ZOWIE WEDNESDAYS!
Welcome to ZOWIE WEDNESDAYS — in which we’re serializing across 13 weeks Mark Voger’s new book Zowie! from publisher TwoMorrows. Click here for a ton more on this feature — and info on the book itself, a brightly colored history of “the TV Superhero Craze in ’60s Pop Culture.” You can also find there links to previous installments. Right on! — Dan
The Adam West Batman movie premiered this week in 1966, on July 30 to be exact.
Given Zowie’s raison d’etre, there was no way we weren’t going to excerpt that section of the book for the latest ZOWIE WEDNESDAYS installment.
Dig it:
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Zowie! by Mark Voger, is a 192-page, full-color hardcover that lists for $43.95. It is scheduled to be released July 31 and will be available through booksellers and comics shops. You can also pre-order it directly from TwoMorrows. Click here.
Also check out MarkVoger.com!
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MORE
— The Complete ZOWIE WEDNESDAYS! Index. Click here.
— THE OTHER GUYS: The Wildly Fun Also-Ran Superheroes of the 1960s. Click here.
July 31, 2024
The 1966 “Batman” movie ranks #3 on my all time Batman movies…behind “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” but ahead of everything else. I think it’s a hoot…a fun, escapist movie with lots of clever ideas & dialog that has aged well…especially compared to some other Batman movies.
July 31, 2024
I have always liked the 1966 Batman movie–and it was wonderful and illuminating to read Mark’s account of what makes this so. The salient point for me was esp. in how the movie harkens back to the TV show with its continuity of actors and camp vibe etc. without exactly replicating it–so to create an actual movie, something cinematic and not just a rehash of an extended episodic TV installment. I love “art appreciation” essays like these as they aid in that very goal–increased appreciation of a wonderful movie effort that ranks right up there with Burton and Nolan–if in a very different spirit from them (Alan Moore even regards Adam West as the best Batman of all who have played him).
PS: a minor quibble: the Bat-Shark Repellent wasn’t in Bats’ utility belt, at least for the movie, but was kept up in the Batcopter on a small shelf of four “Oceanic Repellent Bat Sprays”: Barracuda, Whale, Manta and–of course–Shark. Robin had to climb down on the Batcopter’s Bat-ladder to get it to him, (Batman does have the spray on him in the utility belt in “Surf’s Up! Joker’s Under!” from Season 3.)
Otherwise a very wonderful and enlightening read. Thanks Mark!
July 31, 2024
Yes, I was a Batman-Crazy little kid who saw this movie with my friends when it first came out! I’ve seen it a few times since and I now consider it to be one of the great (and underrated) comedy movies of the 1960s.
August 1, 2024
Before Michael Keaton was the Batman in 1989