60s Batman show rights issues resolved!

[RandyS]

Admiral James Kirk wrote:

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That's ridiculous. I've never understood the subsection of Bat fandom that thinks the only version of Batman that should ever be represented is The Dark Knight!

It's not like the character was only presented as dark and gritty in his 73 year history.

Heck, even the Dark Knight Detective version written by Bill Finger wasn't all that dark. He was cracking one liners that would have worked in a Bugs Bunny short.

Some people like to pretend The Caped Crusader wasn't the Batman of choice for like twenty years. The Adam West show didn't spring up out of nowhere! It was inspired by the Batman of the 50s and 60s. Sure as hell, none of those fans want to admit that without the Adam West series Detective Comics and Batman would have been cancelled due to sagging sales.

Adam "Batman" West saved the Batman comics series!

Some fans take the character waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously.

Some fans take EVERYTHING waaaay to seriously.

And I agree with you. I've always loved the Adam West show and am the proud owner of DVD-R's of the entire series that I made off my old VHS tapes. I had too, those tapes were twenty years old, and in serious danger of disintegrating.

But that aside, I just read the article in question, and I didn't see the update posted here, so, it says:

"We've now been in touch with Warner and they inform us that the VARIETY article unfortunatley only pertains to products of the type mentioned in their story. There's been no news on the DVD front. Darn it.".

Hopefully this update is wrong and the DVD's WILL be released eventually.

[Dream]

Dislike campy Batman, but that doesn't mean I have any issues with its fans or a dvd release.

I don't understand why this show has a fanbase though, while Batman and Robin which also went the campy direction, is hated by everyone? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?

[Professor Zoom]

Dream wrote:

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I don't understand why this show has a fanbase though, while Batman and Robin which also went the campy direction, is hated by everyone? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?

Campy doesn't mean BAD. The TV show is a fun romp. Batman and Robin is a BAD movie, regardless of its attempt at camp.

Watch the Batman movie from the 1960s, then watch Batman and Robin and I think you'll see a difference, they are NOT the same thing.

[Greg Cox]

Dream wrote:

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Dislike campy Batman, but that doesn't mean I have any issue with its fans.

But I don't understand why this show has a fanbase, while Batman and Robin which also went the campy direction, is hated by everyone? Aren't they the same thing?

Honestly, a lot of it's nostalgia for us older folks who grew up on the sixties show. Also, the old show was always meant to be campy, whereas Batman & Robin seemed to violate the tone and spirit of the early Burton films. So you had the incongruous spectacle of a dark, moody take on Batman going badly off the rails . . ..

Also, and this could be nostalgia speaking, but the old series was fun and clever camp (or so I recall), while B&R was just a noisy, overblown, self-indulgent mess that was more exhausting than entertaining.

There's good camp, like Barbarella or the 80's version of Flash Gordon, and there's dumb camp like Batman & Robin, which felt more like a two-hour toy commercial than a movie.

That being said, I haven't actually watched the old show since I was a kid. It's entirely possible it hasn't aged well.

(Says the guy who stayed up past midnight watching old Dark Shadows videos last night!)

[Admiral James Kirk]

No. The Adam West Batman was far more sophisticated than Batman & Robin. The Adam West show had a lot of adult humor in it that flew over the heads of the kids in the audience but it also had a lot of good action and suspense in it that the children could enjoy.

Batman & Robin assumed that everybody in the audience was five years old and that all the five year olds watching were retarded.

There's really a world of difference between the two products.

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Exactly. It's not just camp-- it's satire.

I hope it turns out that DVDs are included in this deal. I'd pick those up in a New York minute. Make that a Gotham minute.

Greg Cox wrote:

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That being said, I haven't actually watched the old show since I was a kid. It's entirely possible it hasn't aged well.

They've been showing it on This TV and I caught a couple of episodes about a month ago. It's aged just fine.

[Gojira]

I have the 1966 Batman movie with Adam West and that has aged just fine.

[JD]

I've been wanting to see this again for probably about 10 years now, so I'm really hoping this deal will lead to some kind of movement on the DVD front. I did watch the movie a while back, but that was probably the only exposure I've had to this in about 20 years.
I know there are some networks that show it, but frustratingly I don't get any of them.

[Turtletrekker]

For the first time in 40 years, Warner Bros. Consumer Products will be able to use the likeness of the show's stars, including Adam West, Burt Ward, Cesar Romero and Burgess Meredith, on everything from apparel to toys, home goods, publishing and promotions.

"The show's stars". What about guest-stars? I have always been under the impression that a lot of the issues with a video release dealt with some of the random guest-star appearances. I would hate to see the episodes butchered if released.

I'm reminded of the Northern Exposure DVD releases. I was a fan of the show, but didn't buy the DVD's because they couldn't secure the rights to use some of the music that they used on the show in the videos. And in some cases, that resulted in entire scenes being excised.

[JD]

They couldn't just replace the music?

[Turtletrekker]

One scene in particular was a spoof on the video to Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". Without the rights to the music, there was no way to salvage the scene for the video release.

[Christopher]

Setting aside the questions of whether Batman should be serious, just looking at the 1966 Batman as a television sitcom, it was, quite simply, a good sitcom. It was clever and funny, with lots of smart humor and imaginative situations. It had a terrific cast of mostly top-notch actors (Burt Ward notwithstanding). It had excellent production values and set design. It was one of the most innovative sitcoms of the era, with its own distinctive style and approach unlike anything else on the air. And it tapped into the zeitgeist of the era with its mod designs and psychedelic colors and wry, subversive send-ups. For a couple of years, it was a huge pop-culture phenomenon, getting all sorts of press, inspiring nightclubs, etc.

Of course, it wasn't all good. The writing started to decline some in the second season, and was downright lousy in season 3, whose one bright spot was the introduction of Batgirl/Barbara Gordon. But at its peak in the first season, it was a really fun, well-made, worthwhile show, and the same goes for the '66 feature film.

[Brendan Moody]

A Warner Bros. contact has told TVShowsonDVD.com that the deal mentioned in the article pertains only to the type of consumer product mentioned therein, and "there's been no new news on the DVD front."

[Mr. Adventure]

The rights have been resolved, DVD set MSRP $599.

Brendan Moody wrote:

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A Warner Bros. contact has told TVShowsonDVD.com that the deal mentioned in the article pertains only to the type of consumer product mentioned therein, and "there's been no new news on the DVD front."

I was just thinking that and unfortunately that seems confirmed.

[Captain Craig]

I guess everyone wants to resolve things before the Mayans are put to the test. It can be the only explanation.