Holy Smokes 'Batman,' The '60s Series Is Out On DVD

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. The TV series "Batman" has been released on home video for the first time since it premiered in the '60s. Our TV critic David Bianculli watched it the first time around and is very, very happy to see it finally come out on DVD.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

If you're an impressionable young kid hitting your teens right now, chances are pretty good you've been watching and enjoying some "Batman," either Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan's just completed "Dark Knight" trilogy or the prequel series "Gotham," now showing on FOX. If you came of age a generation ago, your Batman of choice was likely to have been the big-screen Caped Crusader played by Michael Keaton or George Clooney or maybe even Val Kilmer.

But between 1966 and 1968, long before any of those versions of the DC Comics hero, Batman came to the screen in a much lighter and brighter ABC series starring Adam West. "The Dark Night" it wasn't. This "Batman" was played for laughs, with its stars' no-nonsense delivery making it all the more tongue-in-cheek. With its pop-art sensibility, vibrant colors and rogues gallery of playful guest stars, "Batman" was a brief but major hit. Frank Gorshin is the Riddler, Cesar Romero is the Joker, Burgess Meredith is the Penguin and Julie Newmar as Catwoman. These were some of the original villains who made this "Batman" a TV phenomenon right from the start. That first season, ABC presented two episodes per week in a serialized, cliffhanger format, and both installments made that year's top 10.

Yet until now, this particular incarnation of "Batman" has never been released on home video - not on DVD, not even on VHS. But Warner Bros. Home Video has just released the entire Adam West "Batman" series on DVD and Blu-ray, including a limited-edition collectible box set that comes with a set of Batman trading cards and even a Hot Wheels Batmobile. Some collectors, I guess, will geek out over all that extra stuff. But personally, I love the extras that come on the bonus disc, like the original screen test of Burt Ward, who won the role of Robin and the original pilot for a planned "Batgirl" spinoff and a new documentary, which has various "Batman" experts placing the TV series squarely in the pop-art movement of the mid-'60s.

(SOUNDBITE OF "BATMAN" DVD EXTRAS)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER #1: "Batman" '66 was not just mimicking the comic book, but mimicking the mimicker of the comic books. Roy Lichtenstein was doing these paintings where he was literally painting a comic book panel and then enlarging it and showing the sound effects.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER #2: What Lichtenstein did was bring the general originally art world and then the general public to an awareness factor of the value of comics and comic art.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER #3: Dozier's team looked at that phenomenon of what was going on, and they said, OK, so he's taking this from comics and he's making it cool. He's making it mainstream. How do we go full circle, how do we bring that back, and how do we take that pop-art sensibility and bring that to this incarnation of comics and make it work in a non-print medium? And they used the sound effects. They used the cartoon-style title - all those visual elements to bring you into it and then brought it to life with the color and the costuming and the production design.

BIANCULLI: Most of all, of course, I love these old "Batman" episodes themselves. Certainly, that goes for the classics, like the ones with the original Catwoman and those pop-art fight scenes.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BATMAN")

ADAM WEST: (As Batman) You feline devil. What have you done with Robin?

JULIE NEWMAR: (As Catwoman) Ahh, is that any way to greet an old friend, Batman? Not even a hello, how are you? (Hisses, meows) Teach him some manners, fellas.

BIANCULLI: But to be honest, I also enjoy watching the really obscure, justifiably forgotten, admittedly bad ones. Who remembers Zsa Zsa Gabor as Minerva or Ida Lupino as Dr. Cassandra? I didn't. But I do remember Joan Collins in a pre-"Dynasty" role at her most alluring - playing the seductive villainess known as the Siren. Her high-pitched, mini-skirted spell worked well - and not just on Commissioner Gordon.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BATMAN")

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: A glorious morning in Gotham City. But in Commissioner Gordon's office, the Siren readies a nasty scheme.

(SOUNDBITE OF HIGH-PITCHED BEEPING)

JOAN COLLINS: (As the Siren) Now, commissioner, you are ready to do my bidding.

NEIL HAMILTON: (As Commissioner Gordon) Your merest wish is my ultimate command.

COLLINS: (As the Siren) Just say yes - that will be sufficient, although superfluous. No man can resist the stunning note of my voice - two octaves above high C.

BIANCULLI: I remember the Siren and especially Catwoman very fondly indeed. Various rights issues have kept "Batman" from home-video release until now. So younger viewers, those seeing this goofy, playful comic book TV version for the first time, may be very pleasantly surprised by the fun to be had here. And for fans of a certain age, who are old enough to remember the '60s, I'm fairly certain this long-delayed box set will be worth the wait. Holy sensory overload, Batman.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BATMAN THEME")

RON HICKLIN SINGERS: (Singing) Batman. Batman. Batman. Batman.

GROSS: David Bianculli is founder and editor of the website TV Worth Watching and has curated an exhibition on the history of television, which is on view at the apexart gallery in New York through December 20. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.