Posted on 06/12/2017 4:30:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
At precisely 7:30PM Eastern time on Wednesday, January 12, 1966, “Commissioner Gordon” (onetime Saturday matinee idol Neil Hamilton)—surrounded by uniformed Gotham City police and elected officials—carefully lifted the plexiglass cover off a glowing red telephone in his office. Looking around the room, he solemnly declared: “I don’t know who he is behind that mask of his. But I do know when we need him. And we need him…now!”
Of course the person on the other end of that call on the Batphone was actor Adam West, about to step into television history as star of the iconic 1960’s series Batman.
In many ways, West—who passed away Friday at age 88 following a brief battle with leukemia—was the embodiment of Commissioner Gordon’s description: he was the man America needed, and we needed him right then.
51 years before Donald Trump raised his right hand to be sworn in as our 45th President, America was—like the mythical Gotham City—under siege. Batman premiered about two years after the JFK assassination, and two years before the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York. The nation was being torn asunder by riots over civil rights and the United States involvement in Vietnam.
As January 1966 neared, ABC—the newest and lowest-rated television network—had suffered through a disastrous Fall ’65 season…with flop after flop in its primetime lineup. Affiliates were grumbling and advertisers were bailing. In desperation, ABC marketing executives came up with the then unheard-of concept of a “Second Season”… two midseason replacements to be tossed against the wall to see if anything would stick.
The first was the eminently forgettable Blue Light, a prime time drama starring Robert Goulet (yes, that Robert Goulet!) as a secret agent fighting Nazis during World War II. But the second faced even more ridicule and doubt by ABC execs: it was to be producer William Dozier’s live-action rendition of Bob Kane’s 1939 comic book creation Batman.
Kane’s vision of millionaire Bruce Wayne was that of a dark, brooding crimefighter violently battling criminals as a way to avenge his parents’ death during an armed robbery. But while that formula worked to critical and financial success for future Batman actors Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, Christian Bale and Ben Affleck, it was not what America needed in 1966. The Batman William Dozier wanted to produce—and which ABC chairman Leonard H. Goldenson personally approved—needed an actor described by associate producer Charles Fitzsimons as someone “who could play Alice in Wonderland as if it were Hamlet.”
Enter Adam West, a solid performer with bigscreen and television credentials including guest appearances on Perry Mason, The Rifleman, Gunsmoke and The Outer Limits. But West’s Batman was so over-the-top serious in his delivery, the series became an unqualified sensation as kids tuned in for the adventure but with their parents also watching for the campy fun as the fully-costumed Batman refused a prime table at a restaurant, telling the manager “No thank you, I’ll just stand at the bar. I shouldn’t wish to attract any attention.” The rest, as they say, is TV history.
With it’s bold, colorful production (at a time many TV series were still being presented in black & white)…its guest villains played by “A” list actors including Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Caesar Romero, and George Sanders…and the ‘cliffhanger’ endings leaving Batman & Robin about to be dropped into a vat of acid as the breathless announcer intoned, “Is this the end of the Dynamic Duo? Find out tomorrow, same Bat time, same Bat channel,” the show many ABC execs had ridiculed turned into an overnight, international sensation.
(During its first four weeks on the air, Batman averaged a 26.3 Neilsen rating. For the two weeks ending March 20, 1966, Batman averaged an astonishing 29.4 rating. A little perspective is in order: here in 2017, ABC couldn’t pull a 29.4 rating if it was offering a live broadcast of President Trump hitting Nancy Pelosi in the face with a Boston Cream pie.)
If the series had been darker and more violent—or if ABC had gone with its first choice, actor Lyle Waggoner—Batman might have suffered the fate of most ABC shows back in 1966. But on the strength of Adam West’s dead-serious delivery coupled with his sense of timing and his tongue-in-cheek humor, TV history was made. And ABC catapulted into the major network it would eventually become.
So news of his passing saddened many of us who—despite admiring the bigscreen Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan versions of the Dark Knight of Gotham City—will always have a soft spot in our hearts for Adam West, whose performance as the Caped Crusader still evokes fond memories of a more innocent time in pre-9/11 America when television did not resort to foul language, graphic violence and ham-handed “politically correct” agendas disguised as entertainment.
Oh yes, remember it well.
Let’s not forget Bruce Lee, he stole the show on ‘Green Hornet’. He’d kick a couple of peoples butt’s every week, and occasionally break out the throwing stars. I had to have some throwing stars.
Same here.
“Lyle Waggoner”
I never knew he was in the running to be Batman! But, Holy Hashbrowns, Batman - was Lyle ever handsome! *SWOON*
RIP, Mr. West.
By all accounts he LOVED telling these stories to people, he told them all the time.... probably just to piss off the holier than thou types..
If i was in his shoes, I would have done the same...
Pour Alphabet Soup into it, to get the secret coded message. Heck, 50 years later, you STILL can't do that. Batman was simply far, far ahead of his time.
Growing up in Memphis, I remember this Saturday morning when Batman cane to town
I worked with him for 3 weeks in the 1990’s. He was polite, professional and on time evreyday.
I have no doubt that he was... but even back then , 60s -70s when all this was going on he talked about it. I guess most guys go though this, or would if they had the means, he did.
‘It was the Swinging Sixties with free love and women threw themselves at us,’ West said of the attention him and his co-stars will receive in an interview.
He and Burt Ward, his co-star who played Robin, would have ‘quickies’ with women in between scenes and while in his costume.
The actor said, years after the show: ‘Because of the physical limitations of the costume, you gotta have quickies.’
Offset, his sex life appeared even wilder.
West reportedly became a regular at orgies. Once, he and his friend and co-star Frank Gorshin - who played the villain, Riddler, in the Batman movies at the time - were banned from an orgy because they were mimicking the characters they played on television.
West said: ‘We walked in and it was an orgy. So I immediately went into the Batman character, and Frank went into the Riddler character, because we were getting the big giggles.
‘It was so funny to us, what we walked into. And we were kicked out. We were expelled from the orgy.’
Hey Diana, you might enjoy this. It’s a video of the screen tests of both Adam West and Burt Ward and Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-BHYo4U0M4
Regards,
West has a soft place in my heart.
In the late sixties, We were at a Hollywood gala/fundraiser and I happened to be talking to him and told him my four kids loved him.
He said “ Let’’s call them, so I can talk to them”. So we found a phone, he did just that and gave my four sweet and lasting memories for which I am thankful for.
eternally.
All on his own initiative.
Yeah. Whatever. It was all well covered in this terrific show...
The West was the best.
Go back to your Daily Mail.
Tie. Frank Gorshin’s Riddler.
When America was still America. Those were innocent times by far as compared to the recent 8 years of unpleasantness.
I met his son Hunter Anderson in the fall of 1978 who was playing volleyball at Santa Barbara City College. I was invited to go to party at the family’s Topanga Canyon home one weekend but didn’t end up going. Don’t know what he is up to these days.
JULIE NEWMAR - Best Temptress Ever
There was some talk of having Adam West play Batman’s father in some of the newer Batman movies. That would have been nice, but it never happened.
P4L
I thought Blue Light was a pretty decent show. Why did the author feel the need to take a swipe at Goulet? He was quite good in the series.
Goulet is/was known more as a singer, not an actor. It would be the same as if Andy Williams or Al Martino was the lead actor in a tv show (and yes, I know, Martino had a role in The Godfather).
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