S01 E02 - Your Mother Wears Combat Boots

On this episode Dylan is joined by Conrad Westmaas & Luke Molloy to discuss the expanded universe of Batman 66. First up its the TV Movie 'Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt' which features Adam West and Burt Ward as themselves, with Jack Brewer and Jason Marsden portraying the young West (Batman) and Ward (Robin).  Written by Duane Poole and directed byPaul A. Kaufman. Then they look at the animated film 'Batman vs. Two-Face' which stars Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar reprising their roles of Batman, Robin and Catwoman. Directed by Rick Morales and Written by Michael Jelenic and James Tucker. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:44

Welcome to To Hot for TV. We are the podcast that looks at the expanded universe of your favourite franchises. I'm your host, Dylan, and today I'm joined by actor and podcaster Conrad Westmas. Hi, Comrad.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Hello, Dylan. I'm very excited. I have never ever podcasted about Batman66 before, which I can't believe. So I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Well, your luck may be in today, my friend. And also, we're joined by a writer and podcaster Luke Malloy.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Hello. Yeah, great to be here. I've also never podcasted about Batman at all.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

Neither have I. But this is the format. I've spoken to you both before about Doctor Who expanded universe. And more. And more, much, much more. But today we're going to jump into the world of Batman, most specifically Batman 66. Although it only became known as Batman66 much later on. It was just known as Batman at the time. Batman was an American live-action television series based on the DC comic characters of the same name, starring Adam West and Burt Ward. 120 episodes aired on the ABC Network for three seasons, from January the 12th, 1966, to March 14th, 1968. And then it was repeated forever and ever ever across the globe, which is presumably how we all first found it. So, Conrad, we'll come to you first. I'm assuming you're a Batman 66 fan or just a Batman fan.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

What's your history? Tell me stuff. The history is, I'm very old, I'm 55, and I was born in 1971. And in the UK, it was just, I just remember Batman 66, the repeats being on TV. And in back, like casting your mind back, sort of pre-all the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all DC and all that stuff. It was very simple back back in my day. It was very kind of universal. If you're a kid, you had a Spider-Man, Batman, maybe a Superman toy. Those are sort of the main three with Hulk and Wonder Woman. You had a bit of an awareness of those and some TV shows of those. Like every kid had like a Batmobile or a Spider-Man something or a Superman something. It just sort of came as standard in your kind of kid's kit, really. But Batman 66, I used to, I used to really love it. And yeah, I've realized since like it's been it basically, I'm gonna have to be honest, it was really, really formative in my whole uh sexual development, psychosexual development. And there's no way I can get through this podcast without sort of referring to that stuff. But in quite a serious way, I think that is the way kids sort of form their ideas of who they are and when they're trying to work out what are men, what are women, where do I fit into all of this. It's it's not unusual for kids to have crushes on sort of cartoon characters and all that kind of stuff. And mine was definitely the strongest without a shadow of a doubt was Batman Robin and the Riddler. And I'll probably just draw a line under that for now.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

I'm sure we'll jump into it further later on. My sexual awakening was Penny Inspector Gadget's niece when I was about seven years old. And it's why I can't have sex with anyone without using lots of different gadgets.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Ah, very explains it. Yeah, I was wondering if that potato peeler last time is particularly aggressive.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

But you know, like you you often hear, like I often hear my strike, like sort of like, oh, Chitara, that was that was his the thing, or you know, everyone's got their own kind of stuff. But yeah, for me, it really was them and I I really literally together pieced together which way I was I was going uh from quite an early age, and it was very that was the strongest one was Batman, Robin, and the riddler.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

So are there a lot of riddles in your sex life?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I mean, my sex life is a riddle in itself. A, where has it gone? Um B, why can't I have an alphabet? And three, who are those three boys tied up in that cupboard? I never quite got to them.

SPEAKER_04 4:12

Excellent. Luke Malloy, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Are you I'm sat here just stressing thinking he's gonna ask me if I'm a sexual awaken. And I've got I can't think.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

I can't think. You can answer that question if you want to, but don't feel you have to.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

No, that I took it down a side route. There's no need to go down there, you can just go straight.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

Lois Griffin? No. Dear God. Batman 66. Batman in general.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Well, I I think um Batman 66 will have been the first one I watched. So they uh the I've got memories of it would have been BBC four, I think, when I was like nine, ten. Comrades nodded, so I think I'm right. Um and they were they were on around I think it was Channel 4.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

I think Channel 4.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Channel 4 was it they were on around sort of tea time and it was the cliffhangers. So I I was a Doctor Who fan, I'd seen some classic Doctor Who, it was the cliffhangers that sort of got me in. And then it just very much passed for years and years and years, and then about two Christmases ago, uh I was like, I want that box set of of Batman because it was like 30 pounds on on Amazon, and I've been very, very, very slowly watching them. I mean, I'm I've watched about 40, so about a third of the way through. So I don't know, I don't know if that's good or bad. But they're they're quite, you know, they're quite repetitive, but they're very fun.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

