Batman: A TV Trendsetter
by David Krell
david@davidkrell.com
When Batman burst onto the small screen in 1966, it made a brief but noticeable mark on the television programming landscape. Pretenders to the superhero throne numbered man, giving new meaning to the phrase Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Producers and programmers intent on riding Batman’s cape to television superhero success gave the public a ZAP! WHAM! BOOM! array of choices.
However, Batman was indeed a unique property. It built upon the foundation laid by three decades of comic book, crime-fighting familiarity and steered the characters in the Batverse to an entirely different direction filled with tilted camera angles, vivid colors, and over-the-top villains.
Julie Newmar in a skin-tight Catwoman outfit made prepubescent boys purr all over the country.
Cesar Romero delighted himself and the audience with a wicked, maniacal, and hysterical laugh as the Joker.
Even secondary villains like the Archer, Bookworm, and Louie the Lilac evoked a bizarre quality that fit nicely with the lineup of nefarious no-gooders who confronted Batman and Robin on a weekly basis.
Batman premiered in early 1966, January 12th to be exact. It spoke to a generation looking for a hero, albeit a fictional one. JFK’s assassination in 1963 left America’s youth without an icon. Vietnam had not yet become a household word synonymous with danger, death, and frustration.
In this brief window of opportunity, off-the-wall entertainment found a niche. Batman offered a hero in a safe, benign, and predictable format with a lot of fun, zaniness, and fantasy thrown in for extra measure to insure our enjoyment.
Through this retrospective lens, Batman can be viewed as sociologically significant rather than escapist fun. America wasn’t ready in the mid-1960’s for prime time shows dealing with racism, women’s lib, the counterculture, or war. Social commentaries would come later via breakthrough shows, for example, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, The Mod Squad.
But America was ready for Batman.
From a television business standpoint, the show simply sparked ratings. When this happens, television executives try to boil down a successful property to the simplest terms. In doing so, they sometimes shed, ignore, or alter the unique elements that lead to success. In bottom-line lingo, Batman focuses on a superhero, hence, audiences will watch other shows with superheroes. Or so the theory goes in the executive suite. To be absolutely accurate, Batman is not technically a superhero, though. He doesn’t have superpowers but he basically fits the genre.
Sometimes, small screen success can happen twice. Through its Screen Gems television division, Columbia introduced two 1960’s magical goddesses who only wished to make life easier for their men. But for every Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, there are bona fide hit shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and lesser, brief, and forgettable progeny like The Round Table. Both shows were products of Aaron Spelling’s television factory. Both shows focus on a group of young friends tackling life’s problems. One show was ultra-successful. One show did not last a year in prime time.
In the case of Batman, audiences found a plethora of superhero choices inspired by the camp version of Gotham City’s guardian.
Logically, the team behind Batman tried to capture lightning in a bottle again with another show, The Green Hornet.
However, instead of producing the second program from a parody angle, Executive Producer William Dozier and 20th Century Fox used a straight-arrow approach mirroring the character’s initial portrayal on radio.
Van Williams plays the title character and his alter ego, wealthy media mogul Britt Reid. On a 1990 installment of Welcome to Hal-Land, a Los Angeles public access show hosted by Hal Lifson, Williams details his view of the character and the importance of the Green Hornet’s radio beginnings.
I told Dozier before I ever did the show [that] it was going to be straight. It wasn’t going to be the whip-wham-bam-zam that they did with [Batman]. The Green Hornet was a successful radio show. We really had to follow that format.
Williams reinforced the point in an early 1990s interview for Comics Scene #15.
We worked hard to try to portray that thing as close to the radio show as we could and I think we did a good job. I got a lot of criticism for doing that show straight -- hard-nosed crime-fighter type deal and everything else -- but it was the only way I was going to play it. I always really liked the character. I had a lot of respect for the character. And I still like him.
Dozier explains his similar view of the character in an ABC press release dated July 28, 1966 headlined Big Brother Bill Has No Trouble Telling Batman And The Green Hornet Apart. He details the differences between his two superhero programs.
The Batman route as you know is the campy, bizarre, outrageous approach with the crimes for the most part being not only trivial, but also impossible, and the criminals being totally bizarre. The Green Hornet route, however, will be in the direction of serious and recognizable crimes perpetrated usually by an organized gang or racket with the criminals very conventional and utterly recognizable.
