gun while trying to rob "Wayne Manor" (but was disarmed by Alfred); Penguin had his "Umbrella guns"; in "The Bookworm Turns," an accomplice shoots the fake Commissioner Gordon with a rifle; in "Death in Slow motion/The Riddler's False Notion" Riddler and his accomplaices pull pistols on the Dyamic Duo. Milton Berle, who had a uncredited cameo as a convict/fake prision guard in the "Ma Parker" epsiode, pointed a rifle at Batman, but threw it away when Batman reminded him that any shooting would ruin his chances of parole. Shame and his gang twice ambush the Dyamic Duo with guns. Chandell's evil twin brother Harry, Ma Parker, and the Penguin's accomplices did on occasion fire machine guns at the Dyamic Duo in their respective epsiodes.
  • The Cartoon teaser of the 1960's Batman series has caricatures of Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman among a parade of villains.
  • In a tribute to the 1960's Batman, a latter-day cartoon animated series of Batman had an epsiode in which three boys narrated three different versions of Batman's adventures. One storyline had Batman battling the Joker and his gang with superimposed "POWS" like the 1960s series.
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Cast

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Regular cast

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Guest appearances

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Parodies

  • The cartoon series Batfink, whose sidekick Karate was stereotypical oriental, and whose "utility arm" parodied the utility belt; the sidekick had everything, including the kitchen sink, up the sleeve on that arm.
  • The television show was famous for parodying names of many famous celebrities of the day. Among the most notable were newscasters Walter Cronkite (known as "Walter Klondike" on Batman), and Chet Huntley (he's known as "Chet Chumley" on the show). Steve Allen played himself on the show, and was known as "Allen Stevens". J. Pauline Spaghetti (a woman who is almost tricked into giving up her fortune to the notorious European criminal "Sandman" - played by Michael Rennie ) is a parody of J. Paul Getty owner of the Getty Oil Company and one of the richest men of the 1960's.
  • Lee Meriwether plays Lisa Carson, a wealthy Gotham City socialite who is kidnapped by King Tut. Her father is John E. Carson - a parody on the legendary host of The Tonight Show Johnny Carson.
  • Gotham City's Mayor Lindseed is a parody on John Lindsay , who served as Mayor of New York City from 1966 to 1973.
  • The Monkees TV series made several references to Batman. In the episode "Captain Crocodile", the Monkees parody the Batman TV show with Peter Tork as Frogman and Davy Jones as Rubin the Tadpole. In the episode "Monkees Blow Their Minds", Burgess Meredith makes a cameo as the Penguin.
  • In the Dr. Cassandra episode, the evil alchemist steals the Mope diamond (a parody of the famous Hope Diamond.) from Spiffany's jewellers. Spiffany's is a parody of Tiffany & Co. (which was - and still is, one of New York's finest jewellers).
  • The three part Londinium episode during Batman's final series ("The Londinium Larcenies", "The Foggiest Notion", and "The Bloody Tower") was the series tribute to the Swinging London period of the 1960's. At the time of the show, everything British was "hot" in North America. This was especially true in areas such as music (the British Invasion led by rock groups such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and fashion (London's Carnaby Street was a leading fashion district during the 1960's - perhaps best known for the miniskirt). And of course, there was James Bond, the world's most famous superspy. Many aspects of London were parodied during the three episodes. The city's name is changed to Londinium, which was the British capital's name during Roman times. Scotland Yard becomes "Ireland Yard" in the series. Carnaby Street becomes "Barnaby Street". Fleet Street, the city's press district, is changed to "Bleet Street".
  • In 1989, West and Ward parodied themselves in a brief series of television commercials for the (now defunct) Midwestern supermarket chain Big Bear. The ads were timed to capitalize on the marketing hype surrounding the Tim Burton movie of the period; however, since Big Bear had not licensed the Batman trademarks, West and Ward did not appear in costume and could only be referred to by their real names. Taking a page from the first two seasons of the Batman series, these commercials were shown in two parts, with a silly "cliffhanger" ending at the end of the first.
  • In 1991, a Philippine movie parody version was launched based on the Batman 60's TV series entitled Alyas Batman en Robin. Starring Joey de Leon as Bruce/Batman, his real life son Keempee de Leon as Robin, Panchito as Tio Paenguin and Rene Requiestas as The Joker.
  • In The Family Guy movie, Peter Griffin comes out dressed as Spider-Man singing a song to the tune of the Batman TV Series theme.
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External links

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