Let us make a confession. As much as we love Batman -- the character,
the cartoons, some
of the movies
-- we hate the TV show.
It was formulaic,
campy,
and represented the worst
of what the comics medium
is about. So why the decades-late rant? September 19th is Adam West's 80th birthday.
Now, we've got nothing against Mr. West personally. In the right roles, he's a fine actor, and we're sure he's a lovely guy,
good to his wife and kids. We just hate what he represents: that show.
You know what we're talking about: The "Biff! Bam! Pow!"
stuff. The dime-store special effects. The lousy dialogue. Good actors like Burgess Meredith,
Maurice Evans,
and Vincent Price
hamming it up shamelessly. Celebrities (one hardly dares to call them
"actors") like Zsa Zsa Gabor and Liberace (Liberace,
for god's sake!) swanning
around, pretending
to be evil.
To be fair, not all of the show sucked. Cesar Romero
brought a lot of panache
to the Joker -- even if he refused
to shave off his mustache. Meredith's Penguin reminds us of a certain
political figure. And Batman's inability to dispose of a bomb is legitimately funny.
But those
moments are few and far between. In most cases, Batman
was a tortuous parade of tin-eared dialogue, unfunny puns,
bizarre
celebrity cameos,
that annoying theme song,
and a general atmosphere that confirmed the public's preconception that comics were only for kids.
Maybe if the show hadn't spawned so many rip-offs (even crummier than the original) or hypnotized headline writers for the next 40 years, it wouldn't stick in our craws so
badly. But even as we wish Mr. West a happy Bat-birthday, we wonder if we might have been better off if Lyle Waggoner had just
gotten the part in the first place.
Suggested Sites...
- Adam West.com - the birthday boy's home page.
- Adam West Bust - just what you've always wanted.
- Wikipedia: Batman TV Series - facts, figures, history, and trivia.
- Batman Guest Stars - a regular Rogue's Gallery of infamy.
- Mayor Adam West - we wish Hizzoner well.
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