Batman was to be seen on 2 different nights a week, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Money into it, and secondly thanks to a number of cancelled series in the 1965-66 TV season they found themselves in desperate need of programming, so the network decided to add the show as a mid-season replacement in January 1966.ĥ. Firstly, ABC had already invested so much In the two factors resulted in Batman actually making it to broadcast. Neither alteration made any difference to the results. Test screenings of the show, one with a laugh track added, the other According to Adam West, a nervous ABC required the producers to hold two additional The opening episode received the worst audience test I think we all know which pair were successful?įor the 1966-67 TV season, but before going on the air Batman was shown to test audiences, a common practice both then and now. Deyell as Robin, the other with Adam WestĪnd Burt Ward. on Wonder Woman) as Batman and Peter R.J. When it came to finding the Dynamic Duo, two sets of screen tests were filmed for the series, one with Lyle Waggoner (who you may remember as Colonel Steve Trevor, Jr. With ABC then farming out the rights out to 20th Century Fox to produce the new seriesģ. A call was put into DC Comics and the rights obtained, The public were surveyed about which comic book character they'd like to see a TV series based on Superman, Dick Tracy, The Green Hornet, The Phantom, and even Little Orphan Annie all came above Batman in the survey! However, Batman was the highest placed character whose rights were currently available. They were already considering developing a television series based on a comic strip action hero and had just completed some market research. Impressed with the reaction from the crowd, Udoff was interested in bringing the Caped Crusader to his network and reached out to fellow ABC executives Harve Bennett and Edgar J. In 1965 ABC executive Yale Udoff attended a screening of " An Evening With Batman And Robin", a 4 hour back-to-back marathon that consisted of all 15Įpisodes of the Caped Crusaders 1943 debut on-screen adventure. Former American football linebacker and actor Mike Henry was lined up to star as Batman, even posing for publicity photographs inĬostume, but when negotiations with CBS broke down, DC Comics re-obtained the rights to the character.Ģ. Ed Graham Productions were planning to produce a more dramatic series, similar in tone to that of The Lone Ranger, to air on Saturday mornings. Although the series debuted on January 6th 1966, Batman nearly made it to the screen two years earlier. Keep reading to learn more about Adam West's many animated Batman appearances.1. Though The Brave and the Bold may have been inspired by West's Batman television series, the show was practically reborn in the 2016 animated movie Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, which saw West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar reprise their live-action roles. He played Bruce Wayne's father, Thomas Wayne, in another symbolic guest role in The Brave and the Bold, a cartoon that was heavily inspired by West's "Bright Knight" interpretation of Batman. When another Batman cartoon, titled The Batman, launched, West took on the role of Marion Grange, the Mayor of Gotham City. However, Batman: The Animated Series, which was launched from the momentum of the Burton-helmed film franchise, honored West with the episode "The Gray Ghost," in which West voiced a television hero quite similar to his own live-action Batman whom the animated Bruce Wayne idolized as a child. West was considered for the role of Thomas Wayne in Tim Burton's first Batman movie, but ultimately didn't get the role. The series was short-lived, but West eventually took over the role of Batman from Olan Soule in the final two season of Super Friend. Though West never made an appearance in a live-action Batman movie, he continued to return to the franchise several times over the decades in its various animated incarnations.Īpproximately ten years after the live-action television series, West helped Batman make his Saturday morning cartoons debut in The New Adventures of Batman. Batman ran on television for three seasons from 1966 through 1968, but Adam West's relationship with the character of Batman did not end when the show did.
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