Will The Feathered And Feline Fiends Finally
Fabricate Failure For Our Fearless Friends?
"Holy Feelings Of Inadequacy, Batman!"
When I was wee, it was all about Batman. Batman Mego Dolls, Batman Frisbees, Batman Shrinky-Dinks, Collegeville Batman Halloween Costumes. I adored the TV show, moreso than the live-action
The Incredible Hulk or
Amazing Spider-man television shows which were current at the time (although I adored Spider-man, and would eventually shift all interest to the character). I know it's fashionable now to sneer at it, what with all the Batman films changing the tone, and the Grim 'N' Gritty version of the character taking center stage in recent years. For me, though, there's
never been another live-action superhero TV show or film which has been as faithful at duplicating the source material from the comics. Read a Batman comic from the time period, and almost everything you'll see there is replicated on the television screen (within the budget of the show).
Three instances from my own life which incorporated Batman TV show elements:
1. My friends and I came up with a Batprank during final exams in my Sophomore year of High School. After our last exam, Chad, Rick, and I were going to dress up like Batman, Robin, and The Joker (from the TV show, the movie wasn't out yet back then). Chad would be Batman, Rick was to play Robin, and I was going to be the Joker. We were going to meet up and run through the hallways of our High School reenacting scenes from the show and causing chaos (most Teachers left their doors open). Yes, if we'd been caught we probably would have received severe punishment for disrupting exams; and yes, we realized this would most likely eliminate any chance that a girl would be willing to touch us throughout the rest of our High School careers. We just didn't care. Now, I took my last exam before either of them, so i went down to The Drama Room and got into character. I'd picked out a calf-length orange velvet overcoat (1800s style), purple 1970s bell-bottom slacks, and black platform boots from the costume closet. I was wearing a Hawaiian Shirt with little cartoon skulls all over it. I took a pink Lei from the prop closet and twisted it up to make a tie. I was
The Joker as played by
Elton John. I spent about an hour applying makeup (there was no green haircolor so I just combed green cream makeup through my hair), then sat and waited for my friends to show up. And waited. And waited. And waited. Just to mix it up a bit, I waited some more. Now, during all of this Drama Teacher Mr. Foss is giving his other students their exams (everyone had to do a 2-minute monologue), and they're all staring at me the whole time they take it. When they were done some of them asked me to act out scenes from the show, so I did what I could recall. Foss looks my way at one point and says "It'll never work. They'll think you're weird".
He actually thought I did this to try and pick up drama chicks. Anyway, turned out that Chad couldn't find a Batman costume, and Rick had never seriously planned to do it in the first place.
2. In my Senior year of High School I was cast in an Old-Fashioned Melodrama which we were going to tour around and perform for all the grade schools in the area. I had the part of the lead female character's brother, who had infiltrated the villain's home by posing as a Peter Lorre type Butler. When no one else was around, however, he became Stalwart Hero. I played the character like
Burt Ward as
Robin, down to the way I stood and punched my hands together. The kids ate it up, which was unusual because kids are normally bored stiff when they have to suffer through a play. I had a blast.
3. As I've written about before, I was manager of a Comic Book/Collectibles store for a few years in the 90s. When the premiere of Batman Returns was rolling around back in 1992, I talked the owner of the store into doing a tie-in promotion with one of the local radio stations - for a mere $400, we'd get an on-location radio remote spot, 15 pairs of giveaway tickets to the premiere, and a week's worth of radio spots for our store. It was a pretty good deal, although I didn't count on what happened - people just showed up to get the free tickets, and didn't buy anything (even though I'd stayed up almost all night the day before gettting the store organized and packaging special deals for display). I did, however, get to write the copy (or 'script') for the radio ad, and I was pretty proud of it at the time. It centered on the television versions of Catwoman and The Penguin, with the two discussing a
diabolical plan to trap the Dynamic Duo inside
Memory Lane Comics. The Batman TV show theme played in the background as they cackled, with Catwoman saying it was the
Purrrrfect Plan and Penguin calling Robin
The Boy Hostage (stole that from Frank Miller). The voice actors doing the roles (two of the regular deejays) were spot on; and the chick doing Catwoman gave you a tentpole with the way she wrapped her tongue around the
RRrrrrrs. They even got a guy who sounded
exactly like the narrator from the TV show. I think I still have the tape in one of the boxes stored over at my folk's house; if I can get over there this week that radio spot I will use it as my free Audioblogger post and let everyone hear for themselves. Oh, that big red title above? It's a 'narrator' line from the ad 'script' I wrote.
The Actual Review
I was really looking forward to
Return To The Batcave this Sunday. I figured it would be awful (and I was not disappointed in that respect), but awful in a thoroughly enjoyable way. I was half right.
PLOT: The 'flashbacks' to the behind-the-scenes filming of the television show are framed by the Modern Day Adam West and Burt Ward working together to solve a mystery. Said mystery being the theft of the original Batmobile from a Charity Auto Show. To solve this puzzle they must think back to the Heady 1960s and find clues in their collective memories of the show, and recover the Batmobile from the dastardly fiend.
