Daily Batman: Movie Moment — Batman Began

On this date, July 20, 1966, Batman (Leslie Martinson) made its stunning cinematic debut. These hand-picked choice stills shall speak for themselves.

Thank you and good night. (bow)

Daily Batman: Family Affair, “A neurotic style of life” edition

In the investigation of a neurotic style of life, we must always note who suffers most because of the patient’s condition. Usually, this is a member of the family.

…To injure another person through atonement is one of the most subtle devices of the neurotic.

(Dr. Alfred Adler. Problems of Neurosis. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd, 1929.)

Neurosis — keep it all in the family.

Take-two Tuesday — Daily Batman: Enter the Bookworm and Up With Love plus Surprise Connections and Zodiac-quackery

This post originally appeared on January 5, 2010 at 8:05 pm.

Roddy McDowall and Francine York, Batman, “The Bookworm Turns,” Season 1, Episode 29. Original airdate April 20, 1966. Well, that’s inauspicious. Shit.

I hate to come off as a down-at-the-mouth grump on the topic of love. I am a romantic. Here is the Bookworm and his lady, the lovely librarian Miss Lydia Limpet, and may I add that I rooted like gangbusters for this pair to win?

via Batman villains database — I love clunky contraptions on men’s heads. I find it so fucking cute. I really do.

In fact, I remember pretty strongly wanting him for myself (girls like a boy who reads!), but I rightly understood Miss Limpet having him was almost the same thing. Later, when I figured out he was in Planet of the Apes, I was even more impressed, but, being a fickle little girl, I soon made way for other crushes, like Matthew Broderick and the Great Mouse Detective — shut up, because that could work — to the point that, when I stayed at La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona several years back and was given the “Roddy McDowall room,” I merely remarked that I’d “once thought he was cute,” and meant nothing more by it.

Interestingly, after his role as the Bookworm in the live-action television series, McDowall continued to wreak villainy in the DC world. He voiced Jarvis Tetch/the Mad Hatter for both Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, as well as performing him in a brief cameo for the late ’90s animated Superman.

In the original television series, the Mad Hatter was played by David Wayne. More on the Mad Hatter another day cause he was really depressed as a character and had some killer-great deadpan lines, even though no one matches King Tut in my estimation for the male villains’ comedic value. But back to love, because that is what I’m trying to prove is probably more important than trivial details of cartoons and old lunchbox-selling serials.

No, I can’t stop talking about it. Okay, because I’m looking at his page on the imdb to make sure I had the dates and titles right and it ends up Roddy McDowall was also the Breadmaster on Edlund’s masterwork The Tick, which is of grave emotional significance to me, and, moreover, had cameos on Darkwing Duck, Quantum Leap, and mother-effing Gargoyles. Also, he was monumentally in to photography and experimental camerawork. So, holy hell, I was smart to have a crush on him as a kid and now I’m going to have to get back to Roddy McDowall another day; he’s obviously been far more of an important thread in my life than I ever could have possibly understood … y’all please excuse me because Roddy McDowall has just now blown my mind.

Finally, according to authorities on these matters, the Catwoman outfit regularly worn by Julie Newmar appears to have been “upcycled” and worn by Francine York (who played librarian Miss Limpet on Batman) for the Lost In Space episode “The Colonists.” Also, in looking for pictures of her, I stumbled across a page where a woman had collected a bunch of pictures of famous Virgo women and though I always claim to put almost zero stock in that stuff, I have to say that they/we all have the faces of birdlike closet freaks who are too shy to smile with our lips parted but rock straight-up crazy do-me eyes despite our distrust of other people — to say nothing of the number of patron saints in her gallery of too-close-to-home horror. Good thing I think that’s largely bunk, or the unnerving similarities might have me concerned that my chakras weren’t aligned with the downward dog position of my chi and I’d have to bury a peeled potato under a full moon or some shit.

Truly the end of this post. Moving on for my own sake.

Daily Batman: Underneath the cowl is the mayor of Quahog

via.

Pizza for Mayor West?

