Vintage Grail Items Re-Released, Dream Items - What's Left?

[AndyFish]

I can't believe we're coming up on 18 years since Mattel thrilled the '66 Batman world with the 1/64 cars (2007)-- I remember the first ones hitting the secondary market going for $150 while we all worried they wouldn't get a wider release. Since then we've got the DVDs, Blu Rays, the 50th Anniversary Megos (not necessarily '66 connected but to those of us growing up in the 70s that dopey Batman with the painted on cowl and smile WAS Adam West), the Mego Batmobiles in all colors, soon the Corgi Batmobile and 90% sure the Batboat. We've gotten Batmobile models in all sizes and price ranges. We got the colored Funko Batmobiles that harkened back to the great 70s Tin Toy Batmobiles.

We've gotten action figure lines from Mattel, Funko AND McFarlane -- imagine that? Take me back to 2007 and I'm sure you'll find me here on the boards saying one line "will never happen" never mind three!

We got the Mattel Batman Cowl, the belt, the various Halloween costumes, the Tonner Batman figure which is a personal favorite of mine. The 18" Neca Figure which is incredible (especially so for me since a generous board member here had a suit made for mine to hide those joints), the Hot Toys figures which despite their flaws are nice (same board member got me a Tony Mei suit for it), and the Mars Toys Joker (whatever they called him) which might be the greatest 1/6 figure I've ever seen. Statues like the great surfing pair, the controversial McFarlane Batman '66 statue which after seeing it in person I like it even more, flaws and all.

The amazing wonderland talking 18" Batman Robin and Joker-- which might be my favorite of everything released.

So much great stuff!

I'd like to see the Ideal Batman set get re-released, maybe even the Justice League set. The Ideal Batman Helmet would be neat-o-- especially if they did a Red One or something crazy. The Ideal Captain Action Batman set would be fantastic-- but I'd want it to be a complete re-do of the vintage rather than something modern.

But what's left? What would we hope to see? I know for a lot of you it's a deeper dive into the McFarlane line-- and I hope that works out for those of you who are into it. I'm sure there's something that will come along into the pipeline that comes right out of left field (for me that would be a line of '43 Batman figures-- which I'll state here will never happen and I'll come back in 18 years to see if I have to eat my words).

Anyone?

[AndyFish]

And of course it wouldn't go in this thread, but I'd love the Green Hornet Black Beauty done in its original Corgi Box and even though I have great copies, I would love a remastered Blu Ray of the show.

[BatToys]

And of course it wouldn't go in this thread, but I'd love the Green Hornet Black Beauty done in its original Corgi Box and even though I have great copies, I would love a remastered Blu Ray of the show.

Corgi Club wrote they do want to make the Black Beauty.

I think in the near future we'll see more 1966 Batman toys.
The show is still on TV creating new fans.

[Boy Wonder]

I'd like to see more of these...

[AndyFish]

I don't think I'd be in for any more of the Mars/Saturn figures unless they do a Mad Hatter or a King Tut. Has anyone bought the Batman and Robin? I'm curious about the head sculpts and the skin color in reality vs the stock photos.

I also wonder if the Green Hornet rights are too twisted to work out-- which is why we don't have the TV series. It seems like a no brainer-- Corgi re-released the car with slight alterations (I think there were no figures in the car) a few years ago. So maybe it's an actors likeness rights issue? At that scale it would be hard to argue likeness infringment. But if Corgi does it I'll keep my membership going.

[BAT 77]

The topmost of my "wish list" - a complete original television soundtrack of the Nelson Riddle score. All the cues and motifs. Heck, throw in the Billy May cues from Season 3 if you want.

[AndyFish]

I'm surprised they've not released a full Riddle score up until now. Pretty sure one of the Niche Music Companies did this for Star Trek.

[BiffPow]

Would really like to see more 1:1 hand-held props released, e.g. Catwoman’s CatRay pistol (preferably shooting rubber tipped darts), or ANYTHING Randy creates.

While appreciative, I admit being a bit disappointed with the scale of the communicator NECA released. I mean, “WHY?” If you’re going to release it, make it 1:1!)

[Barnabas Collins]

The topmost of my "wish list" - a complete original television soundtrack of the Nelson Riddle score. All the cues and motifs. Heck, throw in the Billy May cues from Season 3 if you want.

That's long been on my wish list, too!

Barnabas Collins

[BATWINGED HORNET]

The topmost of my "wish list" - a complete original television soundtrack of the Nelson Riddle score. All the cues and motifs. Heck, throw in the Billy May cues from Season 3 if you want.

