Yes!!!!!! So sweet!!!!
New Batman cartoon staring West and Ward!
- Thread starter Dick Whitman
- Start date
Yes!!!!!! So sweet!!!!
Great!
Though I feel compelled to quibble with the article's assertion that six actresses have played Catwoman. It lists Newmar, Lee Meriwether, Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, and Anne Hathaway, but Berry didn't play the Catwoman from the comics, but an original character using the same costumed identity (and implicitly a successor to the same supernatural cat powers that Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle had received, according to the film's retcon). They're also leaving out Maggie Baird as Selina in the flashbacks in Birds of Prey and Camren Bicondova as the young Selina on Gotham.
Also, Newmar will be joining the ranks of the multiple actresses who've played Catwoman in animation: Jane Webb (Filmation '68), Melendy Britt (Filmation '77), Adrienne Barbeau (B:TAS), Gina Gershon (The Batman), Nika Futterman (The Brave and the Bold), Eliza Dushku (animated Batman: Year One and associated Catwoman short), Stephanie Sheh (The Bat Man of Shanghai shorts), and Tress MacNeille (as older Selina in The Dark Knight Returns). Throw in video games and we can add Jennifer Hale, Vanessa Marshall, P.J. Mattson, Kelley Huston, Grey DeLisle Griffin, Katherine Von Till, and Laura Bailey.
I seem to recall somebody [might've been Conan O'Brien] reminiscing about celebrity guest stars on the Simpsons and mentioning that the staff was most excited when Adam west came in to do his voiceover work for the Mr. plow episode.
I also recall a time when Nicholas Cage was on the Tonight Show and they brought out Adam west as a special guest. Cage referred to West as the man who saved his childhood.
So yes it might be a pipe dream but I can see a certain number of a listers who would in fact do this cartoon for the very reasons you cite
I looked at the date on the article and will wait for official confirmation before I squee.
Gah!
Purr-Fect well somebody had to say it :-) (assuming its not an April Fool).
It doesn't seem unlikely enough to be an April Fool's joke. If they're doing this movie at all and including West and Ward, it stands to reason they'd seek out more surviving cast members, and Newmar is the most prominent one left. And she's readily participated in previous Batman-nostalgia projects, like Return to the Batcave and "Chill of the Night!" on The Brave and the Bold (where she played Martha Wayne opposite Adam West as Thomas Wayne).
Now, if they'd said the movie had cast Cesar Romero or Liberace, then it would probably be an April Fool's joke.
Now, if they'd said the movie had cast Cesar Romero or Liberace, then it would probably be an April Fool's joke.
^It's Sinise, by the way.
But it wasn't Batman comic book art and dialogue, at least not from what I recall of Batman comics that came before the series.
Showing an out of shape Batman with a gut, stuffed into a ridiculous looking costume, doing the "boogaloo", had nothing to do with Batman comics at the time. Robin shouting "Holy (whatever)" every five minutes had nothing to do with Batman comics. I do remember that the comic books took on a similar tone after the series became so popular. That's one of the reasons I stopped buying them.
I don't think they were "creating kitsch". They were simply playing the entire show for laughs. The more ridiculous they made the show along with the main characters, the better. It was a straight up comedy that I think people now try to turn into something more than what it actually was.
Better they had just animated it and simply allowed it be the Bugs Bunny of super hero T.V. shows.
Late 50s/early 60s Batman comics had Bat-Mite, Batman in outer space, and all sorts of other typical early-Silver Age DC elements that made the 60s TV show look grounded and realistic by comparison. And the house style of the time was to draw Batman (and Superman) with a pretty thick torso by today's standards.
There is this a HUGE misconception that Adam West was out of shape when he played Batman! He was very in shape , its the large utility belt that gives the appearance of having a gut.
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[yoda]Look as good in tights you would not![/yoda]
Actually, the first ten episodes were adaptations of comic-book storylines, and often quite faithful ones. ComicsAlliance's review series does a nice job comparing the episodes to the comics they were based on.
Clearly you haven't watched the show. West may not have been the kind of overbuilt muscleman that modern comics use as exemplars for their heroes, but he was in perfectly good shape for an action lead in a 1960s show. His costume was a very faithful translation of the comics' design, right down to the shape of the black shading and blue/purple highlights on his cowl.
And it was the Batusi. That's just basic cultural literacy.
Your memory is in error, then. The Batman comics of the '50s and '60s were actually even goofier than the show was able to be. The show didn't have Bat-Mite or aliens dropping in on a regular basis. It didn't have Batman and Robin traveling back in time periodically. It didn't have Batman turning into Bat-Baby or Bat-Mummy or having to wear a different garishly colored Bat-costume each night for nebulously explained reasons. It didn't have Batman engaged in an ongoing prank war with Superman. The TV show was tame compared to the lunacy in the comics.
Yes, it was a straight-up comedy. It was a sitcom, albeit an unusual one (though the '60s were an era of innovative and formula-breaking sitcoms). But the point that a lot of people don't get is that the comics were funny too. Because of the Comics Code Authority and the strict self-censorship of the comics industry in the '50s and most of the '60s, comics couldn't do serious or violent crime stories. So characters like Batman had to evolve in weirder, more frivolous directions. DC's approach to superhero writing in that era was basically to see how bizarre and ridiculous they could get, and then try to top it the next month.
Note that when the same producers made a Green Hornet show the same year, they made it a straight, non-comedic crime drama, albeit with some fanciful sci-fi gadgets. That's because the source material (the radio series and movie serials) had been straight crime drama with some fancy gadgets. They were true to the source with that, and they were equally true to the source with Batman. The show was a sitcom because the comics were funny and bizarre.
Come to think of it I'm wondering if Batman's mentioning that having a bigger utility didn't work out out because it was too heavy was a shoutout to the belt from the 60s show.
Ah, the Silver Age (aka the age of Superdickery).
Superman got the worst of it, but Batman and some of the supporting cast were kind of close seconds. Like the time this happened. 
Also the fact that one of his stunt man did, in fact, have a bigger gut thereby creating the impression West was paunchier.
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