New Bat Site - Archival Documents

[otrjerry]

I noticed Grams posted scans of some of the papers and letters on his blog some time ago. I suspect that is from the same collection. He was a vendor at the Toy and Collectible Show in Timonium, Maryland this weekend. I live 20 minutes from there so it was a no-brainer to check it out and buy Bat merchandise. Saw Grams and chatted with him for about 20 minutes. He's very candid and told me how he was "yelled at" by email from people after he posted some of those documents on his blog. Seems others were upset that he was giving away what they felt were proprietary. His basement, the Batcave, which I have been to has loads of papers and documents for other shows. Boxes and boxes of Bob Hope material, Green Hornet material (he co-wrote a book about that show) and some hidden gems I don't think I can tell about because I am not sure of his intentions with them yet.

Hey, Scott, any chance Yvonne Craig can attend the Nostalgia Con this year? Grams said he tried once and she was signed for a different show. He told me Julie Newmar attended this past year and she remarked how she never made so much money at a show in five or six years. Since the event benefits the St. Jude CHildren's Research Hospital, how cool would that be if she attended? I am being greedy, of course, because I would like to meet her myself and have my Batman merchandise autographed.

[epaddon]

Been going through some of this (these aren't arranged in any kind of sequence which makes it a little tough at times) and here's some of the stuff I've picked up.

1-Lawrence Welk turned down an offer to appear (presumably a window cameo)

2-David Janssen was also wooed for some kind of appearance (again, presumably no more than a cameo given this was prior to the last season of "The Fugitive) but his agent said he was doing no guest shots this year (66-67). Janssen was known to be a fan of the show so I'm sure that caused the feeler.

3-Dozier also wrote a letter to British actor Richard Greene, who starred in the 1950s Brit TV series "Robin Hood" which was syndicated in the US about playing a prospective jewel-thief villain in S3 called "English Harry" who would steal the "Crosby Diamond" (Get it???? The most famous diamond in the world is the Hope Diamond so Crosby Diamond instead! Ha, ha, ha!). This frankly would have been a very uninspired idea IMO since Greene was not what one would call a notable name worthy of a lead guest villain shot and apparently attracted Dozier's interest only because of their own past acquaintance.

[Dr. Shimel]

Instead of the "Crosby Diamond," Dozier decided to call it the "Mope" in the Dr. Cassandra episode.

[epaddon]

Still more stuff.

1-Arlene Dahl had been offered the part of Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. Dozier sends a note to her after the episode was on expressing regret it didn't work out for her to appear.

2-The agent of Joan Bennett, star of "Dark Shadows" sends a feeler about wanting to appear in S3 as does the agent for Julie Harris.

[High C]

1-Arlene Dahl had been offered the part of Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. Dozier sends a note to her after the episode was on expressing regret it didn't work out for her to appear.

Wow, that's interesting. I would have liked to have seen that. I thought Carolyn Jones did a good job, but the character was too much Morticia Lite.

You better not tell me somebody else was offered the role of Siren first!

[Lee Kirkham]

I just found this post (and this site) and nothing on it works. Has something happened where it is neglected? Anyone know?

[epaddon]

Was working fine just a couple hours ago. I have noticed it tends to be a bit balky at times loading and you can't download the images, you can only do a capture and paste job that I've been doing with some of these documents that I've found the most interesting.

[epaddon]

The site's now working fine for those who want to give it a look. The drawback is you can't download these scans but you can get by that by clicking on the scan to bring it up full size and then use the "Print Scre/Sys Rq" button to capture the image and then paste it into a program that will let you then save the image yourself (though you then have to crop it).

[epaddon]

The full blown pilot proposal for Dozier's "Wonder Woman" concept is on the site too and if you think that demo film was bad, believe me the treatement outlining a full pilot episode story and prospective series is worse. Much worse. Never have I seen a more wrongheaded approach to a classic superheroine than what was being commissioned here, in which we have (1) a full blown sitcom written by comedy sketch writers (2) a central character who is a frump as both Diana Prince AND Wonder Woman and (3) a clear underlying disdain for the whole character and concept from the get-go. With Batman, there was at least an aura of affection for the character even when the show got a little off-kilter but we should all be grateful this concept never got off the ground, period. It's that bad.

[epaddon]

It's still not easy to navigate the Budget documents on this site because they're not arranged in any kind of sequence but some more interesting items have emerged from studying them.

Some of the people who did unbilled cameos on the show ended up appearing for nothing. Gypsy Rose Lee in the Sandman episode for instance. Other unbilled cameos though got a $100 fee, which apparently was the max allowed for an unbilled part. Joe Flynn for his two scenes in the CW episode, and Werner Klemperer for his window cameo fell under that category.

[epaddon]

And in other cameo items, document #860 notes that Alan Hale's cameo in "The Ogg Couple" was listed for "Mike." Calling him "Gilligan" was clearly an on-set bit of improvisation.

These cast list documents I'd note, not only lists the agencies representing the actors at the time, but you also get to learn what their home addresses were.