Color Question.

[Boy Wonder]

Last night I'm watching the Black Widow episode and a police officer describes Batman as wearing purple trunks, purple gloves, purple cowl,.....

Anyway, it's obvious that he wears blue, not purple.
Does anyone know why it was written that way?

[Gernot]

Check your TV again, Boy Wonder! I've noticed myself that on several occasions Batman's costume was indeed purple! It was blue and gray for the first season, and all blue for a lot of the second season, but there WERE times Adam West was wearing purple.

[Mr. Deathtrap]

Batman in purple?

Batgirl is evidnetly having a stronger effect than first imagined.

[Boy Wonder]

Check your TV again, Boy Wonder! I've noticed myself that on several occasions Batman's costume was indeed purple! It was blue and gray for the first season, and all blue for a lot of the second season, but there WERE times Adam West was wearing purple.

I had noticed purple hues sometimes in his costume but always assumed that it was due to lighting or tweaking.
Like with the Joker's wig and how it didn't always look green.

[Robin's Girl]

I noticed the blue and purple of Batman's costume. So, in my mind I define the color as "royal blue," which I think of as a dark blue/purple combination.

[clavierankh]

When I was a kid I had a bunch of the Batman movie trading cards. (Wish I still had them!) I always noticed in them Batman's shirt and tights looked almost Sky Blue. I noticed the same thing on the DVD cover.

[Ben Bentley]

The phenomenon you're describing is the color shift in the fabric used for the Cowl, Gloves and Trunks. The fabric in question did not hold the blue dye for all that long and hence why, (particularly with the constrictions of the tight production schedule) by Season Two, we start to see a lot of "purpleing" to the garments I mentioned.

My own personal speculation is that it was such a well observed phenomenon on set that it in fact informed the choice of words when Robert Mintz was writing this two-parter.

[AndyFish]

While the costume did fade to that purple shade we all know from seeing existing originals today-- I don't think the fade was as quick on the show and it owed more to lighting.

There was a great magazine CINEMATESQUE (?) that came out a few years ago that featured behind the scenes photos shot outside in color while they were filming a third season episode and I was struck by just how BLUE Batman's costume was.

Outside is where you get true coloring in photographs, as many of you esteemed photographers here on this board know.

My guess is the writer based his script on what he was seeing on his own TV Screen at the time he wrote the episode, which reflected the studio lighting.

[Ben Bentley]

While the costume did fade to that purple shade we all know from seeing existing originals today-- I don't think the fade was as quick on the show and it owed more to lighting.

There was a great magazine CINEMATESQUE (?) that came out a few years ago that featured behind the scenes photos shot outside in color while they were filming a third season episode and I was struck by just how BLUE Batman's costume was.

Outside is where you get true coloring in photographs, as many of you esteemed photographers here on this board know.

My guess is the writer based his script on what he was seeing on his own TV Screen at the time he wrote the episode, which reflected the studio lighting.

I was under the impression that parts were almost constantly being replaced, or in the case of the cowls, being re-covered. This would account for the blues in the Third Season, the studio "hot lights" never really changed, so if it was strictly lighting the shift in colors would be consistent, leading me to suspect that by mid-Season Two, Adam was wearing a mix and match of components at any given time.

Cinefantastique is the magazine you're thinking of, Andy! A great read!

[AndyFish]

Good point Ben-- yup the costume fabric was often replaced, but I assumed by the third season and the limited budgets I would have expected that practice to stop-- doesn't Batman get a damaged ear in one episode (Surfing?) and the floppy ear stays unfixed for other episodes?

I was struck by the absolute stunning blues of that magazine's photos-- like it was the first season all over again.

But I buy your reasoning just as easily.

[AndyFish]

Old thread brought back from the dead.
Was recently talking to an art director friend and the subject of the '66 Batman came up. He said growing up he always thought Batman's cowl was black-- I had a black and white TV back in the early 70s and I was shocked the first time I saw the show in color at a friends house.

He wondered why Batman's cowl sometimes came across as blue and sometimes purple, so I pulled up the limited knowledge I have mostly from this board, and told him my own personal experience with buying a cowl repro from Chuck and asking him to cover it in purple and give the face markings thicker lines so it looked "right" to me, even if historically it's wrong.

[AndyFish]

Worse still, this friend, who should know better, said "even The Joker calls him purple" as if Cesar was coming up with this line on the set. When I explained to him that line was written weeks or months in advance likely by the writers pool he looked at me like I had snakes coming out of my head.

[Yellow Oval]

On my TVs in the late '60s and '70s I always saw Adam in dark blue as well as the grey costume so that description line always perplexed me whenever I watched the episode. One would think someone on staff would have corrected the writer or his script when the time came. Cesar, however, always had red hair on my screens which irritated me no end. Thankfully, the DVD restorations finally corrected that.

[Therin of Andor]

At the Hollywood Museum, 2018, curated by Wally Wingert:


Dynamic Duo original costumes by Ian McLean, on Flickr


Dynamic Duo replica costumes by Ian McLean, on Flickr


Signage: Batman costume colours by Ian McLean, on Flickr


Signage: Batman costumes explained by Ian McLean, on Flickr

[Jim Akin]

The officer's description reminds me of Joker's abstract (blank) painting, "Death of a Mauve Bat" -- mauve being a pale shade of purple.