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PODCAST

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966

Like many who grew up in the "60s and "70s (and perhaps even "80s and later), Tim and Paul had the course of their lives changed by the 1966 Batman TV show, from the types of play they did growing up to their present-day interests. In this series, they discuss the show"s allure and its failures, the arc of the show from satire to sitcom, its influences (the "40s serials and the comic books themselves) and the things it, in turn, influenced. SUPPORT "To the Batpoles!" and DeconstructingComics.com via

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All Episodes

01:53:07

#133 Scott Sebring is here! Holy Bat-cyclopedia!

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/05/14

Hey Batfans! Want details on what kept the show out of home video for so long? Want to know where the building called Gotham Plaza was, and what other shows that same structure was used for? Wondering about the background on the missing narration at the start of Hi Diddle Riddle? Have questions about the history of the all-seeing, all-knowing 66 Batman message board? There's only ONE MAN (OK, maybe two men) we can call: Scott Sebring! He joins us this time to discuss all this and more. "We do know

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01:57:54

#132 Women of Season One: Not Just "Poor, Deluded Girls"

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/04/30

TV in the '60s was, of course, dominated by male characters. It'd be tough to find a series that would pass the "Bechdel Test." How does Batman fare from a woman's point of view in the year 2020? To help us investigate this question, we invited novelist Nancy Northcott to join us this time and screen selected episodes from the first season. Plus, Tim and Paul have identified five "rules" for how women (molls in particular) are portrayed on the show. Also, "Bat Attack '89" (a Keaton-cash-in-cover of

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01:48:31

#131 1970: Batman goes solo and gets spooky

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/04/16

The 1964 "New Look" facelift and, of course, our beloved 1966 TV show created a boom in Batman comics... briefly. The sales numbers dropped to their lowest point yet after the show was cancelled. Meanwhile, diehard fans of the comics, whose vision of Batman couldn't have been farther from how he was portrayed on the show, were fed up and demanding a darker version of the character, a return to his roots. These fans, many of whom read, and wrote for, the Batmania fanzine, were cheering for the

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01:29:05

#130 Reading Fan Letters in the Wayne Living Room

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/04/02

In 1966, one sure way to make money was to tie your product to the Batman TV show in some way. Bill Adler was an expert at riding the latest wave, and in that year he released Bill Adler's Funniest Fan Letters to Batman, a collection of real (?) fan letters sent by fans (mostly kids) of the Caped Crusader's TV show and comic books. In this episode, we discuss this book and read some of our favorite letters from it. Then Ben Bentley of 66batman.com (AAA-aa, AAA-aa) stops by to fill us in further on

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01:32:38

#129 The Show's Ratings, and Rating "Godzilla"

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/03/19

At last, we're back! Week-to-week Neilsen ratings info isn't easy to come by, but some research on the ratings has been shared on the all-seeing, all-knowing 66 Batman message board by Bob Furmanek. This time we examine Bob's research and how it puts another nail in the bat-coffin of the pervasive fourth season myth. 2015 4th season myth thread 2018 4th season myth thread 2018 4th season smoking gun? Also in this episode: A prince getting weighed? Holy Deja Vu! A review of the first issue of

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04:06

BAT-ANNOUNCEMENTS

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/02/01

Tim and Paul explain why the next episode will be delayed a bit. Also, how you can put yourself in a drawing to win a Batman meets Godzilla T-shirt!

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02:14:21

#128 Roast Godzilla

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/01/23

This time, a double-header! First, we finish what we started by discussing Legends of the Superheroes: The Roast. Was it a great achievement by West and Ward? (Um…) Was Frank Gorshin probably better off for having skipped it? Was the inclusion of Ghetto Man racist? Is it really a roast at all? Is it, you know, funny at any point? We discuss all these questions, the big and small names that appeared in the credits, and more. Then, we talk to Eric Elliott, who's in charge of a project to turn a 1960s

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01:39:32

#127 It’s a “Challenge” Just to Sit Through “Legends”

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2020/01/09

In January 1979, Adam West, Burt Ward, and Frank Gorshin reprised their '66 roles in two specials that barely registered in the Nielsen ratings. The first was "Legends of the Superheroes: The Challenge," in which Batman, Robin, and other DC Comics heroes went up against a group of villains (including the Riddler) who, for no clear reason, were plotting to destroy the world. Adam looked sub-par in his "gila cowl," and all three struggled with a script that only the laugh track found funny. In this

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02:03:14

#126 Season Three Wrapup: The Problem with Batgirl

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/12/26

We've finished season three (and the series), so it's time to examine the final year of Batman. It's not a task we relish; so much of season three is a disappointment, from the writing to the production values, the head-scratching cliffhanger-free episode tag scenes to the phoned-in acting. And then there's the introduction of Batgirl. While Yvonne Craig was always a delight, the execution of introducing Barbara Gordon/Batgirl into a show that had just been cut back to once a week, and sometimes

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01:33:13

#125 Minerva: Holy self-parody!

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/12/12

And so we arrive at the last episode of Batman. Of course, the show didn't get a spectacular sendoff; they didn't even give us any of the major villains. Instead, Zsa Zsa Gabor, who had twice almost appeared on the show, finally gets her turn, as (relatively?) evil spa owner Minerva. ("How could she be evil? She's so beautiful!") What's perhaps more notable is the amount of self-parody in the episode, including appearances by executive producer William Dozier and producer Howie Horwitz! Join us as

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02:03:54

#124 Penguinalysis: How would '60s comics fans have...

