60 Years Ago - The Batman '66 TV Series

Shortly after I arrived on the planet, a television series appeared featuring a comic book character who would grow to be my favorite of them all.

My first recollection of this TV series is actually the film that was based on the first season of the series. In the film, Batman and Robin have to deal with the likes of The Joker ( Caesar Romero ), The Riddler ( Frank Gorshin ), Catwoman ( Lee Meriwhether ), and The Penguin ( Burgess Meredith ). It was campy … as was the TV series … but I enjoyed it. I used to wait for this film to show up in rotation so that I could re-watch it ( back in those pre-VHS / pre-DVD / pre-Blu-Ray / pre-streaming days. )

I had a growing collection of comics in my early elementary school days which included the various comics where the Caped Crusader was likely to appear including Batman, Detective Comics, The Brave and the Bold, World’s Finest, and the Justice League of America. I still really longed to see the TV series. Since there were really no options to see the series in the comfort of my home, I opted for the next best thing: a GAF Viewmaster set of the slides from an episode of Batman.

The slides all had kind of a 3D effect. There were stereoscopic pictures of various scenes from an episode featuring Catwoman as the guest villain. The 3D effects looked kind of weird in a number of the scenes. You could see a short blurb between the viewing scopes that described the related scene. Eh. It was better than nothing.

By the time I was in elementary school, the Batman TV series began to appear on one of our local TV stations via syndication. I finally got to see the episodes of the series. I really enjoyed the show in those days as did a number of my friends.

As luck would have it a short time later, Adam West and Burt Ward were making their ways through various convention circuits. I managed to get to an auto show in the 70’s where Adam West made an appearance in full Batman costume! I got to shake his hand and I got this signed photo.

The signature reads “Jimmy – from one crimefighter to another - Adam West”

How cool is that?