Yes, this will be my all-purpose thread for all film or TV versions of the character.
Never mind which version i'm starting out with here... (heh)
Well, as I promised myself, the 2nd time around, I was only gonna watch 5 3rd-season episodes-- all written by Stanley Ralph Ross. The Siren, Shame, and King Tut. All loads of fun.
So tonight, I started in on a show I haven't seen in at least maybe 40-45 years...
THE ADVENTURES OF BATMAN. This was originally aired as part of
THE BATMAN-SUPERMAN HOUR (1968-69), which was a half-hour of brand-new Batman cartoons, and a half-hour of reruns of Superman cartoons. Even then, I thought it was a rip-off. Apparently, they came up with a separate set of opening and closing credits, so they could syndicate the show on its own.
OH-- MY-- GOD.
You know there's idiots at the Internet Movie Database who love to knock Filmation's
STAR TREK for having such terrible animation? This makes Filmation's
STAR TREK look like a big-budget feature-film. This makes the Ralph Bakshi-produced Krantz Films seasons of
SPIDER-MAN look like they had a real budget. (That show certainly had music that was 100 times better than this one.) This even makes Filmation's earlier
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH-- which I loved despite its many short-comings-- look fabulous, by comparison. (I'd like to get that show on DVD-- this makes me want it even more.)
I originally missed these, because the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia for many years had a 90-minute local show,
CARTOON CORNERS, hosted by Gene London, and whatever CBS had scheduled during those 90 minutes was either run between 7-8 in the morning (before I woke up on Saturday mornings), or, after 1 pm. So I actually caught these when they did go into syndication.
As a kid of 9 or 10 years old, something I could not understand was, since this show debuted the very next week after the summer reruns of Adam West's 3rd season ended, WHY they somhow failed to get even a single actor from his show involved in this one. Playing the same parts, I mean.
Well, they did get ONE actor who appeared on the Adam West show.
Olan Soule had played a TV news reporter in the 1st King Tut story. This skinny, milquetoast-looking glasses-wearing guy, became the voice of Batman. No kidding.
Robin was played by radio DJ Kasey Casey, also known as the longtime voice of Shaggy on
SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU?
Ted Knight (before he played Ted Baxter on
MARY TYLER MOORE) supplied the voice of Commissioner Gordon, and, the narrator.
Larry Storch (who I'll always remember for
F TROOP) is credited as the voice of The Joker-- but having just watched the initial 2-parter, you couldn't prove it by me. The voice of The Joker in this thing is so screwed-up and twisted, it could be him, but it sounds nothing like his regular voice at all. It reminds me of what Dan Ayckroyd did when he created the
DR. DETROIT persona.
Jane Webb did the voice of Barbara Gordon. She has quite a resume of cartoon voices-- Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge & Big Ethel on the
ARCHIE cartoons, Cindy Lindenbrook on
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, Erica Lane on
FANTASTIC VOYAGE (another series I'd love to get), Sabrina Spellman and other characters on
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH, both Ginger and Maryann on
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF GILLIGAN, oh, and Catwoman.
The writing's pretty bad. The animation's much worse. The music is beyond forgettable. It's hard to be sure, but this show may be the absolute nadir of Filmation when it comes to quality (or lack thereof). And yet I'm laughing at the whole thought of it, that I went after this DVD set before so many others. Oh well, after this, upgrading the 90s
BATMAN cartoons to DVD will be even more impressive. (I saw the complete series box set for nearly the same price as this thing-- doesn't seem fair, somehow-- heh.)
I froze-framed the end credits, and the only familiar name in the art department, was
Mike Ploog. It blows my mind he had anything to do with this (layouts). But I bet he got paid way better for this than anything he ever did for Marvel Comics later on (
FRANKENSTEIN,
WEREWOLF BY NIGHT,
GHOST RIDER, etc.). At least with the Bakshi
SPIDER-MAN cartoons, you can actually recognize
Gray Morrow's drawing style amidst the nearly non-existent animation. (I've often fantasized, if only that show had a real budget.)
Something your toy-buying heart may appreciate... the 1986
SUPER POWERS Batmobile toy I have (same scale as the action figures) looks amazingly just like the
Batmobile in this 1968 Filmation cartoon. It's a lot more sleek and simplified than tha classic Adam West car, which was modified from a 1955 Ford Futura design model. My guess is, either the guy who modified that, or the people involved in the live-action show, owned the rights, and it would have cost too much to license the design. Too bad.
I've also got a 1989 movie
Batmobile the SAME scale as the
SUPER POWERS car, so the figures are inter-changable (heh). It was such a shock when I read that car's designer, Anton Furst (who also designed the Gotham City buildings in the movie) committed suicide only a few months after the film came out. WTF? To me, the '89 car was 2nd, right after the '66 car, for a classic design. It was intensely stupid when director Joel Schumacher had new cars designed for both of his Batman films. There was zero need for that.
