Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jan 10, 2026 | 6 comments

BATMAN ’66 WEEK: A Big Little Book with a big impact…

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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

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I don’t know how old I was, I just know I was young. Very young. I do know I was at a Howard Johnson’s and I saw it through the glass of the restaurant’s gift counter, on the bottom shelf: Batman: The Cheetah Caper, a Whitman Big Little Book with an enticing cover showing the Dynamic Duo wrangling a cobra, in front of a stylized, mid-century Gotham City backdrop.

I begged for it from my Mom and Dad but I don’t think I had to work too hard because as we pulled out of the parking lot onto the Route 35 circle in Neptune, N.J., heading back to our house in Ocean Township, I had it in my hands, sitting in the dark in the back seat.

That I can’t place the timing (1971, when I was 4, maybe?) in all likelihood means The Cheetah Caper was my first Batman book, predating any comic that came into my possession — my gateway into a storytelling world beyond the Batman TV show. I was obsessed with the show, which was already a syndication hit: It ran on Channel 11 (WPIX) in New York and I never missed an episode. I don’t remember the first time I saw it; it was just always there.

(If I have a pre-Batman memory, it’s sitting in my crib with a Woody Woodpecker ukelele, watching bits of dust dance in the sunlight shining through my bedroom window, wondering when someone was going to come get me.)

First published in 1969 as a hardcover, The Cheetah Caper, as it turned out, was the perfect distillation of the show and comics themselves. The story is simple: Batman and Robin are in the hunt for a supervillain called the Cheetah, whose skin is covered in spots and wears a black-tan-and-blue, feline-themed outfit, whiskers and all. He’s the fastest man on Earth thanks to his secret addiction — peanut butter, which he has to consume in large quantities to maintain his superhuman swiftness.

As is typical of a Big Little Book, the story is prose, with color illustrations on opposing pages. (Later editions were paperbacks and had black-and-white drawings.) Some of the images have been directly lifted from 1960s comics, others are unique to the book. The writer is George S. Elrick but the artist(s) are uncredited.

In addition to the inherent silliness of the Cheetah himself — there are other Batman ’66 flourishes, like the Shakespeare bust that opens the passageway to the Batcave via the Batpoles; Robin’s “Holy” this and “Holy” that; the Barris-style Batmobile; Batman’s preternatural ability to anticipate or handle any situation, like being an expert in how to safely grab a venomous snake; and dialogue that sits somewhere between Gardner Fox and Lorenzo Semple Jr.

It’s no wonder that I read it — or had it read to me — so many times that the cover fell off. (My Dad replaced it with one made of light blue plastic and silver duct tape, a large bat that said “BATMAN” adorning the front.

I’ve been meaning to write about The Cheetah Caper for a long time. Somehow, with more than 12 years of 13th Dimension under my belt, I never have. Strange, considering how instrumental this Big Little Book was to my development as a Batman fan, and as a reader.

But I did read it again recently and it holds up for exactly what it is — a fun, engaging Batman tale that’s emblematic of a particular time and a particular boy’s discovery of adventure.

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MORE

— The Complete BATMAN ’66 WEEK INDEX of Features. Click here.

— SMASHING, MATE! The Rare BATMAN ’66 Stories You Could Only Find in the United Kingdom. Click here.