Tonight, the city of Los Angeles will honor a true television icon. After the sun sets, the city will display the Bat Signal one more time to honor the passing of Adam West. The beloved West, who portrayed Batman in the classic 1960’s television series, passed away earlier this week at the age of 88 after a recent struggle with leukemia.
With America’s spirit sagging in the 1960’s with the Vietnam War underway and much political unrest, ABC brought to life one of my favorite comic book heroes to save the day! Batman (along with Robin, the boy wonder) debuted as a mid-season replacement show in early 1966. Ironically, this happened during the same year when I became the bat boy (no, really!) for our city’s AA baseball team. Seems that the regular bat boy (a friend of my family) had to leave town with his family that summer. Holy coincidences!
Every week for nearly three seasons, I eagerly awaited the newest 7 PM Batman TV show, which featured the dynamic duo dueling one of their comic book arch-enemies every week. Did you know that the comic-book version of Batman (a normally serious and somewhat dark hero) contained its fair share of “Biff”‘s and “Oofs” during its epic fight scenes, just like the TV show? However, it was the campy (I’d call it corny) humor that won America’s hearts.
Adam West was simply superb in the role of TV’s Batman. He projected a seriousness to every situation, was always able to cleverly uncover the next scheming step of those dastardly villains, and managed to save Gotham City in only 30 minutes every week. Actually, the show became so popular that many episodes during seasons one and two ended in cliffhangers which brought audiences back the following night to see if our heroes would prevail – same Bat Time, same Bat Channel! Holy anxiety!
Though Adam West would be forever typecast as TV’s Batman for the remainder of his acting career, he said that he learned to embrace the role as legions of fans forever identified him as one of their childhood heroes. For a few years during the middle 1960’s, Adam West’s version of Batman was just the type of hero that America needed!