Notes on Batman ’66
Batman is running around a marina, holding a comically oversized bomb above his head. The fuse sizzles. There’s not much time. He needs to throw the bomb somewhere, but where? He could throw it into the water, but, uh oh, there’s a boat floating by with a young couple engrossed in a make-out sesh. He doesn’t want to hurt the innocent marching band, absorbed in its performance, unaware of the danger. No direction is safe. He looks again at the water. Now there are ducks swimming in it. “Some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb,” he says.
If you’ve got an idea for a movie but you’re not sure it’s going to make money, you can always try it as a TV series instead. Initially, producer William Dozier wanted to release Batman, a/k/a Batman: The Movie, henceforth referred to as Batman ‘66, to generate advance publicity for the soon-to-be iconic TV show. 20th Century Fox decided to wait, and it didn’t hit screens until the summer after first season of the show was a cultural sensation. The movie still plays like a long-form pilot, driven, like the show, by Lorenzo J. Semple’s aggressively clever screenwriting.
The movie features four major villains from the show. There’s Burgess Meredith’s Penguin, Cesar Romero’s Joker, and Frank Gorshin’s Riddler, all recurring fixtures, now in collaboration. There are a lot of things you can say to performers that aren’t necessarily compliments, and “you looked like you were having fun up there” is one of them. But here, the villains do make the most of time together, squabbling, interrupting, and chewing scenery, and the fun is infectious, with everyone at their best. The most remarkable performance comes from Lee Merriweather as the Catwoman, taking Julie Newmar’s role and utterly owning it.
This chemistry is in keeping with the frenetic nature of the series, which was always over the top and all over the place. The script is packed with gags. Heroes and villains are kitschy caricatures. Costumes are tight, shiny, candy-colored, and uniformly ridiculous. The fight sequences are basically dance numbers. Many of Batman and Robin’s escapes depend on luck or last-second subversion of the laws of physics, while others hinge on the use of bespoke gear such as Shark Repellant Spray. This version of Batman is now understood as a broad lampoon on the go-go pop culture of the ‘60s.
By now, fans of the Batman character and universe have largely made peace with the version seen in Batman ‘66. Such was not always the case. For decades, there was a shared sense among diehard fans that the presentation in Batman ‘66 played up the comic elements at the expense of the mythos and, more broadly, of comics as a serious artform. Much condescension toward comics still trades in tropes familiar to the wider public from Batman ‘66 (particularly the superimposed “TWACKs,” “KONKs,” and “KA-POWs.” And comics fans can be hostile to comedy that isn’t intended solely for their benefit.
In his autobiography, lead actor Adam West gets defensive about all the hate Batman ‘66 got, emphasizing the professionalism he and the other actors brought to their work and the amount of hassle that went into donning the costume. Since the book’s publication, West passed away in 2017, but not before reviving his career by making fun of himself on Family Guy, generating a new wave of interest in the Batman ‘66 version of the character. Most of West’s obituaries were kind to the series and the movie. Now, the super-serious versions of Batman exist peacefully alongside Batman ‘66 nostalgia.
There’s always been much about Batman ‘66 for various species of snobs to dislike. There’s a lot of slapstick without a lot of subtext. The script is gravid with puns, perhaps the most maligned form of comedy. (As an aside, I wonder if punnery, and word games more generally, are due for reconsideration. I know at least two brilliant creative people who are very into wordplay.) There are sneaky double-entendres but nothing that would be unpleasantly confusing for kids. Batman ‘66 doesn’t quite fit into Susan Sontag’s taxonomy of “camp,” but it is relentlessly self-aware and occasionally “bad on purpose.”
I first encountered the Batman ‘66 TV series as a kid on summer vacation, in my babysitter’s living room, A/C cranked, sourdough bread baking, watching a mix of reruns from the ‘60s and ‘70s (plus the Iran-Contra hearings). I wasn’t allowed to see Tim Burton’s then-current film (I’d heard Prince’s soundtrack, which suggested that it was a different sort of product), so Batman ‘66 was the Batman I knew and loved. As I got older, I got more cynical about Batman ‘66. It began to seem corny and phony. When I realized that this was intentional, my life changed.
The film plays games with questions of privacy and identity. During a press conference, a sexy Russian journalist demands to see Batman without his mask. The police are shocked, knowing this will compromise their most valuable asset. Batman himself is kind and understanding but ultimately defends his boundaries. Later, the reporter (who is actually Merriweather’s Catwoman) goes on a date with the richer-than-god playboy Bruce Wayne (who is actually Batman). They experiment with hypnosis and make out. Batman’s butler Alfred wants to watch (for security reasons, of course), but his sidekick Robin does not, which results in Batman being kidnapped.
Like Willaim Shatner’s Captain Kirk from Star Trek, Adam West’s Batman/Wayne compromises himself when he’s lonely or horny. He quickly falls in love with Catwoman’s Russian alter-ego, and with dreams of uniting their cultures, rushes into the villains’ trap. Realizing late in the game that he’s been played, he says, “it’s just one of those things in the life of every crimefighter; it means nothing.” Beloved by the Gotham establishment, its law-abiding citizens, and a group of women in bikinis who wave at the Batcopter, he is nonetheless fundamentally alone, with only a parody of stoic masculinity to protect him.
The villains’ larger plot hinges on dehydrating the members of the United World Security Council using a gun designed for the liquor industry. This proves easy enough as the members are so engrossed in arguing with each other that they don’t notice the villains’ arrival before they are turned into differently colored piles of dry dust. When it’s time to rehydrate them, Robin suggests engaging in some light eugenics, tweaking the elements of their personalities to help them better harmonize, for the greater good. Batman vetoes this, saying, “It’s not for mortals like us to tamper with the laws of nature.”
This echoes his pity for the shark that was earlier killed in an explosion and his reverence for dolphin that flung itself in front of a torpedo, sacrificing its life to save Batman and Robin. In Batman’s world, nature is noble, humans are fallible, and we shouldn’t play god unless it’s absolutely necessary. When the security council members are rehydrated, they resume arguing much as before, but now using different languages. “This strange mixing of minds may be the single greatest service ever performed,” says Batman. By the standards of the social experiments of the ‘60s, it isn’t the dumbest.
The pop-art legend Andy Warhol was naturally a fan of Batman ‘66. Although he stopped using comics in his own work after he saw Roy Lichtenstein do it better, Warhol continued to be informed by the Batman mythos, specifically the brightly colored, goofy, optimistic ‘60s version. In an Esquire spread, Warhol is seen dressed as Robin, with Nico as Batman. His film Batman/Dracula, a collaboration with Jack Smith, plays its own juicy games with identity. It also features a red-hot soundtrack. And, much like the Batman ‘66 movie, it includes repeated appearances from a very confused-looking live black cat.
Much Batman-related activity since the ‘90s has been geared toward restoring grit and seriousness to the franchise. Burton’s films retained some of the kitschiness of Batman ‘66, albeit with the director’s own mall-goth sensibility. Ben Affleck’s rendering of Batman was a bit of a West-indebted throwback, particularly in his time as Bruce Wayne. But, overall, the hard-edged, noir-infused, morally ambiguous version of the caped crusader, has been culturally dominant for a long time, peaking with Christopher Nolan’s films, so long that the silly ‘60s version now seems refreshing and fun again, as though it never had anything to apologize for.
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