And I I it was the cliffhangers that got me in, and it was the the tone of it was great. And then I've always I've always liked Batman, to be honest. And the really like the Nolan ones, not so fond of Ben Affleck. I think I think of this about all superheroes. If the the duel, the alter ego is just as fun as the superhero, then you're on to a winner. It's when it's when the sort of Bruce Wayne is a bit boring or the Clark Kent is a bit boring that it lets the whole thing sort of down. So yeah. You know, Adam West has both Bruce Wayne and Batman.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

Perfect. Yeah, absolutely. I would think my first introduction to Batman would have been Batman 66. It was on weekend mornings or maybe summer holiday mornings when I was a kid in the 80s. Uh it soon transferred to Tea Times, and it was just on pr pretty much like once a year, they'd do a run through, it felt like, on Channel 4, BBC Two, whatever, until I was about 14 or 15. And it probably carried on after that, to be honest. I just sort of lost interest. And then when I sort of got older and had a bit more disposable income, it became a bit of a loss media because it wasn't out on DVD, as far as I'm I I know. Uh there was all sorts of things that I can't verify this, but people always said it was to do with the rights, with the people that popped out of the windows, the celeb cameos. And that was all done with who's on the back lot today. And so they released a few videos and stuff, but they couldn't get the rights, or it was too expensive to clear the whole thing. So it just disappeared out of my life for years. And I've always loved Batman. I I watch every Batman movie, all the little series they do around it, like The Penguin and Gotham. I won't watch them, but I will stick my head in for a key episode here and there just to get a flavour of it. And I've read some comics. But Batman 66 was the one that was the most present in my life as a kid. And uh, much like you, I picked up the Blu-ray box set maybe a year after it came out or something, and I've watched them all and had an absolute riot.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

What would you say for both of you? What was your first sort of like organically for your generations Batman that your friends would have been getting into? Like, because Batman 66 was the only one we could really refer to. And there was the cut of course, there was a Hanna Barbera cartoon version as well. And so that was so we had that on TV, and it and it they all kind of this is sort of pre-all branding and merchandise. So to you, to me, like the merchandise, I've got a bit that that was the sort of blue, you know, the gray suit, blue and yellow sort of version was on all the merchandise, and you just assumed that was the TV one and the cartoon, you're like, Well, that's the same thing. And so we sort of just triangulated through those. But what was your generation's first Batman for you guys?

SPEAKER_02 8:10

My one was Nolan. Uh I remember going to the Dark Knight cinema and cinema screen, and I'm being like, Whoa, this is this is bloody good, this and um and I had a Batman toy that was very much in that just sort of pure black, shadowy thing. And I had friends for ages telling me to check out the animated series with um Mark Hamill. But as as Dylan knows, and as I've said on this podcast before, not the biggest fan of animation. I just I don't know what it is, just can't struggle. Might come back to that later. So I struggled with that a bit. And then even the Robbie Patterson one, I wasn't too keen on that either. I think it need a bit of fun in it. But sorry to answer the question, yeah. It was the who is Christian Bale's one.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

The things there's so many of them. Like when you start talking about them, I'm like, oh yeah, there's that version, that version. It kind of there's millions of them now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

Well, I think because we're all of different ages here. So mine was Batman 89, and all the kids at my school, we were all so hyped for that movie, and we probably didn't see it till like 1991 because of the sort of life of a film back then and us all being like eight years old and not being able to go to the cinema and see it. But I remember watching that again and again as a kid, and uh, I also remember following those four films, and by the third one going, oh, it's not as good, and by the fourth one going, oh, it's crap. But actually now, when I look back at the fourth one, I'm a bit like it feels like a big budget version of the Adam West show, so I can sort of get behind it. It is camp and silly, but in a very 90s way, and it's sort of it's more in line with that, and I just think it's a it's a big fun spectacle, and then so I've got a lot more time for it than I I did when I was a critical 12-year-old or nine-year-old or however old I was when it came out.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

It's interesting how it's that thing about being serious or not serious, sort of swings backwards and forwards. Like some people like it campy and funny, but then you need the move to make it dark, dark. I remember when that 1989 movie came out, I was probably like late teens, and everyone's like, oh, it's gonna be bad, man, but it's gonna be really dark. And it was it was so exciting, the fact that there'd be this dark backstory. And ever since then, it's been pretty much just relentlessly dark in inverse of commas, and you know, I I do like the kind of more fun camping element to it.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

