Over the years from time to time I would watch old episodes on classic late night rerun cable or digital TV of this series one that was way before my time yet my mother grew up on and watched as I remember her telling me stories about the old "Batman" TV series. I for one grew up in the 80's and my best "Batman" memories are the Tim Burton ones. And still this 60's series is a watch it's funny and a little silly with parody and spoof and gags and the action sounds float along with music played and the sounds of bang! pow! zap! and other one liners are shown just like they were in the early "Batman" comics. The episodes are all centered in Gotham City and involve the duo team of Batman(Adam West) and Robin(Burt Ward) fighting their many villains as it's always important to keep the city and it's people safe. Many episodes and stories involved fights, explosions, and action with robberies and heist many times a lot of female actresses were held hostage or kidnapped by the villains as they were damsels in distress often being tied up and gagged! Near fear Batman and Robin would always come to save the day even if it meant facing the "Mad Hatter". The villains were well done and mean with Cesar Romero giving an adequate turn as the laughing "Joker" and the class act Burgess Meredith playing "The Penguin" to form and Julie Newar was sexy and a class act as "Catwoman". Overall early and entertaining fun spoof parody like comic book series that always had you asking same "Bat" time same "Bat" channel for next week!

Being just eight when this show debuted, it was my first exposure to the character of Batman, and I was quite surprised, years later, when I found out Batman had been penned in the comics as "The Dark Knight". There is absolutely nothing dark about Adam West's rendition of the character.In this age of infomercials and reality TV, reruns have become a thing of the past, but I've really been enjoying revisiting the show via the newly released DVDs of this short-lived sensation. Looking back on this show nearly 50 years later, I just don't know how the players kept a straight face with their intentionally cheesy lines. Neil Hamilton, a film actor of some prominence from the silent era through the 1930's, is just great as the stone-faced Commissioner Gordon. I didn't even know his place in film history until years later when I got into classic films.And as for Adam West, I've always admired his great positive attitude about his short lived fame. Through the years he's often parodied his role in commercials and you could tell he was really enjoying himself and poking fun at the character he once played. The DVDs have a long interview with Adam West and he really is a great guy. Now in his 80's, West just said he felt very fortunate to have had work as an actor throughout his career, to have good friends and a great family, and to have been part of such a big part of 60's TV culture, even if for a short time - what a class act who did not let fame go to his head.Now for the show itself. Everybody wanted to be a guest star villain, and many did. As well as the original villains from the Batman comics such as the Riddler, The Penguin, and The Joker, there were some added that were unique to the series such as Victor Buono as King Tut. The odd thing about Tut was that the show actually showed the origin of Tut as a criminal - a respected Egyptologist who was hit on the head and became an arch criminal when not in his right mind. He was also one of the rare villains for which Batman seemed to have compassion. Nobody ever wondered why The Joker wandered around in loud suits and makeup or why The Penguin never got tired of smoking cigarettes ala FDR and wearing a tux.Then there is Robin, who is actually Batman's young ward Dick Grayson. Dick is actually in high school, and at Wayne mansion Bruce Wayne is always lecturing Dick about the importance of good diet, exercise, education and seat belts. Yet, that doesn't prevent Bruce Wayne as Batman from putting someone not of legal age repeatedly in harm's way. And harm never seemed to mean mere gun play. Instead it was the danger of being eaten by giant clams or being sawed in half by a buzz saw. You couldn't say Gotham's criminals lacked imagination.Finally an observation about Batman in relation to "Wild Wild West", both of which aired at about the same time in the 1960's. Wild Wild West had good ratings, but the show's producers decided to cancel because CBS said the show was too violent, when the fight scenes were no worse than Batman's fight scenes. Maybe they should have added some cartoon KAPOW!, OUCH! and POW!. Seriously, add those captions into the Wild Wild West fight scenes and you would have had the same thing.So if you have some time and spare cash, get the Batman DVDs and watch one of the great fads of television that people still remember fondly 50 years later. And see if you notice the little jokey touches like Ma Barker's buxom daughter's prison number being "35-23-34" and the fact that Robin's bat pole was smaller than Batman's pole. Phallic humor for the ages. Highly recommended.

