BATMAN AND ROBIN TV SERIES 24X36 POSTER SCALING BUILDING CLASSIC JOKER WAYNE NEW

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• One 24x36 individual poster
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Batman is a 1960s American live action television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin – two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City from a variety of arch villains.[1][2] It is known for its camp style, upbeat theme music, and its intentionally humorous, simplistic morality (aimed at its largely teenage audience). This included championing the importance of using seat belts, doing homework, eating vegetables, and drinking milk.[3] It was described by executive producer William Dozier as the only situation comedy on the air without a laugh track. 120 episodes aired on the ABC network for three seasons from January 12, 1966, to March 14, 1968, twice weekly for the first two and weekly for the third. In 2016, television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked Batman as the 82nd greatest American television show of all time.
The series focused on the adventures of Batman and Robin. Although the lives of their alter-egos, millionaire Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson (Richard John Grayson) were frequently shown, it was usually only briefly, in the context of their being called away on superhero business, or in circumstances where they needed to employ their secret identities to assist in their crime-fighting. The "Dynamic Duo" typically come to the aid of the Gotham City Police upon the latter being stumped by a supervillain. Throughout each episode, Batman and Robin have to follow a series of (wildly improbable) clues to discover the supervillain's plan, then figure out how to thwart that plan and capture the criminal.
For the first two seasons, Batman aired twice a week on consecutive nights. Every story is a two-parter, except for two three-parters featuring villainous team ups (The Joker and The Penguin, The Penguin and Marsha, Queen of Diamonds) in the second season. The titles of each multi-part story usually rhymed. For the third season, which aired one episode a week, most episodes were self-contained stories. However, each episode would end with a teaser featuring the next episode's guest villain. The cliffhangers between multiple-parters typically consisted of the supervillain holding someone captive, usually the Dynamic Duo, with the captives being subject to some elaborate, gruesome – if unlikely – death. This would inevitably be resolved early in the follow-up episode.
Ostensibly a crime series, the style of the show was in fact campy and tongue-in-cheek. It was a true situation comedy, in that situations were exaggerated and were generally played for laughs. This increased as the seasons progressed, with the addition of ever greater absurdity. The characters, however, always took the absurd situations extremely seriously – which added to the comedy.
Cast[edit]
Main article: List of Batman (TV series) characters
Regular cast[edit]
Adam West as Bruce Wayne / Batman: A millionaire whose parents were murdered by criminals, he now secretly uses his vast fortune to fight crime as Batman. Producer William Dozier cast Adam West in the role after seeing him perform as the James Bond-like spy Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik television ad. Lyle Waggoner had screen-tested for the role, though West ultimately won out because, it was said, he was the only person who could deliver the hilarious lines with a straight face. West later voiced an animated version of the title character on The New Adventures of Batman and well as Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians.
Burt Ward as Dick Grayson / Robin: Batman's faithful (if overly eager) partner and "Boy Wonder", a high school student noted for his recurring interjections in the form of "Holy ________, Batman!" (The series avoided referencing Robin's origins as Bruce Wayne's fellow "crime orphan", as whose legal guardian the courts appoint Bruce.) Ward voiced an animated version of this character on The New Adventures of Batman.
Alan Napier as Alfred Pennyworth: Batman's loyal butler and Batgirl's discreet confidant. He is the only person who knows the true identities of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon.
Neil Hamilton as Commissioner James Gordon: The Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department and one of Batman's two major police contacts. He summons the Dynamic Duo via the Batphone or the Bat Signal.
Stafford Repp as Chief Miles O'Hara: Gotham City's Chief of Police, and Batman's other major police contact. The character was created by Semple for the series, as someone for Gordon to talk to, and later briefly added to the comics.
Madge Blake as Aunt Harriet Cooper: Dick Grayson's maternal aunt. She first appeared in the comics, two years before the series premiered, to give Bruce and Dick a reason to be secretive about their dual identities.
Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon / Batgirl: Commissioner Gordon's daughter, Gotham City librarian and crime fighting partner for Batman and Robin for the third season. Occasionally this threesome was nicknamed the "Terrific Trio".
William Dozier – Executive producer, creator, and narrator (uncredited).
According to Adam West's memoir, Back to the Batcave, his first exposure to the series concept was through reading a sample script in which Batman enters a nightclub in his complete costume and requests a booth near the wall, as he "shouldn't wish to attract attention". It was the scrupulously formal dialogue, and the way that Batman earnestly believed he could avoid standing out while wearing a skintight blue-and-grey costume, that convinced West of the character's comic potential.
With the death of Adam West on June 9, 2017, Burt Ward is now the sole surviving main Batman cast member.
