4th Season Smoking Gun?

[Keith Mayo]

I recently added the Aug 1989 issue of Filmfax magazine to my Bat Library. The cover story is "The Complete History of Batman On Film & Television". Got around to reading it last night when I stumbled upon this entry on page 46, an interview with Yvonne Craig. In it she says tells the NBC/bulldozer story and this line grabbed my attention:

"I don't know if this is true or apocryphal, but I was told that NBC..........." (emphasis mine). No source is given as to who/where she heard this.

This interview would have been conducted sometime before the cover date of August of '89. Her earlier mention of this in the Official Batbook was published in 1986, and in that telling she seems more adamant about it being fact. This leads me to believe that after The Official Batbook was published she walked it back somewhat in later years. Did someone contact her after seeing her statement in '86 to correct her? I cannot say, but it looks that way to me.

In past discussions on this subject I have said that the lack of evidence from another source is like trying to prove something with a negative. I believe that seeing that Ms. Craig softened her statement in later years might be the smoking gun folks have been looking for to disprove the "Fourth Season Myth".

[Dan E Kool]

An interesting observation, but I wouldn't call that a "smoking gun" myself. Bob Furmanek's thread basically busted the myth as far as I'm concerned. Maybe Yvonne Craig believed it, maybe she doubted it, makes no real difference to whether it was going to happen or not.

[Keith Mayo]

An interesting observation, but I wouldn't call that a "smoking gun" myself. Bob Furmanek's thread basically busted the myth as far as I'm concerned. Maybe Yvonne Craig believed it, maybe she doubted it, makes no real difference to whether it was going to happen or not.

Not trying to take anything away from Bob, it's just that I thought this information was more telling than the lack of what folks were looking for (paper trail via Dozier's documents, NBC memos, etc). The main reason I zeroed in on Ms. Craig's statement is because it's the linchpin those who believe the myth hang their argument upon. Seems more shaky now.

[bat-rss]

If nothing else, it helps to de-fang the previously-quoted Facebook rejoinder to attempts to debunk this myth, "You're calling Yvonne a liar!" What you've found shows that, by '89, she herself had some question about the veracity of the story that was strong enough that she'd admit it to an interviewer.

[Keith Mayo]

If nothing else, it helps to de-fang the previously-quoted Facebook rejoinder to attempts to debunk this myth, "You're calling Yvonne a liar!" What you've found shows that, by '89, she herself had some question about the veracity of the story that was strong enough that she'd admit it to an interviewer.

Yes, the was my whole point.