Burt Ward::Richard "Dick" Grayson /Robin The Boy Wonder Yvonne Craig::Barbara Gordon/Batgirl [ season 3 ] Neil Hamilton::Commissioner James W. Gordon William Dozier::the narrator Adam West:: Bruce N. Wayne/Batman Stafford Repp::Chief O'Hara Madge Blake::Aunt Harriet Cooper [ seasons 1-2 ] Recurring Stars::: Victor Buono:: King Tut Monte Landis:: Basil Vincent Price:: Egghead Carolyn Jones Marsha, Queen Of Diamonds Cesar Romero:: The Joker Frank Gorshin:: The Riddler John Astin:: The Riddler (2) Burgess Meredith:: The Penguin Julie Newmar:: The Catwoman Lee Meriweather:: The Catwoman (2) Etna Kitt:: The Catwoman (3) Estelle Winwood:: Aunt Hilda David Lewis:: Warden Crichton Byron Keith:: Mayor Lindseed James O'Hara:: Cop    
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 | The first episode of Batman aired on Wednesday January 12, 1966. This series was a first rate class act with a TON of money being put into the production. The Batcave set alone cost $800,000 in 1966 dollars. ( Holy Big Bucks!) The series aired for three seasons, the first two seasons, twice a week, then in 1968 cut back to once a week. Starting as far back as 1965, ABC was last place in the ratings and something was needed to give them a boost. The idea of a superhero appealed to the network. A hero with comic book origins would make sense due to the fact that most adults in the 60's had some kind of recollection of their youth spent reading comic books. Batman as far as popularity was third behind Superman and Dick Tracy. The first two were not available so ABC went with the concept of bringing Batman to the tube. Thus they bought the rights to the comic hero. The mastermind behind bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen was William Dozier. He had been involved in many popular TV programs in the early 60's such as Dennis the Menace and Bewitched and ABC felt this project would be perfect for this veteran producer, before being at ABC, he was the president of Screen Gems. The project was in capable hands, at this point just an idea. He read comic books to get an idea of the character and developed some of the basic concepts that made the show such a success such as; The show needed to appeal to an adult audience as well as children. This was done with the concept of doing the show very serious, which with the crazy plots and gimmicks would make it funny to the adults and the kids would still be excited by the super hero aspect of the show. William Dozier Appeared in The Last Episode in a Cameo Role with Zsa Zsa Gabor. This was a time for family shows, no skin, no sex. There was a war going on and Batman gave America a release. There were many new shows created at this time. * Get Smart * F-Troop * The Monkeys * Andy Griffith * I Dream of Jennie * Mission Impossible *plus many other "classic shows". Another notable show that started in the same year as Batman was The Captain Kirk Show ( or something like that ) and the number one show in the country was Bonanza ! Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants were all filmed at the same studio as Batman ! Bringing The Show To Life !! Thus the concept of Batman was born. Now to bring it to life. The pilot episode was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr, a friend of Dozier's. They tied in the Pop Art Craze with the show, incorporating new and fresh ideas especially for television at that time. Color programs were new to TV at that point, as recent as 1965 shows were converting to color. Batman used colors to the fullest extent, weird camera angles, titles such as BAM, POP, ZLOP were added and a first, the show was broadcast on two consecutive nights with a cliffhanger ending between. It was similar to the old movie serials. These effects are the reason when you watch the show today it doesn't come across as dated, it was really radical for that time. They picked the cast, an ensemble of unknowns for the heroes and started the cameras rolling. Due to ABC wanting a new show to boost their ratings, the original air date was moved up from a fall preview to January. They didn't give the go ahead until November . The usual time to get ready for a new show would be three or four months, but with the tight deadlines, everyone had to work overtime . Saturdays, Sundays, around the clock , trying to get the series ready for airing. Holy Tight Schedule !!! Would people tune in and watch the show ?? Well ABC did a test audience and the results were poor. The results came to the set during the filming of the second episode and depressed everyone. Still having faith Dozier and his crew continued on. The network decided to keep the results a secret and go on as before. ABC did a marketing blitz, everyone who watched TV was bombarded by ads for the show, they even went as far as to purchase a skywriter to add the slogan " Batman Is Coming " above the Rose Bowl game. Was it not for the efforts of ABC to make sure everyone knew that the caped crusader was on his way, the show might have not have attracted such a huge amount of initial viewers. And It Was A Hit ! During the first season, Batman was rated the number 10 program on Wednesdays and # 5 on Thursdays ! Batman was filmed at four different studios during the production of the series The filming was done on a break-neck pace with the completion of a two episodes ( one which aired on Wednesday night the second that aired on Thursday night) completed in Only about two weeks !!!! During the whole production of the series, everything was on a tight schedule. Long shots and driving scenes were done with stunt doubles Hubie Kerns (Batman) and Victor Paul (Robin) in many of the stock shots to free up Adam West and Burt Ward to do the close ups . Batman The Movie (1966) In addition to the TV. show a feature film was also made between the first and second season. Due to a