And then yeah, but I think I'm contradictory as well because I like it camp, um but then I hate those two movies, the um the last two ones in the 90s, and I love the um one with the penguins it fuck returns. So I it's just completely contradictory. I don't I I've never been able to really pinpoint what makes Batman work in a way that I can do it with Doctor Who or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

I I do wonder after the Nolan trilogy, that and especially after the failed Snyderverse, whether actually the Robert Patterson one was the right way to go and something a bit more fun. It doesn't it doesn't have to be like Uber Camp or something like that, but the most recent Superman film, for instance, has got sort of these shades of it's just a lot more fun and it feels like a lot more big adventure story. And I wonder I I'm more interested in seeing the Batman in that universe than I am seeing another Rob Robert Patterson film. But that's just because Dark Batman it feels has just kind of been done and I'm ready for something else.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

And and and done very well. And uh the thing the strange thing about the Batman is you know, it seems to be it seems to go down really well. And I've I've watched it twice now, the second time to be like, am I missing something? And I'm not. I just didn't like it.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

Yeah, it's it's not for me either. Fortunately, we found some other bits of Batman 66 to jump into. So the first thing we're going to look at today is Return to the Batcave, the Misadventures of Adam and Bert, written by Dwayne Poole and directed by Paul A. Kaufman. It was broadcast on CBS on March 9th, 2003. Now, just have a little look at the landscape of media at that point, essentially, of sci-fi, of cult TV. What we had going on on television was the mini-series of Battlestar Galactica, Farscape finished, Frank Herbert's Children of Dune was being broadcast, Buffy ended, and it's also the year that not only was Doctor Who announced us coming back and Scream of the Shalker was on the internet, but it's also the year that everybody's favourite sci-fi show, Moonbase 3, was set in. Um, which was a very boring year on the moon. If you like that sort of thing. No spin-offs for that. We won't be covering anything from that. And then at the movies, we had Daredevil, The Hulk, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, X-Men 2, and Terminator 3, a rise of the machines. So that is the landscape of science fiction and superheroes at the time. A mixed bag, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

I love The Matrix 2. Reloaded. I think that is a brilliant film. Not so keen on three, but two is great and gets better every single time you watch.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

The Battlestar Galactica mini-series, that was probably I probably came to it a little late. But I mean, God, that was absolutely amazing. Well, just getting back there, that that is really kind of amazing. So I remember the 90s being very sort of retro and a bit and ironic, and you know, there's a big just moving back to just this whole kind of kitschy pulp Jarvis Cocker vibe of everything being a little bit kitschy and funny. And I wrote just absurd and colourful and ironic in a non-Cool Britannia. Yeah, a bit of that, yeah. And there was, but it was kind of felt it very felt very playful and fun. It wasn't being serious. But like when you just mentioned that 2003, everything you mentioned there was just like total nostalgia fest, pretty much. I mean the matrix films were quite new, but that's a lot. I'm just sort of shocked at how much you know, bringing back Doctor Who, you know, all of these things, that's a lot of that's quite a lot of nostalgia there. So I'm just noting my surprise at that. So and I'm guessing this was part of all of that.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

This yeah, absolutely. So I think we're in that first run of superhero films where that before the big explosions happened, Daredevil and the Hulk and X-Men 2, Terminator 3's finally got off the ground. And yeah, it's it's an interesting it's interesting that the television stuff feels a little bit w with things like Buffy and Farscape and Firefly and things like that. That felt like the end of the 90s almost of the sci-fi of the 90s. And I think people were looking for things new, and Battlest Galactica was amazing, but it's got a lot to fucking answer for because I that felt to me like the beginning of everybody going, we need to make this as dark as possible. And it weren't for Battlest Galactica, but I just I I feel like it infected everybody's idea of science fiction. And so is born the sort of fan that's like science fiction should be dark, and it's like Rossity Davis brings Doctor Who back and goes, it doesn't have to be dark, it can be. Adam West and Burt Ward reunite after the original Batmobile is stolen from a charity gala. As they embark on a road trip to recover it, they follow clues that send them reminiscing through flashbacks about their early careers, personal struggles, and humorous behind-the-scenes moments from the 1960s Batman TV series, encountering old friends and foes along the way. Ultimately, they discover the theft was orchestrated by a vengeful former co-star, leading to a booby-trap confrontation that they narrowly escape before the Batmobile is recovered and order is restored. Although at the last minute, the Batmobile is stolen again and another Batcaper awaits. Return to the Batcave, the misadventures of Adam and Bert. So, Conrad, were you aware of this? Have you seen it before?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Um I've heard of it, but bad fan, I'd never seen it. And my my sort of I'm I'm a s a funny uh fan with Batman. I like the ephemera of it. I don't I like all the visual stuff. I like my toys, I just like the visual stuff of it, and I like actually watching the thing. But I'm not like I don't know, I don't have to watch every documentary or read read everything everything. So I've heard of it, but never seen it until recently, until this time. And um it's very interesting. There is a hell of a lot in there. I think it's interesting to watch. I I think it's clearly aimed. Well, it's it's aimed for fans, but I can imagine just casual viewers who used to like Batman 66. It's a it acts as a bit of a document, a sort of dramatised documentary of the history of Batman 66. I think it had a lot of broad appeal to it. Um very, very interesting. We have lots to say about that, but yeah, I hadn't seen it before, but um I was glad I did.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Yeah, I'd not seen it before, I'd not heard of it. I was just looking at what we could possibly do for Batman 66 when I suggested perhaps you two might have wanted to come and talk about it. And I have to confess I sort of picked it because I thought it would be terrible, but I found it very endearing. Luke, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 16:46