The TV score is--for me--the last Batman '66 Grail item. I'm not certain, but the To the Batpoles podcast once interviewed Jeff Bond (who had been involved in the release of the Batman movie score), who said something to the effect that the tapes to the TV series music were either lost, destroyed, or met some other unfortunate fate. I would hope Fox archived its various properties' music in a professional manner, since it appears other old studios archived their music scores this way, as seen with the availability of Star Trek the original series (Paramount/CBS) and The Munsters (Universal) soundtracks.

I don't think I'd be in for any more of the Mars/Saturn figures unless they do a Mad Hatter or a King Tut. Has anyone bought the Batman and Robin? I'm curious about the head sculpts and the skin color in reality vs the stock photos.

I have the Batman and Robin figures, but not on display. The skin tones seem to have been given a darker, more natural undertone, to make it more realistic than some 1:6 scale figures, with skin tones so bright, it has a baby doll / plastic appearance.

I also wonder if the Green Hornet rights are too twisted to work out-- which is why we don't have the TV series. It seems like a no brainer-- Corgi re-released the car with slight alterations (I think there were no figures in the car) a few years ago. So maybe it's an actors likeness rights issue? At that scale it would be hard to argue likeness infringment. But if Corgi does it I'll keep my membership going.

How Green Hornet rights are managed a twisted pretzel nightmare; on the one hand, companies such as Sideshow and Factory Entertainment released GH/K statues bearing the likeness of the actors, Enterbay produced that lone 1:6 scale Kato figure clearly based on Lee, Real Action Hero had their 8-9 inch GH/K 2-pack, and we have TV-based 1:1 scale prop replicas, along with a host of other items released over the past 15 years all based on the TV series...except the actual series on Blu-Ray. I do not know if Universal, the Dozier estate or Fox has placed roadblocks to the series' release, but its quite ridiculous that whoever controls the property would not release the series, since there will be another GH movie (den the road), and it would benefit from any publicity (no matter how small) from the "Bruce Lee" series made available to the public, while some interest in GH remains.

[AndyFish]

The loss of the soundtrack masters would explain why we've not seen a more in-depth release of Riddle's incidental musical score like we got with the film soundtrack.

The Saturn/Mars Batman and Robin look to me like they corrected the skin tone flaw of the Hot Toys figures, but still have the same bad floppy ears on Batman.

[Gordinator]

The loss of the soundtrack masters would explain why we've not seen a more in-depth release of Riddle's incidental musical score like we got with the film soundtrack.

The Saturn/Mars Batman and Robin look to me like they corrected the skin tone flaw of the Hot Toys figures, but still have the same bad floppy ears on Batman.

I never heard about this, and it explains a lot. I've known for some time that the show's music has been partially released over the years, yet I've never gotten far with my searches. YouTube, streaming services, hell, even private BitTorrent trackers dedicated to obscure music, all of which turned up short. I guess this is why.

Such a shame. I hope they either find the archives or remaster it entirely, like was done with Star Trek: TOS for the HD remaster - they re-performed everything to get it into 7.1 DTS.

[AndyFish]

It's always interesting comparing BATMAN to STAR TREK-- both ran around the same time, Batman was a blockbuster then wore itself out, Star Trek was never a big hit and found its footing in syndication through the 70s which gave birth to massive Conventions dedicated solely to the show-- Batman never had that. It also hurts that Batman wasn't a TV Original, but a character with a 25 year history at that point.

You can say Batman remains more popular as a character but I don't think the '66 show has the same fevered fanbase that Star Trek does, plus all of the Star Trek franchises that followed were tied directly to the Original Show-- the Batman film franchises had nothing to do with the show.

But as technology grows there is always hope that someone extracts all of the incidental music and remasters it.

[Gordinator]

It's always interesting comparing BATMAN to STAR TREK-- both ran around the same time, Batman was a blockbuster then wore itself out, Star Trek was never a big hit and found its footing in syndication through the 70s which gave birth to massive Conventions dedicated solely to the show-- Batman never had that. It also hurts that Batman wasn't a TV Original, but a character with a 25 year history at that point.

You can say Batman remains more popular as a character but I don't think the '66 show has the same fevered fanbase that Star Trek does, plus all of the Star Trek franchises that followed were tied directly to the Original Show-- the Batman film franchises had nothing to do with the show.

But as technology grows there is always hope that someone extracts all of the incidental music and remasters it.

I'd say a more ethical use of artificial intelligence technology would be to give a program a video file and have it give you music data containing the instruments, timings, notes, etc. I'm sure it's doable, and from there one could theoretically produce full versions of the songs.

Alternatively, I'm sure Fox still have that sorta stuff lying around.

[AndyFish]

I hope there will be more cases of AI used properly than not. Using it to extract music is a brilliant idea.