Batman was advertised for weeks leading up to the January 12, 1966 premiere. The anticipation for this exciting new show was VERY high. TV commercials began airing all over the network in December with a booming voice proclaiming, "Take heart America...Batman IS Coming!
These ads promoting The Second Season also created a lot of interest. The TV commercials did not show the Caped Crusader and I don't believe there were any photos released before January 12. This was the public's first glimpse of Batman.
"Shows so great, they couldn't wait till Fall. THIS is the second season..."
It's amusing to see the tag line, "Shows so great, they couldn't wait till Fall. THIS is the second season..." considering that both the 1965 and '66 Fall seasons turned out to be disasters for ABC. The equivalent of putting perfume on manure.
"The Baron" was actually a British series import brought in to replace I believe, "Amos Burke: Secret Agent", the disastrous retooling of the solidly entertaining "Burke's Law."
"Double Life Of Henry Phyffe" was a sitcom attempt to cash in on the spy craze the same year "Get Smart" debuted by having meek Red Buttons forced to assume the identity of a lookalike spy who was killed. The funny thing is the following fall, we would have a serious spy drama "The Man Who Never Was" that reversed the premise of a spy who assumes the identity of a lookalike who was killed when the baddies thought they were killing the spy and this way the baddies think they got the spy!
BLUE LIGHT was pretty good but never caught on. It was the first American TV series filmed in color in Europe. Several episodes were combined for the feature, I DEAL IN DANGER which is available on DVD. It's worth seeing.
Question: I've read that the show was originally thought of as an hour show, and then split into two half hour shows. When did this occur? Just wondering because of this article states that it's a twice-weekly half hour series, so obviously that was decided at least 3 months in advance of its debut. Also, what month was the pilot episode actually filmed? I've probably read that before also, but I have a memory like a sieve.
Thanks. I was thinking it was in the latter part of the year, not too long before it premiered. So I guess that maybe ABC originally envisioned the show as an hour, and possibly the early versions of the script were written that way, but maybe that plan changed when the Fall season started off as pretty much a failure, as the article did say that Shindig was dragging in the ratings.
Thanks for posting all of these clippings, everyone.