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/11/28

How might a longtime Batman comics reader in 1966 have reacted to Burgess Meredith's portrayal of the Penguin? That's the question our friend Kyle hit on a few months ago, and in this episode he joins us to read pre-'66 Batman comics to compare how similar Meredith's Penguin was to the character in stories by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff, France Herron, and the like. How similar are the two versions, and where are they different? Plus, your mail about our discussion of The Joker's Flying

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01:48:41

#123 Dr. Cassandra makes the show disappear

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/11/14

As Batman neared the end of its run, the budget situation got worse (occasioning the need for an invisible fight), and the writers threw caution to the wind: witness at least half a dozen double entendres in "The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra" — this at a time when most viewers who were old enough to get these naughty jokes had already bailed. In this episode, we examine this, this final episode written by Stanley Ralph Ross. PLUS: Lily Munster has a deja vu episode, John Burgess sends us his own take

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02:16:51

#122 Parade of Bat-Parodies

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/10/31

When Batman was the hottest show on TV, it naturally became a major target of humor and parody as well. In episode 115 we looked at a couple of contemporaneous Bat-parodies from 1966-67, and this episode we examine three more: The Adventures of Jerry Lewis no. 97, featuring the actual Batman and Robin, who are both dealing with the effects of West/Ward Batman on their own lives, and acting in ways that parody their TV counterparts; the CRACKED magazine parody "Batzman meets the Green Horned Bee";

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01:31:41

#121 Send Off the Clown (with Ken Holtzhouser!)

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/10/17

In Cesar Romero's final appearance as the Joker, he seems hamstrung, and not only by the lousy plot and the single episode in which to tell it. Ken Holtzhouser, who grew up rating Batman episodes based on their Romeroian content, joins us to identify the problem, separate out the chaff from the episode, and see if there's any Bat-wheat left. Plus, the Andrew and Hudson version of the theme, and listener mail in response to our episode on Flash Gordon and Lorenzo Semple! Ken's comic The Quick and

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01:47:38

#120 Can Superman solve "Batman's Great Mystery"?

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/10/03

While Batman and Robin never had their own show back in the "Golden Age of Radio," they did appear from time to time on The Adventures of Superman. Sometimes it was because Superman actor Bud Collyer was taking the day off, but in the case of "Batman's Great Mystery", he appears in all eleven episodes as Batman (Stacy Harris) has disappeared, and Superman helps Robin (Ronald Liss) try to locate him. WHAT WILL HAPPEN? Tune in to this podcast, fellas and girls, for the intriguing answer! Plus, the

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01:37:25

#119 Eureka! Is “Mummy’s Uncle” our favorite Season...

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/09/19

Victor Buono's final appearance as King Tut is, while hardly the Semplian ideal, plenty enjoyable on its own merits - for Buono, for the unusual situation the Dynamic Duo find themselves in, for some well-thought-out camera work. But what's up with Adam West's line delivery? We've never heard him sound so grouchy and cynical before. Also, how does this episode seemingly fit together with The Unkindest Tut of All, early in season three — seeing as how these two episodes were originally written as a

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01:42:02

#118 "Flash Gordon": Lorenzo Goes to Space Camp

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/09/05

What does the movie Flash Gordon (1980) have to do with Batman '66? Simple: a guiding force for both was screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr.! What can we learn about Semple's approach to Batman by comparing it to his work on Flash Gordon 15 years later? What was his approach, and what other factors skewed the results? There's no walkthrough of the plot of the film in this episode, but we do talk about the music (Queen!) and design choices, Italian cinema special effects employed in the film, and of

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01:56:13

#117 Ross' Final Shame

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/08/22

"Come back, Shame!" In season three, come back he does, and seemingly stupider than ever! And yet, Shame's plotting for his caper seems oddly smart. Meanwhile, Stanley Ralph Ross goes all-in on gags that are gleefully at odds with the template set by Lorenzo Semple, Jr. in season one. In this episode, we examine the final two-parter of the Batman series: what works, what doesn't, who's in it, and more. Plus, Peter Seymour's remix of the Batman theme, and your mail about our Penguin's Clean Sweep

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02:54:11

#116 Victor Buono: Holy Ad-Libbed Comedy!

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/08/08

One question on our minds almost since the beginning of To the Batpoles! has been: Just how much did Victor Buono, as King Tut, ad lib on the show? In this episode, we answer that question by comparing the final script to King Tut's Coup/Batman's Waterloo to what was broadcast, helping us to see the difference between Buono's sense of humor and Stanley Ralph Ross's, and to gain a keen appreciation of the considerable comedic contributions of Lee Meriweather to this arc. The script also reveals the

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01:37:16

#115 Two Batman Parodies

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/07/25

When something becomes popular, it's likely to get parodied somewhere. In the 1960s, the parodier-in-chief was MAD Magazine. Meanwhile, at Marvel Comics, a new parody comic series began in 1967, Not Brand ECHH, which followed the lead of MAD's 1950s incarnation as a comic book. In 1966, MAD published "BATS-MAN", followed about a year later by ECHH'S "The Aging Spidey-Man! Peter Pooper vs. Gnatman and Rotten." In this episode, we examine both parodies: What are they trying to say about Batman the

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