Recurring villains[edit]
Frequent "special guest villains" (clockwise from left) Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Cesar Romero as the Joker, and Frank Gorshin as the Riddler
Julie Newmar as Catwoman in the first and second seasons (1966-1967) of the show
List of Batman television series cast members
Cesar Romero as the Joker...A green haired, purple suited clown with a maniacal laugh who leaves behind jokes as clues to his next crime.
Burgess Meredith as the Penguin...A waddling, cackling, chain smoking, umbrella-wielding menace in a top hat and monocle.
The Riddler played by:
Frank Gorshin (seasons 1 & 3 and the movie)
John Astin (season 2)...A giggling fiend whose costume alternates between green tights or a green derby and suit, both accented with question marks. He taunts Gotham City and the Caped Crusader with riddles.
The Catwoman played by:
Julie Newmar (seasons 1 and 2)
Eartha Kitt (season 3) ...A purring feline seductress in a tight black bodysuit with designs on Gotham City's riches and Batman himself.
Victor Buono as Professor William McElroy / King Tut...An Egyptologist with a split personality, who divides his time between being a university professor and a reincarnated version of the centuries old pharaoh.
Mr. Freeze, aka Dr. Shimmel, played by:
George Sanders (season 1)
Otto Preminger (season 2)
Eli Wallach (season 2)...A cool, cruel crook who must dwell in an environment 50 degrees below zero. His weapon of choice is a freeze-blast gun. In his first appearance the gun could also produce a heat/incendiary beam.
David Wayne as Jervis Tetch / Mad Hatter...A formally dressed baddie with a weakness for collecting hats.
Vincent Price as Egghead...A smug, bald-headed genius whose crimes and speech patterns involve eggs. ("Egg-zactly.")
Carolyn Jones as Marsha, Queen of Diamonds...A stunning, jewel-bedecked enchantress with very expensive tastes.
Cliff Robertson as Shame...A none too bright cowpoke whose partners at various times include Okie Annie and Calamity Jan.
Anne Baxter as Olga, Queen of the Cossacks...A Russian-accented redhead in cahoots with Egghead. (Baxter had earlier appeared in one story as "Zelda the Great", a master of illusion whose crimes were tied in with magic tricks.)
Milton Berle as Louie the Lilac...A stogie puffing gangster with an unhealthy attraction for flowers.
Production[edit]
A photo of Adam West as Batman from the television series.
A photo of Burt Ward as Robin from the television series.
Origin[edit]
In the early 1960s, Ed Graham Productions optioned the television rights to the comic strip Batman and planned a straightforward juvenile adventure show, much like Adventures of Superman and The Lone Ranger, to air on CBS on Saturday mornings.
East Coast ABC executive Yale Udoff, a Batman fan in his childhood, contacted ABC executives Harve Bennett and Edgar J. Scherick, who were already considering developing a television series based on a comic-strip action hero, to suggest a prime-time Batman series in the hip and fun style of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. When negotiations between CBS and Graham stalled, DC Comics quickly reobtained rights and made the deal with ABC, which farmed the rights out to 20th Century Fox to produce the series.[4]
In turn, 20th Century Fox handed the project to William Dozier and his production company, Greenway Productions. ABC and Fox were expecting a hip and fun—yet still serious—adventure show. However, Dozier, who had never before read comic books, concluded, after reading several Batman comics for research, that the only way to make the show work was to do it as a pop-art campy comedy.[5] Originally, espionage novelist Eric Ambler was to have scripted a TV movie that would launch the television series, but he dropped out after learning of Dozier's campy comedy approach. Eventually, two sets of screen tests were filmed, one with Adam West and Burt Ward and the other with Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell, with West and Ward winning the roles.
Season 1[edit]
Lorenzo Semple Jr. had signed on as head script writer. He wrote the pilot script, and generally wrote in a pop-art adventure style. Stanley Ralph Ross, Stanford Sherman, and Charles Hoffman were script writers who generally leaned more toward campy comedy, and in Ross's case, sometimes outright slapstick and satire. It was originally intended as a one-hour show, but ABC pushed up the premiere date from fall 1966 to January of that year. With the network having only two early-evening half-hour time slots available, the show was split into two parts, to air twice a week in 30-minute installments. A cliffhanger connected the two episodes, echoing the old movie serials.
Some ABC affiliates weren't happy that ABC included a fourth commercial minute in every episode of Batman. One affiliate refused to air the series. The network insisted it needed the extra advertising revenue.[6]
The Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, and the Mad Hatter, villains who originated in the comic books, all appeared in the series, the plots for which were deliberately villain driven. According to the producers, Frank Gorshin was selected to portray the Riddler due to the fact that he was a Batman fan since childhood. Catwoman was portrayed by three different actresses during the series run: by Julie Newmar in the first two seasons, by Lee Meriwether in the feature film based on the series, and by Eartha Kitt in the third and final season.