THE MODERN DAY SEQUENCES: Well, they're not good. Let's put it this way: Seventysomething Adam West does a sloppy Batusi with Seventysomething Julie Newmar. Seventysomething Adam West and Fiftysomething Burt Ward engage in a sloppy bar fight with sloppy thugs. A wheezy Frank Gorshin (inexplicably dressed in a suit with an exclamation point on the front) sleepwalks through his role. No Eartha Kitt. Lee Meriwether relegated to a cameo role as a waitress. Booger from Revenge Of The Nerds has fallen on hard times, playing Adam West's manservant (whom he keeps calling Alfred). They even pull the tired old gag of looking around wondering where the voice is coming from whenever there is narration. It's lame. No, it's more than lame - It approaches a level of lameness previously unforseeable in the Television Industry; it's like you've been handed a kaleidescope to find the only colors inside are
brown and black. Adam West is his usual self-parodying self, and appears younger than Burt Ward. Yvonne Craig apparently refused to participate.
FLASHBACKS: Jack Brewer (Adam West/Batman) has more muscles than Adam West could have ever hoped for, but his mannerisms and voice are all on target. Jason Marsden (Burt Ward/Robin) does a terrific impersonation of Ward, and is engagingly funny. Burt Ward caught physical hell on the set, evidently. There are actors playing the roles of young Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, Vincent Price as Egghead, Caesar Romero as The Joker, young Julie Newmar, Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, and others. For some reason there is a distinct absence of Alan Napier, who played Alfred. These are the best parts of the film by far, though, with great attention to period detail. The women are all
go-go gorgeous.
OBSERVATIONS:
1. I never knew Lyle Waggoner auditioned for the part of Batman/Bruce Wayne. You remember Lyle Waggoner, don't you? He was a cast member of The Carol Burnett Show, and played Steve Trevor on the Wonder Woman television series opposite Lynda Carter. They incorporate some of his audition footage into the movie. He looked the part, moreso than Adam West I think, but he didn't have the deadpan delivery West had. He played it straight, but too loose. He has the funniest line in the whole show, though: When West and Ward finally discover who the mysterious 'narrator' is at the end of the flick, it turns out to be Lyle Waggoner hidden in a booth at the auto show. They call him out by name and he says "That's right, I'm Lyle Waggoner. And if
I had played Batman,
the show would still be on the air today." He then sniffs haughtily and pulls the door shut.
2. Burt Ward would make a pretty decent looking Penguin should they decide to do another campy Batman show. He's put on a few over the years. Definitely doesn't need to be running top speed ever again; I was a little worried when I saw how purple his face was turning. And, it wouldn't have killed him to practice his lines a bit more before stepping in front of the camera. He was never the greatest actor to begin with,
and it's not like he spent the past 35 years honing his craft.
3. Julie Newmar, wow. Seems like she just stepped off a spacecraft from Jupiter. I think she's had some facework done; she's starting to look like
Jocelyn Wildenstein. I bet if you looked up under her hairline on the back of her neck you'd find a handful of skin twisted up like a wad of rubber bands. She flubbed and whispered nearly every line she had in the show,
and they left all the flubs in. I couldn't figure out whether it was because the filmmakers were too cheap to shoot retakes, or no one had the balls to ask her.
4. There's a scene in which a nubile 'Extra' Burt Ward has slept with attacks him with a knife when he tries to leave her home; that nubile 'Extra' is Adam West's daughter in real life.
5. The Batman outfit might seem a little 'off' if you see the film. That's because the rights to that costume design are held by someone else, and they had to make slight alterations (the cowl is slightly different, and Batman's shirt is a lighter gray) to avoid legal trouble.
6. If I were a producer on the show back then, I would have fired Caesar Romero for not shaving his moustache and hired
Rich Little. Romero sucked, anyway. The main villain and he's overshadowed by The Riddler.
7. There's an air of sexism throughout the movie: I noticed it, and normally things like that go right over my head. Nearly every woman in it is an airheaded bimbo, save for Yvonne Craig and Julie Newmar. There is a scene with Craig where Batman 'accidentally' palms Batgirl's tit, and everyone throws their heads back and laughs like one of those freeze-frame parodies on
Police Squad.
8. I don't know if I buy the story that Burt Ward was offered the lead in
The Graduate before Dustin Hoffman, because I have seen Burt Ward act. I can see where they might have offered
James Bond to Adam West, though, considering how the thing with George Lazenby turned out.
9. The flame coming out of the Batmobile was CGI. That makes me a little sad, for some reason.
10. I could've lived the rest of my life not knowing Burt Ward had to take pills to shrink his
Dick.
SUMMARY: I think it would have been much better had they ditched the ridiculous Modern Day plot, and replaced it with interviews with the old cast and crew intermingled with theflashback scenes. They could have expanded on those scenes, then. It was okay, nothing more. If you were never a fan of the show like I was then you should avoid it like a hot grease fire; you will despise it, trust me. Oh, and the villains of the modern-day plot turn out to be Frank Gorshin and Julie Newmar, because 'the villains never got any respect'. LAME.
"Holy Feelings Of Inadequacy, Batman!" - I said I'd explain what this meant. When I was younger I purchased a book on the Batman TV show, and one chapter had a listing of every single "Holy...!" Burt Ward said during the run of the show. We all thought it was hilarious, and started making up our own "Holy...!" sayings - usually filthy or nonsensical. One day I got rejected by a girl I'd asked out, right in front of all my
Old Chums. When she left I turned to them, stood like Burt Ward, smacked my fist into my open palm, and said that.