I'd never seen it, no. Um, and as I say, I've only seen about a third of the canon. But this was bloody great. This was like Batman's version of an adventure in space and time, wasn't it? It was yeah, I found it equally as informative as I found it brilliant, like fun and charming.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

There was about five minutes in, and I was like, is this gonna be terrible? And then fairly quickly, I was like, it might be, but I'm on board. And then I was like, no, fuck this, this is really good. I like this. And it it kept me charmed and interested all the way through.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

I I definitely put it on as like a thank nice one dill in an hour and a half, thanks. But like very quickly, like five or six minutes in, was like, I really like this.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

I was prepared to be like, I'll watch this half an hour a night or something like that. But but but there was that there was none of that. I think though when you've got a subject like Batman 66, you can either do a straight-up documentary and go, oh, wasn't it wonderful? Or you can try and do a docky drama that's a bit serious and earnest, but it doesn't really do the subject matter justice.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

So you don't get Adam West saying, I don't want to go, do you? Pulling on the heartstrings at home.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

Exactly. So instead you get this this format which um well Conrad, why don't you explain what the format is to everybody?

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, so the format is associated, it's a dramatized uh version of the life of Adam West and Burt Ward, um, where they get a mysterious invitation to a sort of car event, car uh sort of this this sort of charity event that Bruce Wayne was invited to all the time. And they sort of go there quite innocently and he discovers you know that Burt Ward was uh I think he he turned up there as well, not knowing what you know what was going on. And then a sort of adventure, they sort of uh follow this adventure to try and find who's stolen the Batmobile and who's who's behind the strings of this kind of crazy adventure. And what you basically get is an episode of Batman 60s, an extended sort of movie version of uh Batman 66 episodes, but it's uh Adam West is 75 and Burt Ward is 58, and they're but they're still having the same adventures with some of the same villains, and and most of to be honest, I was sort of like tick, tick, tick, all the major beats you want are there. So yeah, that's the best way I can describe it. But they do with flashbacks, it they they illustrate the history of the making of Batman 66 through their memories that they're forced to sort of remember through flashback. And and so you get two things. You get, yeah, a sort of uh an episode of Batman 66 playing made today with their older selves, which is like incredibly charming. You also get a little positive history of Batman 66, which really checks out. So it's very it's actually really, really clever.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

Because I think if they tried to do like The Dark Knight Returns, but with Adam West or something like that, it would it would have fallen flat. So to kind of wrap up.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

He would outshine everything else. Because if you put Adam West in a room, who's got a chance?

SPEAKER_04 19:50

Well, he is a charming and charismatic individual. Luke, you mentioned adventure in time and space. It's like a mythmaker's with budget, you know? And uh I didn't know what I was gonna guess because I at one point I thought, oh, it's are the flashbacks just gonna be them talking about things? And it's just really bizarre, slightly hokey, but knowingly hokey, but everybody's taking it seriously. Well, I guess does it hit the tone of Batman 66?

SPEAKER_02 20:18

That is like Batman, isn't it? That's exactly the tone of Batman. I think as well, like the the format, the genre sort of accommodates the age and the nostalgia in a perfect way, in a way that's say later on with the animation. The animation is trying so hard to just sort of be what it was, and it's going to great pains. Whereas this is like you've got to reflect the fact they're older, and this does, but it manages to do it in just a really clever, fun, nice way. I also love like genre that's sort of this like meta genre where the actors sort of blend with the characters. And you know, inside number nine did it, not many things do do it. I think you have to be at like the end of a journey to be able to do it. But I always really enjoy it when they do.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

A big shout out to the direction and the production design. They get all the right angles for Batman 66. They recreate the Batcave perfectly, they recreate all the sets and stuff. It just looks amazing. What do you think, Comrade?

