TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

General goings on in the 1966 Batman World

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High C
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by High C »

I enjoyed the podcast. Weldon's book sounds interesting.

I suppose I might not be the right audience for it, given I'm not a comics reader, and my main exposure to Batman is '66 Batman. But I'll say this--I could live with him being made to look square, and thus perhaps being poked fun at for that, as he was in season 1.

But I'm not on board with how in subsequent seasons he often was made a laughing stock, or an idiot, or naive, or simply dense.

I know there is some good satire in the Penguin election episode, and when I was a kid I laughed at the bit when they say 'Batman discusses the issues' or somesuch and it's a nearly empty room. I don't laugh at that anymore. I feel as if Batman is being ridiculed there for being heroic. It's troubling.

Worse yet, I hate the instances, and Ross wrote at least two of these scenarios, where Batman is pontificating while an innocent civilian is about to perish in a deathtrap. It wasn't funny to me as a child and it isn't funny now.

To me, the post-season 1 die was cast in the first aired arc of season 2, when it takes Batman so long to figure out that Alan A. Dale just might be part of the Archer's gang. Ugh. So much for The World's Greatest Detective. Thanks, Stanley Ralph Ross.
'I thought Siren was perfect for Joan.'--Stanley Ralph Ross, writer of 'The Wail of the Siren'

My hobbies include gazing at the Siren and doing her bidding, evil or otherwise.

'She had a devastating, hypnotic effect on all the men.'--A schoolmate describing Joan Collins at age 17
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John Mack
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by John Mack »

So, Andy. Not being one that read many Batman Adventures in the comic books, as you know, did Batman kill people in the early years? I seem to remember a vintage cover where he's using a gun, but I think someone told me, that the gun isn't in the story inside? Fascinating stuff here!
Music. BAT! Music.
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adventuremaster18
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by adventuremaster18 »

John Mack wrote: Tue May 01, 2018 7:11 pm So, Andy. Not being one that read many Batman Adventures in the comic books, as you know, did Batman kill people in the early years? I seem to remember a vintage cover where he's using a gun, but I think someone told me, that the gun isn't in the story inside? Fascinating stuff here!
Taken from the Verge Acticle:
In his very first solo issue in 1938, Batman gunned down a henchman, tossed another off a building, and hanged a third from his Batplane. (“He’s probably better off this way,” Batman intoned.) Two years later, he impaled a Chinese swordsman, threw an American disguised as a Chinese swordsman out of a window, and crushed a crowd of Mongols with a Buddha-like statue.

...so um yeah, I guess you can say he killed a few people.
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by robinboyblunderer »

High C wrote: Tue May 01, 2018 12:35 pm

But I'm not on board with how in subsequent seasons he often was made a laughing stock, or an idiot, or naive, or simply dense.

I know there is some good satire in the Penguin election episode,

Thanks, Stanley Ralph Ross.
I enjoy the Penguin for Mayor episodes; particularly the speech where O'Hara falls asleep. I think the satire worked then and now, sad as that is actually.

But I agree, I really dislike how Batman's character grew stupider and stupider as the seasons went on. It's one thing if he's square, it's another if the joke is constantly on him. He went from an honest, earnest yet suave or at least, sophisticated with ladies hero to stumbling around with Robin in the dressing room. Or shaking hands with the Joker. Or whatever example you'd like to use. Letting Olga blather on at him. With his intellect Egghead could've been an interesting opponent for the Caped Crusader instead of one of her potential husbands.

I really dislike him hiding behind Batgirl as well, I understand it was fear gas but still...it was too much.

Would the Batman of the first season agree to get dressed up in a toga/towel outfit with Robin for some kind of spa treatment?

Someone needed to edit out some of SRR's comedy; the man was funny and could write but he also largely ruined the character to a degree.
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High C
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by High C »

robinboyblunderer wrote: Wed May 02, 2018 8:50 pm
But I agree, I really dislike how Batman's character grew stupider and stupider as the seasons went on. It's one thing if he's square, it's another if the joke is constantly on him. He went from an honest, earnest yet suave or at least, sophisticated with ladies hero to stumbling around with Robin in the dressing room. Or shaking hands with the Joker. Or whatever example you'd like to use. Letting Olga blather on at him. With his intellect Egghead could've been an interesting opponent for the Caped Crusader instead of one of her potential husbands.

I really dislike him hiding behind Batgirl as well, I understand it was fear gas but still...it was too much....Someone needed to edit out some of SRR's comedy; the man was funny and could write but he also largely ruined the character to a degree.
I agree with what you're saying. Batman grew dumber and dumber as the series went on (Robin, too), and that's not about being square, it's about being stupid. And writer Stanford Sherman and script 'editor' Charles Hoffman (who seemed to rubber-stamp all these ideas as opposed to ever questioning them) were equally as complicit as Ross in the dumbing-down of the Duo.
'I thought Siren was perfect for Joan.'--Stanley Ralph Ross, writer of 'The Wail of the Siren'

My hobbies include gazing at the Siren and doing her bidding, evil or otherwise.