much larger budget that the television show, they added a Batcycle, Batboat and Batcopter to the caped crusaders inventory ! The producers wanted a medium to sell the series to the overseas market. The movie wasn't heavily promoted in the US because the TV show was already a hit. The movie was released August 03, 1966. It was originally planned to come out before the TV series but due to some shows having a hard time, ABC decided to introduce the world to Batman early so the movie was put off until after the first season. The special Bat vehicles were then used in the TV. show, due to the production costs of refilming the scenes,they just reused the scenes from the movie. The series gave us many memorable locations in addition to the Batcave. Wayne Manor and Commissioner Gordons office were just two of the few regular locations. The Super Guest Villains !! One Of the biggest draws was aimed at the adults watching the programs !! The producers decided to get a large following of older Batfans to tune in a large name star should be used as the guest villain. William Doizer on guess villians "These people (actors) would call up, or send their agents around, saying, can't so and so be on? Gloria Swanson, I remember, called me from New York, but we couldn't find the right part for her. But everybody came out of the woodwork; we never had to go after those people. Alot of them I had known personally, and they would call and say that they would love to do one of those because ' my kids want me to do it' I don't think anyone had more fun with it than Buzz Meredith. " This fact added to the appeal of the show, who could resist tuning in to see Uncle Miltie as Louie the Lilac or Cliff Robertson as Shame." There was a number of todays stars that had their first TV appearances on the Batman set, Teri Garr, James Brolin, and Rob Reiner, just to name a few . Also the show had a ton of guest cameo appearances, such as , Joe Besser, Paul Revere And The Raiders and many more. The Famous Batclimb Everyone who was anyone wanted to be on this show and the famous " Bat Climb " was one way to fit in a few extra celeb's. The Beginning of the End....... Off starts the second season with more gadgets and more guest stars but somehow this probably started to hurt the popularity of the show. It got into a rut, the plots became very similar, heres a breakdown of the plot, 1) Villain enters town 2) Gordon calls Batman 3) Batman and Robin go to the Commissioner's office 4) The duo go after the criminal 5) They get caught and put in a trap 6) By some incredible means they escape 7) They chase the villain 8) A fight with the bad guys 9) Justice prevails and off to prison the villains go In the first season, everything was fresh and new but after a while, it became too predictable. They added a ton of huge guest stars the second season which did keep viewers coming back to a certain extent. Another reason the show slipped in the ratings had nothing to do with the actual show ! Other networks deciding that since Batman, a superhero, was a great hit, why not introduce their own version of a character in the new fall line up of 1966 ( remember, Batman came on in January before the regular fall release in September ). These shows included, Mr Terrific, Captain Nice, then the cartoons followed suit with no less than 6 super hero cartoons. The American public was overloaded with Superpowers. Dozier wanted to do another season, try and revive his creation and came up with some ideas to breathe life into the show, Hey, lets add a new Hero !! Great ! Batgirl was added for the third season. The two night showing was dropped, people would just tune in for the Thursday night episode because of the recap at the beginning of the show would keep them caught up. So, the show was cut back to a half hour once a week. How do you add Batgirl and reduce your show by a half hour every week? In one word, CUT The series got into problems with cost and the sets were cut back to save money, look at a show from the third season, and you can see how the set quality went from outstanding to rather something that looked closer to what a local playhouse would use. A relationship between Batman and Batgirl was never explored and the time given to the show didn't allow for a good plot to develop. An Expensive Bat !!! The end of the caped crusaders did not come at the hand of a super villain but by the same network that brought them to life.It was due not for lack of popularity but rather the show became too costly to produce. Money, it's what makes the world go round, The show cost over $75,000 for one half hour episode yet ABC only paid about $65,000 per show to broadcast it. Props, sets, cars, new bat items, these all cost big bucks. The show was going over budget by a million dollars a year. If you do the math, that would mean that while the show was in it's original production, it would make no money until it was in syndication. The network then decided to pull the plug and end production of the show to then be put into syndication so they could realize a profit. 1968 about the ending of the show*** The show produced a total of 120 episodes with which was unusual for a show that only ran three seasons, but remember, it was showed twice a week.. the last episode aired on March 14,1968 . A bit of sad Bat Trivia... after the show was canceled by The ABC Network, NBC showed a great interest in purchasing the show !!! GREAT !!! not so great... some network exec. at ABC in a effort to get valuable space on the studio lot had the whole set torn down. Due to the great cost to rebuild the sets, NBC declined on the deal, shoot. The series popularity is proven by 30 years of syndication and still going strong. Still you have to wonder...what if those sets had not been destroyed ....... 
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