Batman

When we were kids there was this crazy show on TV called Batman. It was about a guy¹ who put on a silly-looking costume and got into fistfights with even sillier villains with weird accents and mannerisms. And their henchmen who wore odd uniforms that made them look like doofuses. Like adult versions of Dr. Seuss’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat.

And it wasn’t a cartoon. It was live action. So, it was an adult guy wearing tights. And his “ward,” who was a slightly younger guy pretending to be a teenager, also wearing tights. This younger guy was “Robin.” I guess he was adopted? His parents were deceased. Which was also true of Batman. In fact, this was kind of an important connection in the lore. Which, to my memory, they never really mentioned.

They mentioned other things. There was a butler. Did I mention that Batman, uh, I mean the guy who dressed up like Batman – not the actor, but the character of the guy in the show who liked to dress in tights and punch people – was rich? Yeah. He inherited a bunch of cash from his dead parents.

So they mentioned that. And they also mentioned that he had a bat cave. A hideout crossed with a secret crime lab crossed with a garage for his bat car. Which was actually a bat_mobile_. Like the Pope Mobile, only for bats. Or people who dressed vaguely like a bat. Only this predated the Pope Mobile, because this TV show was before kooks were taking pot shots at the Pope.

There was a bat pole. Don’t get confused. Bats don’t have a pole in real life. A Batman has a bat pole. And so does a Robin. It worked like this: he (Batman) got a call on the bat phone from the police commissioner. So, then, he would reach over to a bust or sculpture and tilt the head back. Under the chin the was a button that would reveal two poles. The Bat poles. Sliding down these poles is how you would enter the Bat cave. I don’t know if there was another entrance. When he slid down the pole, it would also undress him and then dress him in his Batman official uniform. And then, now fully costumed, they could fire up the car, er, mobile, er, _bat_mobile. Did I mention fire came out from the back of the exhaust of the car? Like a jet of some sort. Pretty cool actually.

You might be thinking right now, “The bat pole undressed and dressed them?” I know. It was like magic. But Batman didn’t have any magic. Don’t ask too many questions. There was a show called The Flintstones where pre-historic people didn’t have modern appliances like garbage disposals, lawnmowers, steam whistles, vacuum cleaners, record players, cameras, and doorbells. Instead, they had little birds, other animals, and dinosaurs do those jobs for them. And then the appliance-animals would quip to the audience about how unpleasant their jobs were. They didn’t talk to the prehistoric people, about it. They talked to the audience.

So, now you might be thinking, “Kids’ TV was really strange in the… wait-_how_ old are you?” Shhh. It was the 60’s, and these weren’t created as television for children. The Flintstones ran for several years in prime time for adults. It was sort of a parody of a much earlier television program that was popular with adults. And when its ratings on the ABC Network began to sag, they introduced Batman, who (the character, not the show) was also known as “The Caped Crusader.” Although, I don’t think that was an official name, so maybe I shouldn’t be capitalizing it.

So. Anyway. That was Batman.

1. Batman ↩