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Let me make a confession. As much as I love Batman -- the character, the cartoons, some of the movies -- I 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, I've got nothing against Mr. West personally. In the right roles, he's a fine actor, and I'm sure he's a lovely guy, good to his wife and kids. I just hate what he represents: that show. You know what I'm 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 Pete'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 my craw so badly. But even as I wish Mr. West a happy Bat-birthday, I wonder if we might have been better off if Lyle Waggoner had just gotten the part in the first place.
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Directory categories:
Adam West, Batman TV Show, Batman Comics, Superhero TV Shows, DC Comics |
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Archived under: 1960s, Actors, Adam West, Batman, Celebrities, Comic Books, Entertainment, Superheroes, TV |
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Comments
I LOVED the Batman TV show!!!!
Posted by: nectarmaiden at September 18, 2008 8:32 AM
Gadzooks, I think this writer obviously Just Doesn't Get It. Maybe he's really young or something. I see no need to see the Batman movies At All. The TV show is defintive. Of course I'm not a comic book fan.
Posted by: liveade at April 06, 2009 2:25 AM
Liveade, it sounds like YOU don't get it!!!
Posted by: tomreagan_90 at April 06, 2009 11:41 AM
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