Batman begat superhero shows in the bygone era when animation dominated Saturday morning television fare. CBS showcased its claims on the superhero genre with the entire 1966-67 Saturday morning lineup. Known to baby boomers as Super Saturday, the lineup boasted Space Ghost and Dino Boy, Frankenstein, Jr. and the Impossibles, and several other superhero themed shows.
But the big eye of the Tiffany network also sought a well-worn hero to capture the superhero craze started by Batman. The New Adventures of Superman debuted on September 10, 1966. Filmation produced the show.
Where Batman parodied a famous superhero, Buck Henry created a fictional one and took the level of superhero parody to a different level in Captain Nice. William Daniels plays Carter Nash, a mild-mannered police chemist in Bigtown who turns into Captain Nice when he drinks a certain liquid. But the hero was no more heroic than his reserved and shy alter ego.
Henry also co-created Get Smart with Mel Brooks. William Daniels is an Emmy-Award winning actor, most notable for playing patrician heart surgeon Dr. Marc Craig on St. Elsewhere.
T.H.E. Cat features Robert Loggia as Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat, a former cat burglar and circus performer who protects clients from deadly circumstances.
Popular culture sometimes has a herd mentality as producers and programmers figure that lightning can strike again...and again...and again. The superhero trend triggered by Batman is one example.
In the 1960’s, James Bond heralded the world of spies. He paved the way for pop culture offspring -- post-Civil War espionage in Wild, Wild West, search for identity in The Prisoner, adventurous assignments around the globe in Mission: Impossible.
Saturday Night Fever introduced the disco craze on a mass scale in 1977. Television tried to follow in its sister medium’s successful dance steps. Sitcoms Joe & Valerie and Makin’ It used disco music and clubs as a backdrop. Makin’ It stars David Naughton. Naughton also sings the show’s title song of the same name, a mildly successful song of the disco era. Both shows had brief runs.
In the same year that John Travolta danced to the Hustle in a Brooklyn disco, Star Wars blazed across movie screens. The story that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away set new standards for special effects, merchandising, and box office receipts. Television quickly jumped on board.
After an initial hyperkinetic appearance as an alien on an episode of Happy Days, Robin Williams earned a spinoff series, Mork & Mindy. Through Mork, Williams gained continued national exposure as an alien trying to learn the customs, values, and mores of earthlings, somewhat prescient of Third Rock From the Sun.
NBC offered two shows set in the future with a space motif -- Quark and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Quark stars Richard Benjamin as Adam Quark, a galactic garbage man. Although Quark did not even last two months on NBC, it offers a premonition of an important element of Third Rock. Quark takes orders from The Head while Dick Solomon et. al. follow The Big Giant Head.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century offers and update of the space cowboy familiar from past decades in comic strips, movie serials, and a short-lived 1950’s television show. Gil Gerard plays the NASA astronaut launched into space in 1987 only to get bounced around the universe. He finally lands on Earth in 2491.
The Peacock Network also aired a reality-type series based on space matters. Project U.F.O. was a precursor to The X-Files. ABC aired a program with the Star Wars elements of space, combat, and adventure -- Battlestar Galactica.
So, Batman has some company in the annals of television history as a show that inspired imitators, whether parody, parallel, or somewhat similar.
Batman lasted two and a half season, from 1966-1968. Fads fade. But one measure of success is the cadre of followers who try to bask in the spotlight before the shadow falls.
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Batman: Special Guest Villains and Villainesses
Joker -- Cesar Romero
Penguin -- Burgess Meredith
Catwoman -- Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt
Pussycat -- Lesley Gore
Riddler -- Frank Gorshin, John Astin
Archer -- Art Carney
Louie the Lilac -- Milton Berle
Shame -- Cliff Robertson
Ma Barker -- Shelley Winters
King Tut -- Victor Buono
Falseface -- Malachi Throne
Bookworm -- Roddy McDowall
Mr. Freeze -- Eli Wallach, Otto Preminger, George Sanders
Lola Lasagna -- Ethel Merman
Tallulah Bankhead -- The Black Widow
Pierre Salinger -- Lucky Pierre
Egghead -- Vincent Price
Zelda the Great -- Anne Baxter