Featuring the voices of ADAM WEST and BURT WARD!
1977’s Filmation TV series The New Adventures of Batman has been back in the zeitgeist of late. The CBS Saturday morning show — starring the voices of Adam West and Burt Ward — ran only one season (not including years of re-packaged reruns) but has inspired two action figure lines in the last few years: a short run by Figures Toy Company and McFarlane Toys’ superb wave that came out earlier in 2024:
Now comes the natural next step: The series in June will be released on Blu-ray for the first time.
Dig the official info:
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
Holy Flashbacks, Batman! Featuring the voices of Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin (reprising their roles from the hit live-action TV series), these animated adventures of the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder originally produced by animation powerhouse Filmation in 1977, are revered by generations of cartoon fans. With heroine Batgirl and zany sidekick Batmite, these brave Bat-heroes match wits with clever criminals like the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze and the cosmic uber-villain Zarbor!
Actors: Adam West, Burt Ward, Melendy Britt, Lennie Weinrib
Run time: 6 hours and 18 minutes
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Warner Bros.
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A few thoughts:
— The set is scheduled for release Tuesday, June 25, 2024, and lists for $29.98. (The series was previously released on DVD and is available on online platforms.)
— What’s not clear to me is whether this has been remastered like Filmation’s superior 1968 Adventures of Batman series. The specs do say it is in 1080p high definition, so it’s definitely possible. (I’m not clear on the source of those evidently 4K opening credits above. They were posted in Nov. 2022.)
— How strange: The Batman and Robin images on the front of the package use the Alex Toth-designed Dynamic Duo from Super Friends — which was in direct competition with this show. The villains on the back are accurate. (Catwoman is pretty much the only improvement over the 1968 show.)
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MORE
— FIRST LOOK: Behold the Colorful Beauty of the Remastered 1968 FILMATION BATMAN. Click here.
— FILMATION BATMAN: McFarlane Toys’ New Wave — REVEALED! Click here.
May 14, 2024
I notice the complete-and no doubt wholly intentional-lack of Bat-mite on that cover box art.
May 14, 2024
The artwork on these WB DVD/Blu-Ray sets is so inconsistent, the inconsistency is consistent!!! But I’m glad to have them either way. I just wish they took more care in the marketing dept.
May 14, 2024
As much a Batman fan that I am, that 1977 series with Bat-mite was awful. The first 1968 series was far better. I hope this blu-ray trend will extend to Filmation’s other DC Comics series, like 1967’s Aquaman (with the JLA & Teen Titans), 1966’s Superman as well as Superboy (if by some legal miracle). I also hope McFarlane Toys continues with more Flimation-inspired figures.
May 14, 2024
Barely remember this iteration, but just 15 short years later, Batman: The Animated Series debuted and rendered all previous versions meaningless. Still, all in favor of these physical media releases because no doubt there are plenty of folks who’ve waited years for this to happen.
May 14, 2024
I wouldn’t say “meaningless.” Just very, very different.
May 14, 2024
I used to avidly watch The New Adventures of Batman back in my late childhood and early adolescent days when the show debuted in early 1977 and ran on CBS for about the next 5 years after. I esp. recalled the show as also running with near-simultaneity with Filmation’s Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, debuting a year earlier, also on CBS, the two getting combined as the Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour
My preference then was for Batman as I was much more familiar with him as a character, even if now I consider Tarzan as the much superior cartoon for its greater seriousness of storytelling (and the wonderful rotoscoping for Tarzan himself), even if derived from the pulpy storytelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs to which Filmation’s effort was probably the most faithful to Tarzan’s author—esp. with N’kima (instead of Cheeta) and the use of the Mangani ape language as well as Tarzan’s heightened intelligence (compared to the greater “simple-mindedness” of the earlier movies).
In sympathy with Ron’s post, even as kid / early teen, I felt Batmite was a serious detracting element to the show—and it’s surprising to me, looking in hindsight, that Filmation went this way since the late 1960s there was the effort by DC creators to move Bats away from the silliness of the campy TV show (why would DC go along with this?). Then again, we as a culture were still in that mindset, perhaps, that if a cartoon, it must esp. be meant for even littler kiddies, so it had to have a littler kiddie, cutesy element. It gave the stories in general a pre-New Look sensibility—and silliness, with some of the worst ones being Curses, Oiled Again! (anti-gravity from a spray can!) and anything involving Zarbor (why does he a need a spaceship to travel in and to steal nuclear powerplants for his home planet (Ergo—suffering a topical energy crisis from the time) when he can magic himself from place to place and produce seemingly anything by the same magical process?
Yet, Filmation’s Batman (of both series, 1968 and 1977) was the New Look one created by Carmine Infantino in 1964 (short bat ears on the cowl, whose front was that solid black plus eyebrows of the New Look), even if by 1977 we’re well into the Adams-Aparo-Rogers look for Bats.
In its defense, I think the 1977 episodes are better drawn and animated (I love Bats swinging around the flag pole in the show’s intro, as well as his fluid athleticism in the end credits, which could appear in some episodes—likely rotoscoped yet still beautiful and graceful) compared to the 1968 ones, even if the 1968 show was heavily borrowed from in the 1977 show (the urban scenes animation when driving the Batmobile esp. come to mind—and the continued “New Look” as well as how noted villains like Joker and Penguin look) –a good economizing move given the inflation of the decade. The recycling of Ray Ellis’s Star Trek TAS incidental music for the 1977 show was probably done for the same reasons—but still a plus as that is great music (and I’m a fan of ST: TAS).
And one or two episodes I really like—the ones featuring Electro and the Chameleon (“Bat-sized” and “The Chameleon”). The stories were good and fun (with some minor negatives)—and the added Star Trek TAS music was a plus. And so too was the voice work by West and Ward.
Apologies for length.
May 14, 2024
Preordered!!
May 14, 2024
I would consider this if it were under twenty dollars, but thirty? No thanks.
May 14, 2024
I think in addition to the Silver Age, this series was very much inspired by the 60s Batman series, which was being rerun by a Pittsburgh station in my area and must have been doing good ratings because there was also the Legends of the Superheroes series, with West and Ward returning as the dynamic duo, around the same time.
May 15, 2024
Yes, and it was a follow-up to Filmation’s 1968 cartoon.
May 15, 2024
…rendering my complete bootleg set obsolete.