Better joke

There's an impression that emerges from interviews and various citations, that as a body, artists and writers working in the US comic industry weren't particularly pleased with the 60's Batman television series. In fact more than once I've read something like, I  hated that show, in connection with the topic. This attitude must be tempered, I would've thought, by some appreciation of just how much interest in the Batman character and comics in general, the show stirred amongst the broader public.

Any successful entertainment enterprise will draw the attention of the moral entrepreneurs and the Batman television show was bit of a 60's phenomenon, so there were a fare few such individuals scrambling for attention on the back of that success. So it's one of those ironies, that what actually killed the show was not the moralising of its critics but rather the weight of its own success. By the second season a case of cameo infestation was apparent, the most notorious of which is probably the Otto Preminger incident.

Catwoman disappears by the the third season or at least the real Catwoman, but the Lycra quotient is maintained by the advent of Batgirl. And what a marvelous job Yvonne does in that department, flippin' 'eck Yvonne Craig in Lycra, even I think that should be illegal or at least tightly controlled in the manner of a dangerous narcotic.

Opps, how did that get there?

Despite Miss Craig's--er talents, the batman television show couldn't quite negotiate the pitfalls of the the third season curse. The plethora of showbiz notables drawing their cheques, was no match for the more modest but earnest efforts of the not quite so illustrious staples of the cast that made the show a success.

I think it's fair to say that many Batman readers and creators working with the character, find the legacy of the television series a bit of an embarrassment. After all it's quite hard to reconcile the flouncy, possibly closet gay Batman of the series, with something like the hard nosed possibly psychotic individual, in something like The Dark Knight Returns. That's a bit of a shame really because when it worked, the series was quite a faithful adaptation of the character and the flavour of the comics. So it is with some anticipation that I greeted the news the television Batman would be returning this autumn, in the guise of an animated feature with the voices of Adam West and Burt Ward as the principle characters. It should be a bit of fun I reckon and it's got to be a lot better than the recent Killing Joke. Let's face it though, pretty much anything is going to be a better prospect that the animated Killing Joke, even the predicament facing the dynamic duo in this trailer.