[This week marks the 60th anniversary of the debut of the Batman TV show & the 50th of The Bionic Woman. So I’ll AmericanStudy those shows & three others from the 60s & 70s, all of which happen to start with the letter ‘B’! I’d love your responses and other TVStudying thoughts for a crowd-sourced weekend post that needs no “Applause” sign.]
How three surprising figures and groups help tell the story of an iconic
and influential camp classic.
1)
Hugh Hefner: After 60 years of Batman on the
small and big screen (as well as continuing on the pages of comic books throughout
those decades of course), it might seem like a given that there would be demand
for a Batman TV show. But that wouldn’t necessarily have been the case in January
1966 without none other than Hugh Hefner, who in 1964 had screened all 15
installments of the 1943
film serial called The Batman at
his trendy Playboy Club in Chicago. Those screenings led Columbia Pictures
to rerelease the entire serial in theaters in 1965 as An Evening with Batman and Robin,
and the success of that rerelease in turn contributed to the development (or at
least the greenlighting, as it seems to have already been in early development)
of the TV show.
2)
The Temptations: That same relative lack of
built-in audience—or at least an uncertainty from network executives about
whether it was there—meant that the show had to be marketed a lot more
aggressively than we might expect. Perhaps the most striking such marketing was
Batman
Live!, a concert series that
toured the country in the summer of 1966. Stars Adam West (Batman) and Frank
Gorshin (The Riddler) appeared at each stop, alongside a number of musical
groups—and at least at the
June 25th concert at New York’s Shea Stadium, that roster
included The Temptations! Talking ‘bout my guy—indeed, my Boy Wonder (although
Burt Ward’s Robin wasn’t part of the tour it seems).
3)
Conan O’Brien: Batman was prolific,
airing twice a week for its first two seasons; but it was short-lived, as the
audience did not entirely emerge and it was canceled after its third season, in
March 1968 (it did total 120 episodes in those three seasons). But as its
presence in this blog series indicates, its legacy and influence have extended
far beyond that moment. Critics agree, as Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz
ranked Batman the 82nd greatest show of all time in their 2016
TV (The Book). And perhaps even more importantly, comedians agree,
with Conan O’Brien calling it one of his favorite shows on a 2012 podcast
and noting its influence on subsequent successful and likewise influential parodies
like Airplane! I’m sure West et al would have liked more than
three seasons, but they have to have been very happy with the show’s long and
meaningful tail (cape?).
Next TVStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Other 60s and/or 70s TV you’d highlight?
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