In Defense of Adam West

You have to acknowledge it. In the depths of your I-just-saw-Batman-Begins-and-it-was-one-of-the-best-if-not-the-best-Batman-movies-ever-(-with-apologies-to-Tim-Burton-)-heart, you know it.

The idea of a guy dressing up as a BAT to fight crime is pretty ri-friggin-diculous.

It used to be that we had Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever and Batman & Robin to remind us how good Burton's movies were. But, Burton's movies themselves engendered some controversy at first. Namely, the casting of Michael Keaton. In the pre-Internet days, before Harry Knowles, et. al., movie news traveled, inter alia, by means of fan magazines, like Comics Scene (pre-Wizard), which had a section in the back devoted to the various comic movies and their rotations in the seven layers of development hell.

I'll never forget being 10 and hearing my 15-year-old cousin Chris's reaction to the news of casting which trickled down from Hollywood to the comics magazines to the weirdo comic shoppe owners, and, finally, to us.

His reaction was something like, "What? They're casting 'Mr. Mom' as Batman!?!" "Yeah," I agreed, wondering if I should tell Chris that I loved Mr. Mom.

At the same time, across the country, another fellow had similar objecti0ns, but for different reasons. Instead of mocking the until-then-mostly-comedic pedigree of Keaton, his objection was more founded on the simple fact that he'd actually played Batman before. They threw a bone to Adam West by offering him the part of Thomas Wayne, Bruce's slain father, in the flashback scenes, but Adam turned them down.

Bravo, Adam.

There are some shows from childhood that you feel bad for making your Mom sit through (Voltron anyone?), and there are other shows that are just as entertaining now as they were then. Among these are Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Robotech, and, of course, Batman. I was a pre-schooler when I first saw Batman, in between kids trying to throw ping pongs into Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets while keeping their toes behind the white line, on the Bozo the Clown show (R.I.P.). (Incidentally, years later at TV Guide, there was a Bozo Room, named in honor of the company's contract to distribute WGN on its satellites. After receiving several dressings down in said room, over my failure to perform the work of three people with absolute perfection, I knew that my childhood had finally died).

As a pre-schooler, when I wasn't spending entire days of my life dressed as Superman, I donned my Batman cowl. I carried Batman in my heart, always preferring him to Superman.

My Mom drove me from Maysville to Oklahoma City and took my cousins and I to the midnight screening of Batman on June 22nd, 1989 (Is she not the coolest Mom ever? Gotta give thanks to Dad, too, though. He was the one who bought me the Dick Tracy ticket T-shirt and took me to its premeire a year later.) One of the side effects of Batmanmania - really, it felt like Beatles Redux - was that, in addition to the slew of merchandise, they began showing Adam West's Batman again on TV. Hosanna! For Halloween that year, my Mom made me a Batman costume. Though Chris was able to score a rubber cowl in the style of the movie (all was forgiven Michael Keaton), my Mom and I decided to base mine on the Adam West/comics style costume, though with black in place of blue. Pre-schooler sister Sarah, with her pageboy bob, was Robin. The love seat in our den was the batmobile.

In a perfect world, the next Batman movie would be a courtroom drama. Batman, tired of vigilantism, would become Gotham's next District Attorney. But, he'd still be wearing his costume under a brown tweed three-piece suit, cowl poking of akwardly out of the collar, cape stuffed into pants, making it look like Batman had to be wearing the largest size of Depends available...and that he'd just had an accident. Lest you think this idea is influenced from my law school experiences, let me assure you that I had thought of it back in college, during my junior year. It just makes sense. Batman had the greatest inductive (or is it deductive?) logic of all time. I'll leave you with the following, courtesy of the 1966 Batman movie:

Commissioner Gordon: It could be any one of them... But which one? Which ones?

Batman: Pretty *fishy* what happened to me on that ladder...

Commissioner Gordon: You mean where there's a fish there could be a penguin?

Robin: But wait! It happened at sea... Sea. C for Catwoman!

Batman: Yet, an exploding shark *was* pulling my leg...

Commissioner Gordon: The Joker!

Chief O'Hara: All adds up to a sinister riddle... Riddle-R. Riddler!

Commissioner Gordon: A thought strikes me... So dreadful I scarcely dare give it utterance...

Batman: The four of them... Their forces combined...

Robin: Holy nightmare!

P.S. My favorite moment in this movie is when Batman, breathless and exasperated after various obstacles, including nuns, a brass band, and baby birds, thwart his efforts to save the denizens of Gotham pier, exclaims, "SOME DAYS YOU JUST CAN'T GET RID OF A BOMB!"