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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

02:02:01

#114 Putting "Clean Sweep" under the microscope

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/07/11

In The Penguin's Clean Sweep, Burgess Meredith's final appearance on "Batman" (but not the last time as the Penguin!), Stanford Sherman's script has its moments, and so does Meredith, but… if you look closely, something just isn't up to snuff. And if you scratch the surface, there are way more inconsistencies and goofiness in the script than meets the eye. We're joined again by our childhood friend Kyle to discuss this feathered farewell: Is there a theme of barbecue implements? Did Penguin really

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02:03:20

#113 Tying Ourselves in Knots: Nora Clavicle...

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/06/27

Without a doubt, one of the most maligned Batman episodes is Nora Clavicle and the Ladies' Crime Club. The episode's sexist portrayal of women obviously wouldn't fly today, but do the men in this episode fare any better? It seems to have been another of Stanford Sherman's satirical Batman episodes, arguably a failed one. But every episode has its fans, and this time we review Nora with a fan of this one: Fred, a.k.a. "twof," the former proprietor of the defunct Batgirl Bat-Trap web site. Fred has

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01:58:00

#112 Court BAT-tles: The Law on the '66 Show

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/06/13

Batman and Robin are "duly deputized agents of the law." Law comes up on the '66 show on a number of occasions, including two courtroom scenes. The very first episode features the Riddler filing a lawsuit against Batman. But, you might ask, how accurately is the law portrayed on Batman? In this episode, lawyer Jim Dedman is here to fill us in. How good of a prosecutor is Batman? Does he behave properly as an agent of the law? How would Alfred's method of breaking up the Batman - Marsha nuptials go

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01:49:44

#111 "The Wrong Earth" and "The Batman Radio Show"

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/05/30

What's this? An episode of To the Batpoles that isn't about Batman? Well…on the surface, no, it isn't. But in Ahoy Comics' series The Wrong Earth, Dragonflyman and Stinger act an awful lot like the '66 versions of Batman and Robin, and the Dragonfly seems very similar to Frank Miller's Dark Knight! Liberated of the copyright owner's limitations on how Batman and Robin can be used, what are writer Tom Peyer and artist Jamal Igle saying about Batman with this series? Also in this episode, back from

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01:30:32

#110 "The Impossible Crimes": Semple holds Stadd’s...

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/05/16

In 1965, as production of Batman was starting to get rolling, Lorenzo Semple was having some difficulties in getting across to writers his vision for the show. Leonard Stadd's "The Secret of the Impossible Crimes," a script that Semple rejected, shows Stadd's take on Semple's vision after reading the script for "Hi Diddle Riddle." The result is a funhouse-mirror version of Batman '66: it's recognizably the show, but bizarrely distorted in some ways. Once again, an unused script helps us understand

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02:04:22

#109 Louie the Lilac baffles, Bat-conference informs

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/05/02

One of the reasons often given for the quality dropoff in Batman season three has been that, in one-part episodes with so many characters, time is tight. So how to account for Louie's Lethal Lilac Time, a one-parter that seems not to even have enough story for 22 minutes!? And yet, we seem to be missing things, as scenes are cut off before they appear to be over. Meanwhile, should Yvonne Craig be reporting Neil Hamilton to HR for #metoo-related reasons? Also, Tim reports on the Bowling Green State

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01:40:07

#108 The William Dozier Fanboy

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/04/18

We all have our favorite characters and actors from Batman, but how many of us are fanboys for Executive Producer William Dozier? Well, for one, there's Oscar Lilley, proxy researcher at the American Heritage Center in Laramie, Wyoming. In the process of working with Dozier's papers, Oscar has grown intrigued with Dozier's backstory and impressed by how he did his job. In this episode, he tells us about his selflessness, his business sense, and how the trajectory of Dozier's 1965 series The Loner

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01:43:22

#107 Archie meets Batman, We Meet A Listener

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/04/04

A double-header for our 4th anniversary (and, we forgot to mention, Batman's 80th!). First, we review the recent six-issue series Archie Meets Batman '66. How does the Caped Crusader end up joining forces with America's favorite teenager? Then, listener Chris Cavanaugh joins us to talk about his Bat-fandom growing up, fueled as much by Silver Age DC comics as it was by Batman on TV! Plus, the Remix Maniacs version of the theme, and your mail about our Batman Returns episode! 16 things you didn't

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02:42:04

#106 The Funny Script Felonies (w/John S. Drew!)