No! You got me Canadian bacon instead of bacon? This misdeed can not go unpunished. Pizza delivery man, prepare to meet your maker, at the hands of my cat launcher. … Damn, I lost him. All right, cats, back in the bag.

Come on, Fluffy, come on, Mittens — come on, Paul. What a ridiculous name for a cat: Paul. That’s a person’s name. A person’s name!

(Family Guy. “Prick Up Your Ears.” Season 5, Episode 6. Original airdate November 19, 2006.)

Daily Batman: Of babes and Batusis

Signed publicity still of Adam West and Jill St. John on set for “Hi Diddle Riddle,” Season One, first episode.

Jill St. John played Molly, the Riddler’s assistant in this and the companion episode, “Smack In The Middle.” She drugged Batman’s orange juice and he boogied for her. Video of the Batusi was showcased in a previous entry.

Daily Batman: I know who you really are

Publicity still: Adam West and Yvonne Craig read Detective Comics #359, “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl.”

With her role as Batgirl, Yvonne Craig’s own place in pop culture is secure. “There was no stigma to my having been Batgirl,” she notes. “No typecasting whatsoever. People really like the character. I was in a supermarket once, and a little girl came up to me and said, ‘I know who you really are!’ Then she said, ‘Barbara Gordon!'”

(Jankiewicz, Pat. “Recalling Batgirl.” October 2002. Starlog 303: 38-41.)

Daily Batman: The Cat and the Bat in common cause

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

(Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Daily Batman: Wedding bells edition

It’s June. Happy wedding month.

Pageant magazine, 1966. Click below to enlarge the copy accompanying the photographs.

Daily Batman: Enter the Siren

The lovely and talented Joan Collins portrayed the Siren in the 1960s Batman television series, seen here with her henchmen Andante and Allegro. In music, andante means “moderately slow” like a walking pace and allegro means kind of like “cheerfully,” kind of bright and sprightly. Both terms refer to tempo but have greatly to do with mood, which has made them always stick in my mind more so than technical demarcations like signature and clef: I’m a romantic, what can I say?

In Honor Band when I was a kid we played a piece titled “Andante and Allegro,” which was a little challenging for our age group at the time (I think we were elementary-aged because I remember being shocked that the piece was over a page long) whose I think secret purpose was to teach us to be more expressive as musicians. Crafty and fun — it must be a fun job to compose music for children’s primers, I never thought of that before. Well, I guess, unless the person is a frustrated composer who is secretly working on some avant-garde opus and hates children, like a writer who has to pen copy for toy catalogues and works by candlelight on the Great American Novel because they can barely afford electricity. I hadn’t thought of that, maybe it’s actually awful to write music for children’s lesson books and the composers think of drinking Drain-o every morning when they wake up, to escape the hellish cacophony of unfulfilled dreams which is their job.

That got completely out of control in a hurry. Sorry. Long story short, I can’t wait ’til the kidlet picks up an instrument.

Daily Batman: It’s Batman. On An Elephant.

It’s Adam West. On an elephant.

(Image caption reference from long-previous post. I told you it would appear again and again.)

Pachyderm-it-up,
pachyderm-it-in;
let me begin
I came to win,
battle me, that’s a sin …

Daily Batman: Hot wheels edition

They call me Baby Driver
And once upon a pair of wheels
I hit the road and I’m gone,
What’s my number?
I wonder how your engine feels.

Burt Ward and Adam West photographed by Yale Joel on the set of the Batman movie, 1966.

Ba-ba-ba-ba
Scoot down the road,
What’s my number?
I wonder how your engine feels.

“Baby Driver” (Simon and Garfunkel, 1969).

Patented style.

An actual patent was filed for the Batmobile that was built for the first film version of Batman (Leslie Martinson, 1966). The patent, no. 205998, was registered to Mr. George Barris of Barris Kustom, who outfitted the Batmobile for the movie. Among its features were a mobile batphone, bat-symbol hubcaps, and a “radar-like antenna with aimable parabolic reflector.” (source)

Daily Batman: Outtakes

Yvonne Craig (Batgirl) and Adam West (Batman) goofing around on a publicity shoot.