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Yeah, definitely. I like there was what there was some there were some points where they were recreating the Batcave where I was like jaw on the floor and it kind of it when I it was actually just the guy playing Batman that I just was like, oh wait, no, he's nowhere as good. But but some sometimes it was exactly like it. Adam West, Burt Ward, Frank Gorshin as the riddler, um, and Julia Newmar as Catwoman. It's like very much I some of my notes are just like still got it. Yeah. It's like the fact that they still have like the charm of charisma, humour, and energy is sort of on I know they're older, but uh that's quite superficial because actually, as themselves and as the characters, there's no change at all.

SPEAKER_04 21:58

There's always a danger when you wheel out. A bunch of pensioners to recreate their iconic characters, even in a spoof, that it'll miss the mark slightly, or they haven't got it, and it it just doesn't work. But I'm the same as you. I was like, still got it. Especially, let's give Adam West and Burt Ward their props. Like, if you were listening to this on the radio, you would think it was from the time almost. It's like they sound the same, they've got the same charisma and charm, they deliver it with the same sort of knowing, wry smiles, and it they just hit every joke expertly. And I laughed out loud a couple of times, like because it was genuinely funny.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

They play it like they're in a Batman episode, not like they're in a spoof or a documentary. I think, again, they just know how to play this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

It's really hard to get right. It's certain, and as we'll see with the animation as well, it's a really fine line. And it's like they do do it with r I don't know, I I think it's more the correct question that they're doing right stuff, but they play it with total sincerity. And that's just like it's very hard to do. It's a thing that the quality of sincerity is really, really hard to do. It's often not very fashionable. You know, things everyone's an ironic twist and a bit of a meta wink to the camera. And then I think they just, as in the TV series, they let the writers and the situations and the sets and everything do the work of that hilarity, but they play it absolutely, you know, straight, as it were, which is and they're doing it here, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Yeah. Yvonne Craig was the only surviving series cast member who declined to appear in the project because she did not like the script.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

The woman playing her was just exactly like him, and like doing all the flick flacks, and very it was like, wow, she was a knockout.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

Due to those aforementioned rights issues, they couldn't show any footage from the series at all, only the 1966 movie. So that is why we only see a few little clips. But actually, I think it's better that that doesn't exist because you get all of these recreations, you get so many of them, and it there's no reliance of like, oh, we can just cut to that, we can cut to that, everything's gotta be brand new. And there's only that one sort of scene in the cinema where they start watching a bit of the the old stuff that okay, we'll take a moment to see to see them in action.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

It's so cool when you get to see scenes from slightly different angles and versions and stuff like we we've seen it in the Doc Two Doc genre, you see it in like Back to the Future 2. I think it is just something you can get a kick out of because it's it's sort of making you relive the stuff you love again just in the moment. It's just yeah, like so. All that stuff. I mean, I'm not even like the biggest fan, but as you say, those some of those sets like the the riddler spin machine and everything. I was just like, I've seen this before.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

This is really good. At one point they had the young actor playing Young Bird Ward, you know, fully tied up to a thing with explosion dynamite going off. And I was like, this is everything I want to tune into. This is you know, it just gives you everything you want. It's and there's a really meaty explosion at the end, and it's presumably it's a stunt double, but by that time you've really forgotten like Burt Ward goes flying in through the air out of the cave. And then you're like, that can't be him. And then I just went, that he's three years older than I am, and I'd have a go at it if someone asked me to do it. So maybe it was him. You know, you just don't know. It by that time, you're so deep in it. It's really remarkable, actually, because like you said, I mean, we've seen so many hokey old, like you said, wheeling out the old actors, go on, do the old sketch again. It's a little bit like, oh and like I think this is probably one of the best, you know, considering they are so much older than they were at the time, and it's an action thing, and they're playing comic book characters. And to be able to pull that off at that ages of 75 and 58 is kind of ridiculous, but they they totally get away with it and more.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

There is nothing else like Batman 66 in terms of the the tone and the style. So you just have to get it right. And I I know I said earlier that they could have failed, but you're even more aware here that they're getting it right because there's no other tone to emulate.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

And and the script gets the tone right just as much as you know, Adam West and Burt Wards. You know, like the puzzle they get from uh where, you know, it's like, what does an elephant always do? Never forgets. So we must go down memory lane and remember everything we ever did. And it's those sort of like massive jumps in logic, which is beautifully Batman 66, but also very funny for this.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yeah, I mean it's exactly right because in the in the show the the riddle Robin was the only one who could solve the riddler's clues. It was really odd. Um and then and they never made any sense. It's like what's black and white and red and lives up in tree, and it's just like, oh, uh a magpie with an refrigerator and a machine gun. And they never made sense. Then it goes, of course. And he's like, What do you guys need? They are absolutely right, absolutely spot on.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Well, the other side of that is you get in the Robert Patterson Batman film where the riddler's doing the world's most obvious riddles, and everybody else has to pretend they don't have Google where they can just look up this really obvious. It's better if they don't make sense. So while we're on it, Dwayne Poole wrote the script. Dwayne has one of the most impressive writers IMDBs I've ever seen, and I have never heard of a single show on there apart from Morkham Mindy and the Flintstones. It's absolutely phenomenal. He worked for years and years and years and years. But it's in that sort of American television that I just don't think made it to the UK. So bravo to him. But uh, what do we think of the story he weaves?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

