TO THE BATPOLES #115: Two Batman Parodies

[bat-rss]

New TO THE BATPOLES podcast: What can we learn from contemporaneous parodies of Batman '66? We take a look! Also, did Adam and Burt earn a lot in residuals from the show?

http://tothebatpoles.libsyn.com/115-two-batman-parodies

[Jthree]

How about the Cracked one. That was one of the best parodies. Ever. Don't remember the issue number. But the villains looked like their tv counterparts, and that made all the difference. You could also tell that the writer had a great deal of love for the Adam West version.

--jthree

[BATWINGED HORNET]

Nice trip off the season three path, guys!

I guess it goes without saying, that in the 1960s, MAD was the Gold Standard of parody comics, while Cracked and Not Brand Ecch were...there. MAD's take on Batman was memorable not so much from the main story, but from the endless background images/messages that really built the weird world the parody characters inhabited.

Of course, Mort Drucker was THE MAD artist all others had to live up to (even Jack Davis and Al Jaffee).

About Doc Ock: he met Aunt May early in the series, but had his first meaningful connection to her during the 4-issue arc running from Amazing Spider-Man #53 (October, 1967) through #56 (January, 1968). So, by the time of the Not Brand Ecch parody, in-house, Lee (the then-writer of both titles) knew where the Doc Ock / Aunt May plot was going, hence its appearance in NBE one month before the "real" character's plot unfolded in ASM.

Oh, while on the subject of parodies, let us not forget Cracked's "Batzman Meets the Green Horned Bee", which I assume was published in early 1967 (since parody magazines were usually trailing pop culture events by a few months). While MAD's version only gave a one-panel nod to the explosion of Bat-tie-ins, Cracked's really played up the flood of merchandise of both Dozier series, and used that as the basis of the crimefighters' competition. Of note are guest appearances from Nancy, Charlie Brown and Dick Tracy.

As in the NBE parody, Batman (and the Green Hornet) are not taking visual cues from their TV counterparts (with the exception of the Green Hornet's billboard secret exit), but the plot is obviously inspired by them...







By the way, the piece is credited to "M & O.O. Severin," which I take it to mean Marie Severin, but the "O.O."--is referring to?

[Jim Akin]

By the way, the piece is credited to "M & O.O. Severin," which I take it to mean Marie Severin, but the "O.O."--is referring to?

O.O. was a pseudonym used occasionally by John Severin, Marie's brother and frequent collaborator.

[BATWINGED HORNET]

By the way, the piece is credited to "M & O.O. Severin," which I take it to mean Marie Severin, but the "O.O."--is referring to?

O.O. was a pseudonym used occasionally by John Severin, Marie's brother and frequent collaborator.

Oh, I know who John Severin was, but on most of his signed work that I have/seen, its either signed "Severin" or "John Severin," so I did not recognize the "O.O.".

[Jim Akin]

John signed his work "Nireves" sometimes, too.

[kyle]

Really enjoyed this episode!

Your discussion on the "silliness" of costumes [in this and other episodes] in comics has been interesting to me. The silliness certainly never occurred to me as in the 70s... 80s... 90s... or 2000s! In fact as recently as last year I was distraught over why Luke Cage and Iron Fist were costume-less in their Netflix series. Afterall, shouldn't a super hero have a costume!?!

It's hard to imagine a world without comics or super heroes, but I have to wonder what readers in the 1940s thought of men running around in skin tight "costumes".

Also enjoyed your commentary on Not Brand Echh - and was surprised how much I remembered from that issue. Sadly, my copy of that issue seems to be missing.

BATWINGED HORNET: Loved your thoughts and post with CRACKED magazine. Thanks for posting the visuals!

[gothosmansion]

Batwinged Hornet, Thanks for sharing the Cracked magazine feature. I have never read that.

I really enjoyed the podcast, guys. I read the Mad magazine parody in 1989. I found Robin trying to off Batman so he can hook up with ladies to be a hilarious idea, since Burt's Robin stated, "You were taken in by her, Batman, but I'm too young for that sort of thing." Of course, I was only a teenager in the 80s, and I haven't read the parody in a while. One of Mad's specials reprinted it and some of their comics related Batman parodies to capitalize on the popularity of the 1989 movie.

Since I'm a huge fan of Batman and Spider-Man, I picked up the Brand Echh as a back issue. I enjoyed it. BTW, wasn't this around the time that Doc Ock rented a room in Aunt May's house in the regular Spider-Man comic? She recognized him as the nice man she visited with in Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1. I think that was what led to the later almost-wedding.

[Ben Bentley]

A really fun episode all-told!

I own and am familiar with the Mad Magazine parody but I had never read the Not Brand Echh story, so that was a really nice introduction to it. Thanks T&P!

[Jthree]

T and P, Do you think you can do another episode with more Batman parodies. Cracked did one or two more, and Mad did an interesting two pager a few years ago, where the Frank Miller Batman came into the 60's Batman world.

==jthree

[bat-rss]

T and P, Do you think you can do another episode with more Batman parodies. Cracked did one or two more, and Mad did an interesting two pager a few years ago, where the Frank Miller Batman came into the 60's Batman world.

==jthree

We don't have those handy, but we'll be talking about the above Cracked story and a couple of other '60s Bat-parodies in episode 122!