Batgirl appeared only in the final season of the Batman series, 1967-68, but Yvonne Craig stayed attached to the character. The Joker shot Barbara Gordon, paralyzing her from the waist down, then kidnapped and stripped her father, forcing him to view blown-up shots of his suffering daughter (also mainly undressed) in Alan Moore’s 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke — over which people are often divided; I think it’s a masterwork — in order to prove to Jim Gordon and Batman that all it takes is “one bad day” for a man to be driven mad. After reading The Killing Joke for herself, Yvonne Craig complained to DC about what she viewed as the character’s egregiously cruel fate (the wiki).

Bonus Trek connection:

Yvonne played Marta, the Orion asylum inmate with green skin and sexy dance moves, in “Whom Gods Destroy,” Star Trek TOS, Season 3, Episode 15 (1968).

Daily Batman: Enter the Bookworm and Up With Love plus Surprise Connections and Zodiac-quackery

Roddy McDowall and Francine York, Batman, “The Bookworm Turns,” Season 1, Episode 29. Original airdate April 20, 1966. Well, that’s inauspicious. Shit.

I hate to come off as a down-at-the-mouth grump on the topic of love. I am a romantic. Here is the Bookworm and his lady, the lovely librarian Miss Lydia Limpet, and may I add that I rooted like gangbusters for this pair to win?

via Batman villains database — I love clunky contraptions on men’s heads. I find it so fucking cute. I really do.

In fact, I remember pretty strongly wanting him for myself (girls like a boy who reads!), but I rightly understood Miss Limpet having him was almost the same thing. Later, when I figured out he was in Planet of the Apes, I was even more impressed, but, being a fickle little girl, I soon made way for other crushes, like Matthew Broderick and the Great Mouse Detective — shut up, because that could work — to the point that, when I stayed at La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona several years back and was given the “Roddy McDowall room,” I merely remarked that I’d “once thought he was cute,” and meant nothing more by it.

Interestingly, after his role as the Bookworm in the live-action television series, McDowall continued to wreak villainy in the DC world. He voiced Jarvis Tetch/the Mad Hatter for both Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, as well as performing him in a brief cameo for the late ’90s animated Superman.

In the original television series, the Mad Hatter was played by David Wayne. More on the Mad Hatter another day cause he was really depressed as a character and had some killer-great deadpan lines, even though no one matches King Tut in my estimation for the male villains’ comedic value. But back to love, because that is what I’m trying to prove is probably more important than trivial details of cartoons and old lunchbox-selling serials.

No, I can’t stop talking about it. Okay, because I’m looking at his page on the imdb to make sure I had the dates and titles right and it ends up Roddy McDowall was also the Breadmaster on Edlund’s masterwork The Tick, which is of grave emotional significance to me, and, moreover, had cameos on Darkwing Duck, Quantum Leap, and mother-effing Gargoyles. Also, he was monumentally in to photography and experimental camerawork. So, holy hell, I was smart to have a crush on him as a kid and now I’m going to have to get back to Roddy McDowall another day; he’s obviously been far more of an important thread in my life than I ever could have possibly understood … y’all please excuse me because Roddy McDowall has just now blown my mind.

Finally, according to authorities on these matters, the Catwoman outfit regularly worn by Julie Newmar appears to have been “upcycled” and worn by Francine York (who played librarian Miss Limpet on Batman) for the Lost In Space episode “The Colonists.” Also, in looking for pictures of her, I stumbled across a page where a woman had collected a bunch of pictures of famous Virgo women and though I always claim to put almost zero stock in that stuff, I have to say that they/we all have the faces of birdlike closet freaks who are too shy to smile with our lips parted but rock straight-up crazy do-me eyes despite our distrust of other people — to say nothing of the number of patron saints in her gallery of too-close-to-home horror. Good thing I think that’s largely bunk, or the unnerving similarities might have me concerned that my chakras weren’t aligned with the downward dog position of my chi and I’d have to bury a peeled potato under a full moon or some shit.