I think it's so clever because we as we've established, Batman works on many levels, and Batman 66 works on lots of levels, and they really kind of managed to exploit all of them. So what you get is an episode of Batman 66. You also get a, you know, that the strand of like the history of how they made it. But on top of that, and I think this is the bit I kind of most enjoyed in a way, was you also get a a little look into what it was like filming in the 60s and what the 60s were like. I mean, you know, just with like what Hollywood was like and and and the fans and the girls and the and all that kind of stuff. I think they just managed to do all it's doing a hell of a lot at once, actually. I think I knew most of the sort of facts, but there were some things there I didn't know um about the making of it. And when I took checked at, and this is this is kind of interesting, I think, as well, is like a lot of these stories are apocryphal, and they're just through, you know, stories that Burt Ward said or whatever. And so it's all a little bit like, is that true? Is it not true? And we'll sort of never really know. But in a way, that kind of fantasy myth of Hollywood, that's sort of how Hollywood works, isn't it? You never, it's all hearsay and and speculation and and whatever. So I I just enjoyed that. It it felt like being Holly uh in Hollywood in the 60s, and it kind of I found that really and and the fact there was that mystique of like, wait, so is that true? Uh are we talking as Adam West and Burt Ward? Are we talking as Batman and Robin? So it was it really blurred a lot. So it was it was brilliant. It was very funny, like I felt very deep in a fantasy world on several levels, I think.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

Yeah, and never let the truth get in the way of a good story, and I think we've learned that from seeing many an actor at a convention over the years, and so why not weave it into this? Because you've also got to make a bit of television that's interesting for a viewer who doesn't know the world of it and is just going, yeah, I watched Batman 66 when I was a kid and I I might want to learn something about it. It's interesting what they do with Bert in terms of his audition, because we can actually see Bert's first audition. It's on the internet, it's on the box set, right? And so I found it quite interesting that it was like his first role and he didn't really know what he's doing, but they're definitely playing up the fact that he didn't know what he's doing, because in that audition, feels like he knows the lines. Luke, what about you? Anything to add to the script?

SPEAKER_02 29:41

I think that was the bit as well for me. I I was watching it having no idea how much of it was true because it it felt like you were watching, as you've alluded to, like exaggerated convention tellings of the story of the history, but yeah, like used to seeing you know the behind the scenes of Lime Grove in the 60s and and other but like and Hollywood, but not sort of TV Hollywood in the 60s. So that that was really interesting. But I think the on the script level, the the point where I realised this was really working for me is that I really cared about the plot of Adam West and Burtwood, even though it's all you know, slightly how you want to call it. I was guessing who was behind who stole the Batmobile the whole time and was changing my mind and was actively engaged in like the mystery, which is barely even the first layer of this like seventh layer fantasy. So I knew I was really in. Yeah. I thought the whole time it was going to be um the the original actor that played Batman who was trying to steal the Batmobile, but he saw he's sort of there anyway at some point. But yeah, that's what I mean. I was actually like, you know, if there'd been a a a week-long break, I'd have been on Twitter with fan theories.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

No, it's a good little mystery, and as you say, you're like, oh, is it gonna be the Riddler? Is it gonna like I'm also going, was Caesar Caesar Romero still alive at that point? I don't know. Like, I can't remember sort of chronologically, like, I don't know when all these people died. So yeah, sure, you know it's gonna be somebody that we've encountered before. What do we think of Jack Brewer's Adam West and Jason Marsden's Bert Ward? Do they um give you the same awakenings that you had when you were a young man, or are they pale in comparison?