In the spring of 1968, my parents were mourning the deaths of MLK and RFK. But I was 4 years old, and like most of the kids in my neighborhood, I was mourning the cancellation of the Batman TV series. I was probably among the youngest of those who watched this series during the original run...certainly most of the other kids in the neighborhood who watched were older, being in grade school or junior high.For kids of this era, I can testify that there was no TV show more important than Batman...and that is saying a lot, seeing as Batman was contemporary to 'The Wild Wild West,''The Avengers,''The Time Tunnel,' 'Mission Impossible,''Lost in Space,' 'Green Hornet,' 'Tarzan,' 'Man from UNCLE,' 'Star Trek,' and other classic fantastical series of the era. At age 4, not only did I consider Batman to be a realistic depiction of modern crime-fighting, I also believed that it was perfectly appropriate for grown men to have a secret hide-out beneath their house containing super crime-fighting equipment including a souped-up car, and for grown men to wear masks and costumes and participate in elaborately choreographed fist fights with other grown men. To reinforce the part about the fist-fights, my brother, who was 2 years older, used to practice punching during the commercial breaks, and I happened to be the closest practice target. Years later, I was 11 years old, and syndicated reruns of Batman became available via the UHF TV stations in the Ohio area, and so I watched the show again. This was a revelation to me, because my memories from age 4 had recorded this series as being a mythic epic of the highest order, both stunning and sublime. Yet at age 11, my childish memories collided with 6th-grade sophistication, and I could now see that Batman had been played for laughs. Fortunately, I had previously been familiarized with the concept of satire, and so was developmentally ready to understand that the series was a kind of meta-joke, a spoof on all things fantastical and heroic, of which there was so much in the mid-1960's. I enjoyed the big joke, but still secretly savored the fantasy of crime- fighting adventure, super weapons and wild gear. Since those days, I have revisited the series now and again, in college and adulthood, and what impresses me is the brilliance of the heroes' and villains' suits, the brilliant visual design of the batcave and their gear, the brilliant performances, especially Adam West and Frank Gorshin, and the brilliant scripts from Season 1, when the great Lorenzo Semple Jr. had the biggest influence in the show. For that brief, shining period, it was a pop-art satire played straight, working simultaneously as a kid's adventure and as subversive giggles for grown-ups. The clearest example of a multi-level TV series that ever existed. The brilliance of Season 1, and of the 1966 feature film, make up for the gradual decline in quality that began in Season 2 and then escalated in Season 3. The end was humiliating and cruel for this series, as ratings fell and talent fled in Season 2 and Season 3. And as Batman's star fell, so did the fortunes of almost every other fantastical TV series of the era...Man from UNCLE, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, etc....all were gone by the end of 1969 except for 'Land of the Giants' (ending in 1970) and 'Mission Impossible' (ending in 1973). But as for the others, it was as if they were all dinosaurs, killed by the same meteorite that killed Batman. In reality, I have to suspect that Batman's spectacularly rapid rise and fall in ratings must have spooked the advertising and TV people, so that shows like 'Ironside' and 'Hawaii Five-Oh' seemed better bets. All the same, the reruns remain. The glory days of this show, as an epic for kids, as Don Quixote for adults, still shine.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningWhat with this being the year of the release of The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan's final instalment of his Batman saga, it's interesting after all his dark, moody exposition on the tale (which, admittedly, suits it better) to travel way back in time with this first live action spin on the comics that you can catch every day on ITV4 in the afternoon. Given the cynical, sniping nature of people today, this poor show will be ripped to shreds in the manner of a pack of wolves pouncing on their prey, but that's not to say it still can't be seen as great fun, unintentionally (probably) hilarious in every way.It's curious, given how seriously everyone involved seems to take it, how silly and laughable it all comes off. Maybe in it's day it sounded more natural, coming from a more innocent time before swearing and violence became more commonplace, but it's hard to imagine even then it coming off without any derision. Adam West plays the part like it's Shakespeare, looking so ridiculous racing around in his silly Batman costume which looks like it came from a fancy dress shop, ditto Robin, Burt Ward's high pitched voice grating on the nerves, and seemingly saying 'Holy' everything. Add to that a 'Bat' this and 'Bat' that and the inevitably corny looking special effects and you've got the recipe for a hoot. And why, if Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are trying to keep the Dynamic Duo's identity secret, does nobody twig that their voices sound exactly the same?Just like in The Dark Knight and Tim Burton's Batman, the Joker's what it's all about, and just like Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson's respective takes on the villain made those films what they were, so Cesar Romero's campish maniac brightens this colourful show's style. I would quite gladly have done away with all the other villains who weren't fit to lick his boots, quite a few to get through considering all the other minor, truly pitiful villains, as well as other main players The Penguin and The Riddler. Given how Nolan has tried to give the series a more sophisticated, polished, mature feel in recent times, although the effect may not be the same, it's interesting to look back at when people didn't take things so seriously and the series had a, probably, unintentionally campy, funny edge it possesses tenfold by today's standards. ****