Truly the end of this post. Moving on for my own sake.

Daily Batman: Movie Moment – Batman: The Movie (1966)

Though the producer had wanted to film the movie before the TV series, production didn’t start until network execs were sure they had a hit. Thus the gift of Batman: The Movie was not received by its awe-stricken public until July 30, 1966, between the first and second seasons. It’s quite the show.

Title sequence.

Favorite tagline is “MEN DIE! WOMEN SIGH! Beneath that Batcape — he’s all man!” and the best line is when Batman says, “They may be drinkers, Robin, but they’re still human beings.”

Holy papier-mâché!

Robin: Holy sardine!
Batman: Hand down the shark repellent Batspray!

The others I can understand, but whale repellent?

Riddler: You and your trained, exploding shark!
Penguin: How was I to know they’d have a can of shark repellent Bat-spray handy?

Daily Batman: Miss Kitty workin’ it, social networking edition

Name: Miss Kitty
Sex/Age female, 23
Location: Gotham City, United States
Current Mood: workin’ it! 😉

Robin: Good job that love stuff doesn’t work on me — I’m way too young for that sort of thing!

Yes. Yes it’s age that’s the stumbling block. …

Batman: What about Robin?
Catwoman: Hmmm. . . I know. We’ll kill him.

Robin: Holy caffeine!

(all stills and quotes from “Catwoman Goes to College,” Batman, Season 2, Episode 49. Original airdate February 22, 1967.)

Daily Batman: That bat can dance!

Adam West works what his mother gave him, Pulp Fiction style, with a comely redhead.

Dig his drink order: “Fresh orange juice, please.” No vodka in there for this wholesome crimefighter! What a guy.

Daily Batman: Dick Clark and the Dynamic Duo

Dick Clark: (opening apartment window as Batman and Robin climb past) Hey! Who’re you?
Robin: He must be new in Gotham City.
Batman: He’s from Philadelphia.
Dick Clark: How did you know?
Batman: You dipped your dipthong. People from Philidelphia are known for that.

Robin: We’re Batman and Robin. The crimefighters!
Dick Clark: Oh. Are you a vocal group?
Robin: What?!
Dick Clark: I thought perhaps you might be a singing duo.
–“Batman”, Season 2, Episode 1: “Shoot A Crooked Arrow.” (Original air date September 7, 1966.)

Daily Batman: Enter Special Guest Villainess Miss Tallulah Bankhead as Black Widow

Pure as the driven slush, and a Patron Saint to the core; this was Tallulah’s final television role (perhaps the shock of the schlocky script actually did her in).

Batman: No, thank you. I never touch spirits. Have you some milk?

Black Widow: Dear Heart, you may be caped, and you may be dynamic, but to me you are a crashing bore!

Attagirl. More on Tallulah-dahling later; I have to dash!

Daily Batman: 30 Rock Edition

(Reading Jack’s childhood list of life goals) Liz: There’s only one left — “Be friends with Batman.”
Jack: There’s still a couple of hours. Jonathan, could you get Adam West’s agent on the phone, please?

Adam West: (introducing Jack at his birthday party) I can’t stay long, I’m on a case. The Penguin is in town.
(the guests stare at him in silence)
Adam West: (gestures to Jack for money)
— 30 Rock, “Apollo, Apollo.”

Daily Batman: The Bat and the Cat, up to games again

Those crazy, crazy kids.

“I can give you more happiness than anyone in the world, I mean, it’s me and you against the world.”
“What about Robin?”
“Well, I’ll have him killed. Painlessly. He is a bit of a bore with his ‘holy this’ and ‘holy that.'”
“Aw, that does it, Catwoman. I thought you had a modicum of decency, but I can see that I erred in my judgment!”
— Season 2, Episode #75, “Scat! Darn Catwoman Part 2,” original air date 25 Jan 1967

Best part of that exchange is the “Aw.” He’s bummed, y’all.