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Yeah, they did. I mean, you know, uh, I mean, it's it's all about the outfit, really, and Jack Brewer fills that outfit out very he's very he's kind of like stock American male, as was, you know, I probably was when this time this was made. So he's very he's square jawed, good looking, well built, and he look, he just looks amazing in the suit. And I've got to say, Jason Marsden I thought was brilliant as Burt Ward, because it's really tricky to do. Robin's actually a really tricky character, and Burt Ward was such a find because he's so like he's so energetic. And there's something going on with him because like so he was his so Burt Ward's um father was like a famous, like was in a travelling ice skating show into stunts and all this kind of stuff. So already as a young age, he was an amazing ice skater. He was an athlete, he was like, he was excelled at all sports at school, so good with martial arts, he was very good friends with Bruce Lee. You know, he was just he was a proper thing. He was also a maths genius, a chess champion. Like he's just this kind of, I don't know what's going on, but he's just a very switched-on, can do any like irrepressible energy. And that as Robin is is just so delightful that he's he's always ready on the tips of his toes. And when he goes to run, he was sort of jumps before he runs. He's just so energetic. And and they were I I did as part of this, I did start to look at like what's true, what's not true, because you know, on his first week of filming, as you said, like it was kind of like wow, what's his first day like? And they made a lot of it. But I did look at, and it's true that four out of five of his first days, he ended up in the emergency room uh getting uh things and and and and they I was like, Why aren't you using his stuntman? And he's like, Well, his stuntman, and the guy goes, Well, the stuntman doesn't really look like you, and it's true. Um his stuntman, if ever I can always tell, I can you can never tell with um Adam West because you know he's so so covered, but with him, like Robin stunt stuntman, his guy called Victor Paul, is too tall, and it's just like that's just a dead give, and he just doesn't look like him. But yeah, so so stuff like that's true. And I thought that Jason Marsden did an absolutely brilliant job of that kind of plucky go-gety thing. And in the audition, I was just like, okay, they're gonna show some of the audition. I was like, but surely is he gonna do all the the throws and the rolls and the karate? And he did it, and then someone stood in his head, whatever. I was like, wow, he was like, if if they were gonna make Batman 66 at that time, he would have been an absolutely perfect casting for it. He had that sincerity and and all the unnecessary attributes that would have indeed.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

When we first flash back to them, I'm immediately going, Oh, uh Jason Marsden is the part, and that Jack Brewer I took a little bit of time to convince, but the moment he got in the suit, I thought he captured it, and then whenever he was out of it, I was sold. It was just it was almost like an uncanny valley thing for a a moment of just like, well, that's not that's not him. But five, ten minutes in, I was I was absolutely sold by the performance.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Yeah, well, I think it's a little bit more Bert's story, the the flashback stuff. So he he yeah, that James Mardin was brilliant and immediately sort of I mean, you were just like, it's Robin, it's Bert Wood. Like you were just watching it like that's just the case. And you know, in Adam West, the guy who played Adam West was just a as you say, very charming stock American. I didn't really question it. I thought they were both great. As we as we keep saying, like it's a hard tone to get even in a documentary version, and they didn't seem to push it one way or the other in the performances.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

What about the rest of the cast, which is a mixture of familiar faces and some new ones as well?

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Yeah, well, I liked the the Julie Newmar scene in the in the club. That was that was very fun. Um and the Riddler good to see him back.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

Still got it though, like he even without being dressed as the Riddler, he inhabited that role.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Yeah, I I mean for me it was I I just couldn't really shake from the main two. Like it's nice to see them back, but I didn't really have many more thoughts on it than that.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Yeah, I thought they were brilliant. I thought the um I mean Frank Gorsham was all I mean this this is the thing, like we you with Batman Robin and Batman 66, the villains are so strong. And and in the movie, of course, they get the Penguin Joker, Catwoman, and albeit a different Catwoman and the Riddler together. And they those four are the key are the sort of the key four. I've got my little action figured out there somewhere. Those are the key four villains, and they're so strong and so amazingly cast. It's like Batman 66 was one of those things where the casting is so right, like the original Star Wars, you cannot imagine it any other way. It's just a bottle of lightning and it's kind of what makes it work. But but yeah, the older versions were amazing. I mean, Julie Newmar has still, like, boy, has she still got it. She is she's Julie Newmar is such an interesting one because she's incredibly sexy in a catwoman, sort of, and she's playing catwoman, so she's always in a cat suit. But she's got this kind of weird, slightly kooky big sister vibe about her. There's something a bit off in a good way. She's not just like conventionally like attractive, glamorous woman. In fact, they do get a younger version, I think, of her to play uh she's all sort of sexy and Perry, very sexy, and that's fine. A sexy woman is one thing, but Julie Newmar's got this kind of slightly off kookiness about her. She's she's a bit a bit of an oddball, which is what you really need. And she's still totally got it. Frank Gorshin is just electric. And I won't go on about him, but like his performance in Batman 66 is I think he did win an Emmy, like, or get nominated for an Emmy for his performance, and like it is one of the most energetic things you've ever seen in your life. Like the the the veins just pop out in his head and he leaps around. He's just like, he's mad. Um so he's really good, and but yeah, so he um did really well. And I think generally the people playing the younger versions of the villains were pretty pretty on the money as well.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

I think the villains is what makes Batman, all of Batman, sort of superior to all the other superhero things. For me, I think they've got the most interesting and the most fun villains, and there's loads of different ones. It's not just one or two good ones that a lot of the other superhero franchises seem to have.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

