Batman changed the game for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder. The plots to foil whatever threat presented itself to Gotham City and all those Holy-isms lasted for three seasons.
From the first episode, star Adam West knew this series was going to take these legendary characters into a different realm. It was going to be a mix of action, drama and comedy. With West and Burt Ward at the helm, anything was possible. Especially all the laughs that resulted from the three-season series.
"I understood immediately what this thing was going to be and I read Lorenzo [Semple Jr's] script and I just fell down laughing," said Adam West, in a Pioneers of Television interview. "I thought 'yeah, that's the kind of comedy I'd like to try.'"
The image of Batman was set from years' worth of comics and early movies in the 1940s. By the '60s, West wanted something new.
"What I tried to bring was something fresh and something people had never seen as a dimension of Batman. The only way I could understand to do it, was to make it fun for the entire family spectrum."
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Naturally, the show was a fantasy, but elements that made it seem real was the name of the game for West, who understood both sides.
The point was, "to make it funny and ludicrous and absurd, in a sense, but always kind of believable," West said.
As far as portraying the Caped Crusader on an episode-by-episode basis, West had plenty of inspiration on what the character should be like. He said it was simple and he just needed to travel back in time.
"It was easy to play Batman... You know all I had to do was [use] a memory of playing Batman as a kid. The moment I pulled on that cowl... in my head it was like 'hey, you want to go out and play Batman? Let's go, come on!'"
The character of Batman has had many adaptations since its inception in the 1939 comics. The 1966 series, though it only had three seasons, has became a classic, still loved today. Like so many other now-classic shows, the stars never would've imagined that amount of success it would still have all these years later.
"I never had a sense of it being, how can I say, something permanent. Something as lasting as it's been."
Holy long-lasting classic series, Batman!
