Then, there’s this account, which states, in part: “At some point in the early ’60s ad executive-turned-TV producer Ed Graham optioned the TV rights for Batman from DC, and took it to CBS ... Once Ed Graham vacated the TV rights to the character ABC scooped them up, most likely in early 1965 if not...

The source for the info may have been a letter that William Dozier sent Adam West, dated Sep. 13 '65 (Monday), in which he discusses the screen tests, which he indicates were made on the just-passed "Friday."

I recently came across this interesting item in the April 11 '66 issue of Variety, in the "Light and Airy" column by Jack Hellman (emphasis added): “…It has been 25 years since Harve Bennett was a Quiz Kid on radio but he hasn’t lost his gift for a fast answer. Asked to define ‘camp,’ he c...

Was the disparity in Bat-pole sizes really Adam West's idea? I ask because it's spelled out explicitly in the pilot script, which I think was completed before West was even hired. (Though I suppose it could have been a late revision to the script, made some time after West had been cast.)

Apologies in advance if this morsel of trivia has already made the rounds here (I searched and couldn't find any mention of it), from the Oct. 27, 1967 issue of Variety: Gloria Swanson To Menace ‘Batman’ — If It Is Picked Up Gloria Swanson has been set for a guestar role as an “exotic villainess” in...

Apologies if I spaced out and missed it, but I don't think you mentioned one of Repp's most intriguing feature credits: a horror/suspense thriller called "Scream Evelyn Scream", which reunited him with Hubie Kearns and Burt Ward. It was filmed in 1970 as "The Date", and secured a...

We know that Dozier's narration was a last-minute addition, triggered by the pilot's disastrous test-screening. I'd bet the no-narration version is what they ran for that first test. No idea how that version would have wound up on the first issue of the blu-ray, though.

Fair enough. By the way, as included on the DVD, HI DIDDLE RIDDLE lacks the opening "Batmaaaaan In Color" bit. I'm assuming that's how it was actually broadcast, and not an error in the home video version? I'm 99% sure that the "In Color" tag wasn't present in the VHS recording ...

When I made a VHS recording of "Hi-Diddle Riddle" off of a Boston-area UHF station in the 1980s, the opening narration was present. So at least some syndication prints did include it. WLVI 56 or WSBK 38? :) I'm old enough to remember watching the show on both channels 56 and 38, but by th...

When ABC's "Batman" premiered on January 12, 1966, the competition on CBS was an episode of "Lost in Space" about an intergalactic zoo-keeper whose menagerie is unleashed at the end of the episode. Judging by the script for this scene, it may have included a subtle in-joke that r...

When I made a VHS recording of "Hi-Diddle Riddle" off of a Boston-area UHF station in the 1980s, the opening narration was present. So at least some syndication prints did include it.

The trade magazine Broadcasting rounded up the critic's comments on both "Mr. Terrific" and "Captain Nice" -

"Mr. Terrific" was definitely, as you suggested, a moderate success in the ratings. The cancellation was apparently due to the show's demographics (contrary to popular belief, networks and advertisers were starting to pay attention to demographics by 1967.) Here are a couple of newspaper i...

There was an article in the April 16 '65 edition of The Boston Globe about the Brattle's successful revival of the original Batman serial, "Cool It, Baby - Batman's Back," by William J. Fripp. According to Fripp, the theater was actually running one chapter at a time, in support of their r...

"The revival itself was thought to have begun in Chicago at the Playboy mansion when Hugh Hefner screened prints for his members, but the reality was it played at the Playboy Theater which was open to the public." The Playboy Theater showings in Chicago seem to have begun in July of 1965....