'She had a devastating, hypnotic effect on all the men.'--A schoolmate describing Joan Collins at age 17
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Dan E Kool
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by Dan E Kool »

Fantastic episode. I bought Chris Gould's e-Book because of your podcast and The Caped Crusade is now in my To-Buy List as well. Sounds like a great read.

Equally fantastic is this thread! Great post by Batwinged Hornet on the previous page. Thanks for sharing all of those clippings. I can understand Batman comic fans being annoyed with the second half of Season 2 or Season 3 because of how over-the-top-goofy they can be, which really is a "silliness step" beyond what the comics were doing at the time and reaching into the territory of farce. Not that I totally mind, mind you. But I wonder if there were similarly angry fan letters when the show first premiered? Or is it as Andy Fish says, and the letters only came later?

Repeating Andy again, Semple's scripts in the first season follow the comics prior to 1966 so closely that they're almost just live-action retellings. Tim and Paul have discussed some of them in previous episodes. I think if a comic book fan were turned off by those early episodes, it'd be more from seeing their hero for what he really is (a millionaire who dresses up like a rodent) than any joke it was trying to make. The emperor has no clothes and all that. Sometimes a printed page loses its believe-ability when translated into live-action.

And Batman has become such a serious character that I think it's easy to forget the frame of mind that Semple, Dozier, et al were in when creating the TV show. A man dressed up as a bat, avenging his dead parents, is crazy no matter how you slice it. We take it for granted now that Bruce Wayne can be the world's greatest detective, martial artist, and gymnast - all while wearing a cape and cowl over tights and living a double life that involves matching gadgets and Bat-vehicles. It's almost impossible not to make light of such a character; certainly for the adults who created the TV show and didn't grow up with costumed heroes (or - unlike all of us - grew out of it! ;) )

In that sense, a "serious" Batman like the one we see in Tim Burton's movies or in Frank Miller's books is maybe even more ridiculous than Dozier's, like Paul says. At least Semple and Dozier and SRR are aware of what they're doing! But I digress.

Sorry if I'm rambling here. Too much coffee? Not enough? I gotta blame something... :x

I'm looking forward to Ben Bentley's upcoming appearance, anyhow.
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bat-rss
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by bat-rss »

epaddon wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 7:26 pm
Bob Furmanek wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 4:19 pm The Bob Hope Christmas specials aired on January 19, 1966 and January 18, 1967.
Interestingly the next Bob Hope special that aired after this one, on February 19, 1966 already capitalized on the Batman phenomena by doing a sketch spoofing the show with Martha Raye (I dare not describe it here. It's at the 11:57 mark. That they came up with this just a month after the show was on the air is the ultimate comment on how the show was taking off with the public)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INs63t-djT8
Holy Batusi! Jill St. John puts in an appearance later in the show!
"I'm half-demented with whimsical outrage!"
-- The Joker, in a line cut from "The Joker's Epitaph"
robinboyblunderer
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by robinboyblunderer »

High C wrote: Thu May 03, 2018 10:21 pm
robinboyblunderer wrote: Wed May 02, 2018 8:50 pm
But I agree, I really dislike how Batman's character grew stupider and stupider as the seasons went on. It's one thing if he's square, it's another if the joke is constantly on him. He went from an honest, earnest yet suave or at least, sophisticated with ladies hero to stumbling around with Robin in the dressing room. Or shaking hands with the Joker. Or whatever example you'd like to use. Letting Olga blather on at him. With his intellect Egghead could've been an interesting opponent for the Caped Crusader instead of one of her potential husbands.

I really dislike him hiding behind Batgirl as well, I understand it was fear gas but still...it was too much....Someone needed to edit out some of SRR's comedy; the man was funny and could write but he also largely ruined the character to a degree.
in the dumbing-down of the Duo.
It's strange how the show has three distinct seasons, the first with high production value, is less outrageous with Batman being this very intelligent suave yet honest good natured hero, to the increasing zaniness of the second season and the gradual reduction of his intellect and then the third where it seems the Dynamic Duo have trouble detecting a bomb on the Batmobile and continually marvel at Batgirl's "disappearance".

Yet there's good to be found across all three but sad to say, the dumbing down of the Caped Crusader is one of the mistaken threads connecting all three.

cheers
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Keith Mayo
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by Keith Mayo »

"It's the very essence of our democracy". - Batman, S1 Ep 11
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High C
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Re: TO THE BATPOLES podcast #83: Fitting Batman '66 into "The Caped Crusade"

Post by High C »

Thanks for sharing, Keith. Unfortunately, other than what's mentioned in the book, it appears 1966 won't be part of the course. Too bad.
'I thought Siren was perfect for Joan.'--Stanley Ralph Ross, writer of 'The Wail of the Siren'

My hobbies include gazing at the Siren and doing her bidding, evil or otherwise.

'She had a devastating, hypnotic effect on all the men.'--A schoolmate describing Joan Collins at age 17
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