Season 2[edit]
Semple's participation in the series decreased in the second season. In his autobiography Back to the Batcave, Adam West explained to Jeff Rovin, to whom he dictated the autobiography after rejecting an offer to contribute to The Official "Batman" Batbook, written by Joel Eisner, that when work on the second season commenced following the completion of the feature film, Dozier, his immediate deputy Howie Horwitz, and the rest of the cast and crew rushed their preparation. Thus, they failed to give themselves enough time to determine what they wanted to do with the series during season two.
Season 3[edit]
Yvonne Craig was added to the cast for season three in 1967, portraying Barbara Gordon/Batgirl.
By season three, ratings were falling and the future of the series seemed uncertain. To attract new viewers, Dozier opted to introduce a female character. He came up with the idea of using Batgirl, who in her civilian identity would be Commissioner Gordon's daughter, Barbara, and asked the editor of the Batman comics to further develop the character (who had made her debut in a 1966 issue of Detective Comics).[7] To convince ABC executives to introduce Batgirl as a regular on the show, a promotional short featuring Yvonne Craig as Batgirl and Tim Herbert as Killer Moth was produced.[8] The show was reduced to once a week, with mostly self-contained episodes, although the following week's villain would be introduced in a tag at the end of each episode, similar to a soap opera. Accordingly, the narrator's cliffhanger phrases were mostly eliminated, most episodes ending with him encouraging viewers to watch next week.[notes 1]
Aunt Harriet was reduced to just two cameo appearances during the third season, due to Madge Blake's poor health and the issue of trying to fit so many characters (Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Chief O'Hara and a guest villain) into a half hour episode. Another cast change for the final season was replacing Julie Newmar, who had been a popular recurring guest villain as the Catwoman for the first two seasons. Singer-actress Eartha Kitt assumed the role for season three, as Newmar was working on the film Mackenna's Gold at that time and thus unable to appear. In the United States, Kitt's performance in the series marked the second mainstream television success of a black female, following Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura in Star Trek and continued breaking the racial boundaries of the time. Kitt's performance as Catwoman would also, later, inspire Halle Berry's portrayal of the character in the 2004 film Catwoman, in which Berry would mimic Kitt's famous purrs. Frank Gorshin, the original actor to play the Riddler, returned for a single appearance after a one-season hiatus, during which John Astin made one appearance in the role.
The nature of the scripts and acting started to enter into the realm of surrealism. For example, the set's backgrounds became mere two-dimensional cut-outs against a stark black stage. In addition, the third season was much more topical, with references to hippies, mods, and distinctive 1960s slang, which the previous two seasons had avoided.
Cancellation[edit]
Near the end of the third season, ratings had dropped significantly, and ABC cancelled the show. But NBC had agreed to take over the series and was ready to continue. Before that could happen, it was discovered that someone had destroyed the Batman sets which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build, and the deal with NBC was lost.[9] Reruns of the series have been seen on a regular basis in the United States. They are currently shown on the classic TV networks Heroes & Icons on Saturday mornings, MeTV on Saturday nights,[10] weekdays dubbed in Spanish on TeleXitos, as well as Saturday mornings on IFC.[11]
Batmobile[edit]
The 1966 television Batmobile, built by George Barris from a Lincoln Futura concept car
The original Batmobile from the 1960s TV series was auctioned on January 19, 2013, at the Barrett-Jackson auction house in Scottsdale, Arizona.[12] It was sold for .2 million.[13]
Tie-in music[edit]
Several cast members recorded music tied into the series. Adam West released a single titled "Miranda", a country-tinged pop song that he actually performed in costume during live appearances in the 1960s. Frank Gorshin released a song titled "The Riddler", which was composed and arranged by Mel Tormé. Burgess Meredith recorded a spoken-word single called "The Escape" backed with "The Capture", which consisted of the Penguin narrating his recent crime spree to a jazz beat. Burt Ward recorded a song called "Boy Wonder, I Love You", written and arranged by Frank Zappa.
In 1966, Batman: The Exclusive Original Soundtrack Album was released on LP, featuring music by Nelson Riddle and snippets of dialogue from Adam West, Burt Ward, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Anne Baxter (as Zelda the Great) and George Sanders (the first Mr. Freeze). The Batman Theme was included, along with titles like Batusi A Go! Go!, Batman Thaws Mr. Freeze and Batman Blues. It was reissued later on compact disc.