PAUL KUPPERBERG: How ADAM WEST Made BATMAN Work
BATMAN ’66 WEEK! — Welcome to BATMAN ’66 WEEK, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the beloved TV show starring Adam West! All week, we’ll be presenting daily tributes and features, leading up to Jan. 12 — the premiere date itself — when we’ll roll out a brand-new TOP 13 BATMAN ’66 EPISODE COUNTDOWN, voted upon by a panel of the most knowledgeable Bat-experts around. Click here for the COMPLETE INDEX. — Dan — UPDATED 1/9/26: The late Adam West was, of course, central to the Batman TV show. Perfect time to reprint this piece from his birthday — Sept. 19 — in 2022. Dig it. — Dan — By PAUL KUPPERBERG “And you, sir, are no Adam West!” I know where I was at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 12, 1966. I was planted on the floor in front of our big console television set, tuned to ABC-TV, Channel 7 in New York, eyes glued to the screen for the premiere of Batman, starring Adam West. I had been reading comic books for what felt like my entire life by then (I was two days shy of being exactly 10 and one-half years old). I devoured the four-color adventures of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of their superpowered colleagues. And, as much as I loved The Adventures of Superman, it had been a staple of my after-school TV viewing for years by then and even 104 episodes don’t go very far on a rotating daily syndicated basis. But Batman was something new and different. Batman was bold, bright, and, for its time, totally insane. Superman battled generic gangsters in suits and ties, a few packing death-rays, maybe the occasional robot or two, but the Man of Steel’s “thrill-packed episodes” looked a little lame next to the supervillain-packed Batman. Even the 1950s color episodes of Superman looked faded and washed out next to the vividly four-colored Caped Crusader. And Batman had Adam West. And Adam West was the key to making Batman work. Because in a world inhabited by freaky, crazy foes like the Joker, Catwoman, Egghead and Louie the Lilac, not to mention a simpering, ineffectual police commissioner and his perpetually angry but otherwise useless second-in-command, and a home life that featured a dotty old aunt and a put-upon but game-for-anything butler, the man at the center of it all had to be anything but freaky...
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