Adam West (Batman) RIP

Playing Batman For Laughs

By Gary;

I could not let Adam West's passing go by.

West as Batman brought joy to my childhood and joy to millions of children across the world.  That is a rare and noble thing.

Naturally as I grew older I realized the Batman TV series was a steaming pile of crap.  But as a kid who knew?

The series was stupid on so many levels, and its slapstick stupidity infected many other shows looking for ratings.

To this day I still enjoy the Joker character created by Cesar Romero and Yvonne Craig's Batgirl.  They did well with the material given to them.

West and the producers of Batman went down the road to comedy.  That may have been the right marketing move in 1966, but for real fans the series was a nightmare.

Treating Superheros as comic fodder could not last.  As gritty realism entered into the Western genre, it was only a matter of time for the Superhero.

Watchmen creator Alan Moore looked at characters like Batman as vigilante psychopaths who would frighten people.  In 1986 Moore took his Watchmen characters to the next level to realism.

“You couldn't put a superhero in the real world for a dramatic effect, because they are kind of stupid. They got these tight costumes, stupid names; they’re kind of unbelievable, so if you actually put them in the real world and have people reacting to them the way that people would, you’d laugh at them, you’d be scared of them. It would be a different way of looking at them, so that’s what went mostly into Watchmen.

“[Gibbons and I] thought about superhero types like Batman, so I thought, ‘What would he be like in the real world.’ And he’d be very much like Rorschach—if you’re a revenge-driven vigilante, you’re not quite right in the head. Yeah, alright, your parents got killed when you were a kid, whatever, that’s upsetting. But for most of us, if our parents were killed when we were little, would not become a bat-themed costumed vigilante—that’s a bit mental."

Then came 1989's Batman movie.  Batman and the Joker became the gritty, hard edged characters we know today.

Adam West did his part in the long saga that began in 1939.

Thanks for the laughs and the memories.

Batman Actors

Live-Action Portrayals of the Dark Knight over the years featuring:
0:00 Lewis Wilson (1943)
1:34 Robert Lowery (1949)
2:24 Adam West (1966-1968)
3:29 Michael Keaton (1989-1992)
5:27 Val Kilmer (1995)
7:30 George Clooney (1997)
8:21 Christian Bale (2005-2012)
9:20 Ben Affleck (2016-????)

The "Batusi" was declared illegal in 8 states.

Without the Joker there is no Batman

"You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won't kill you because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever."

The Joker

The Dark Knight (2008)