Holy Bat-anniversary

Adam West and Burt Ward in a publicity still for Batman

January 12 is the 58th anniversary of the debut of the Batman television series.

You had to be there. It was BIG.

The story goes that ABC had test showings that didn’t go well. But ABC was committed and went ahead.

Context: At the time, ABC was a distant third among U.S. television networks. The start of the 1965-66 season was a disaster, even by ABC standards. The network had planned for Batman to debut in the fall of 1966. It was moved up to January.

More context: ABC assigned the project to William Dozier (1908-1991), a producer and executive. Dozier was given some comic books. Dozier and writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. (1923-2014) opted for a light-hearted approach to the character. Dozier would double as the show’s narrator (nicknamed “Desmond Doomsday”).

In the initial episode, there was a passing reference to how Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed. It never came up again.

Batman, despite the audience test results, was an immediate hit. The show aired on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Both installments had high ratings. 20th Century Fox commissioned a quickly made feature film released in the summer of 1966.

The impact: Other adventure shows on television felt the pressure to go lighter. That’s why The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s third season went campy. Its spinoff, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., was even more campy. Adventure shows produced by Irwin Allen also went light, especially Lost In Space.

Original fans of Batman had this sort of arc: 1)It’s great! 2) Uhh, boy, this has problems; 3 (after becoming adults) Oh, I get it now.

In the 21st century? Well, there have been many, many, many dark takes on Batman. That’s understandable. It’s built into the original creation by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.

Still, the 1966-68 Batman is an oasis from the Batman darkness. It also marks the only time that Bill Finger (1914-1974) got a Batman writing credit while he was alive. It was for the episodes The Clock King’s Crazy Crimes and The Clock King Gets Crowned.

Trivia: The series had a James Bond joke. In The Minstrel’s Shakedown and Barbecued Batman?, the Minstrel (Van Johnson) is extorting the Gotham City Stock Exchange. He wants his payments sent to account 007 at the Broccoli Bank in Geneva. Lorenzo Semple Jr. would be the first writer to work on Never Say Never Again (1983). He was the only scribe to receive a credit.