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/03/21

Stanley Ralph Ross's treatment, draft, and final scripts for The Funny Feline Felonies two-parter reveal a number of surprises: inconsistent concern for not doing the same gags twice, the death of the budding Batman-Batgirl romance, Ross errors that sometimes made it to the screen, a Ross gag that was, er, stubbed out like a cigar, and much more. The Batcave Podcast's John S. Drew joins us once again in the Bat Research Lab. Plus, Adam West's Batman and Robin and conversation with our listeners

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02:04:58

#105 Fifty Ways to Wreck the Joker

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/03/07

In the Funny Feline Felonies, Joker fakes getting kidnapped by Catwoman, only to then let her lead him around by the nose. He seems more childish than evil. What's wrong with season three Joker? That's one issue on our minds as we go through this two-parter. We also explore the provenance of the "Kitty Car," the ways in which this arc displays both male chauvinism and feminism, and the numerous extra characters and cameos that Stanley Ralph Ross included in this script — and an important cameo that

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01:57:20

#104 Batman Returns... and Kyle appears

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/02/21

In 1992, Batman returned to movie theater screens, more Tim Burton-y than ever! His faceoff with Penguin and Catwoman contains numerous hallmarks of a Burton film, from the themes to the camerawork. Childhood friend Kyle joins Tim and Paul to (once we've wallowed in reminiscences quite enough) give Batman Returns the To the Batpoles treatment, including the lack of Robin, various cats and penguins, the relevance to Batman '66, and the Returns video game tie-ins. Also, what is the Wilhelm Scream

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01:27:00

#103 Pop vs Camp: Which is Batman ’66?

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/02/07

Bring your Coleman stove! Grab your sleeping bag! "Go to the creek and brush your teeth!" It's time for a serious "Camping Trip"! Back in episode 12, we took time to examine the idea of "camp" and why Batman '66 is often described as "campy." Producer William Dozier and others involved with the show rejected that label because of its "gay" associations, and instead maintained that it was an example of Pop art. Listener Dan E. Kool pointed us recently to an essay by Sasha Torres, a professor at the

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02:30:51

#102 Egghead & Olga: A Strange Way to Run a Three-Parter

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/01/24

In what we promise will be our last Egghead and Olga episode (maybe), we dig into the script for the original three-part version of their third-season story featuring Vincent Price and Anne Baxter. Because of an apparent aversion to running a three-part story (besides Londinium, that is), Batman's producers chopped part one, The Ogg Couple, and ran it six weeks AFTER broadcasting the second and third parts. As this decision was made AFTER shooting was completed, the decision necessitated not only

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01:20:23

#101 Egghead and Olga are back… Or did they just get...

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2019/01/10

Back again for the first time, Egghead and Olga, in The Ogg Couple, originally meant to be the first of three parts. Did the producers do a good job of changing direction in midstream, or are the seams showing? In addition to containing a raunchy joke the censors seemingly overlooked, this Batman episode inspires several musical ruminations, related to the source of the name of the Silver Scimitar of Taras Bul Bul, Batgirl's sabre dance, and after a session in the Bat Research Lab, Eureka

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0:59

AN APPEAL

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2018/12/28

Call your friends! Help us get to 50 iTunes reviews by the end of 2018 - it's your duty as a citizen of Gotham!

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01:44:14

#100 Adam West’s Signature Role

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2018/12/20

What better topic for our 100th episode than the star of our favorite show? We watched the Television Academy's 2006 interview with Adam West, which does overlap somewhat with Adam's Back to the Batcave, of course, but still gives us some new insights. Then we realized that there's someone else we haven't given enough credit for the good things in Batman '66: Executive Producer William Dozier. While we rail against his penny-pinching ways as the series went on, if it hadn't been for him, our

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01:29:19

#099 The Kitt-y Cat Shows her Claws

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2018/12/06

With Julie Newmar off (reportedly) filming Mackenna's Gold, Eartha Kitt was recruited to play Catwoman in season three. In this episode, we dig into her first appearance, Catwoman's Dressed to Kill, an episode that seems to exhibit a lot of misogyny — but is that primarily on the part of writer Stanley Ralph Ross, or on the part of Batman himself? Meanwhile, of course, the casting of an African-American Catwoman apparently led to the end of the Catwoman - Batman romantic tension, and in the Bat

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01:45:58

#098 “Three Villains of Doom”: A “Novel” bit of...

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2018/11/22

In 1966, Signet released the novel Batman vs. Three Villains of Doom by Winston Lyon. Like most Batman '66 tie-in merch, it was released very early in the show's run, which means that its ability to ape the show is limited. Lyon sometimes borrows from the comics to augment what he doesn't know about the show, and sometimes simply has to make stuff up. The novel deals with a contest between Penguin, Joker, and Catwoman to defeat Batman and earn the coveted Tommy Award. But wait — where's Riddler

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01:44:27

#097 The Riddler’s cutting room floor: “The Silent...

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2018/11/08

Dick Carr's first draft of The Silent Film Capers — which Bat-fans know as Death in Slow Motion — was submitted in November 1965. It went through numerous revisions before becoming the story we know and love. In this episode, we go through the first three drafts of the script and find the original form of the giant book, a cut subplot about chocolate cake, the reason Mr. Van Jones doesn't seem to mind that Riddler ruined his party, and much more. Plus, the Skeletal Family version of the Batman

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01:28:41

#096 As the “Ffogg” clears, we ask “Where's the Beef?”

To The Batpoles! Batman 1966 ·

2018/10/25

In spite of having three whole episodes to tell the story of the Terrific Trio's visit to Londinium, the show nonetheless leaves plenty of plot threads hanging, important moments unshown, and basic villain motivations unexplained. As Batman and Robin don "beefeater" uniforms, a certain old Wendy's fast food tagline comes to mind… There might not be much beef, but there is at least a bee. Of sorts. Also a rope trick that's both intentionally and unintentionally funny. With a hat-tip to a certain

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