And I think culturally, the Batman villains are the ones that are most ingrained in the general public's minds. It is, and I think a lot of it's to do with Batman 66 and the fact that every time they've done them, they've got them so right. So whether it's Cesar Romero or Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger as the Joker, like every generation. Yeah, even Jared Leto has got his fans, you know. Uh, and it's it's a different take. Maybe if we'd seen more of him, you know, we might have thought differently. Whereas, like Superman, the general public aren't going again. When are they bringing brainiac in or whatever? It's just like Where's Mazario at?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

I've never heard of any of these people. So yeah, point, point, point well made.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

That's because they're not important.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

But I'll tell you what is important, and this is a this is a real litmus test for me, is the henchmen. I'm wearing a henchman t-shirt because I'm a child. Um I mean, generally I love henchmen anyway, like whether it's stormtroopers or whatever, or even if you've seen any movie, I'm sort of rarely looking at the chief villain. I was like, who are the two who are the weird lunk heads behind like broken noses and weird and boys like your boys? Like, I love those people. Um so I was I was I really like the henchmen, like you said, uh Luke in the bar, the bar fight uh they had was really good with all the kapals and whatever. And the henchmen were yeah, blosh. That's another conversation.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

Didn't record that bit, guys, didn't record that bit.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

So uh you can do that in another podcast. We are not doing that today. Um the four henchmen was Pretty Boy, who's the ugly one, Slim the fat one, Big Joe, the tiny one, and Curly the bald one. I'm like spot on. I will niggle that the font wasn't quite right, but hey, we'll we'll let that go. But the henchmen were brilliant, and that is a key, and and I I think that's that's at the point where I wrote the beats are all right. Yeah. You know, the every single the everything thing you want to see, yet without being formulaic, it just felt right. They got all the bits they needed to get right, they really got right.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Um and it's also split into like 20-minute chunks. So, Dylan, if you had wanted to split it up, it's it still has that Batman feeling that it sort of fades to black with a little bit of a cliffhanger in it. Yeah, every time. So you do sort of still feel like you're watching Batman and not a movie.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned the henchman Conrad, because uh when Batman 89 happened and uh me and all my mates at school were collecting the figures, henchman Bob got his own action figure, and there's only like four figures from the thing. And henchman Bob's got like two lines, whereas Commissioner Gordon's got like reams and reams of dialogue or Vicky Vale or whoever, but no, it's the henchman because you knew with henchman Bob, all the henchmen looked the same. There was tall ones and fat ones and muscle ones, but they all had the same outfit, and it's an integral part of the Batman villains because they can't do it by themselves.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

And they really made such a feature of them. I mean, just I mean, the fact that they even gave some henchmen t-shirt, they all got t-shirts saying henchmen or goon. Goon is another photo. I need to get goon too. Maybe that maybe I shouldn't get a goon. I'm not sure. But they offered they they usually gave them uh themed names. So when like the Riddler uh took over a wax work factory, they were all called Whip and Tallow or whatever. So they always had theme, all the villain the henchmen were always themed, which is just loving. It goes into that weird, it I think I think it speaks to that kind of fact that it's a comic book. What was what Batman C6 was so good at is that it does look like a comic book in a way that arguably a lot of them others aren't quite. It was so colourful. And like the the whole there's the whole thing of the bat labels, you know, everything's labelled ridiculously. And like one of my favourite bat labels, I think, was on a library shelf which says books on the incredibly rare treasures of the Incas, you know, on it on a library, on a really big label. And the labels are great, and the fact that henchmen are labelled and called things, it just gives you that comic book. It's like a comic book that says Gone 3D that Batman 66 did so well. And the fact that there it was a you mentioned this earlier, Luca, I think that's a really actually good point. It's actually, it's not just about you're used to seeing Hollywood film, but Hollywood TV, which should have been fast, cheap, and millions of like a total production line. And the sets were it always helped because the sets were always a for the villains layer, it was a black cyclorama with whatever stuff they could put in, like giant, outsized, colourful props, but like the Avengers as well, like the old black and white Avengers. Very cartoony and very graphic, if that if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

I also just wanted to say as well about just going back to kind of what it was like for Burtword and Adam West filming it and the reaction from the public, I think is really interesting. And that whole thing of, you know, it's there, there's some bits where it's, you know, the girls, the the groupies and the girls, you know, this is in the 60s, for God's sake. And the groupies and the girls, and there's several bits, you know, Adam West is signing all girls' boobs, there's lots of shots of sexy cleavage and sexy arsenal, all the sexy ladies. But that was a real for them, that was a huge part of the series. When it got popular, they were, I mean, they're famously the stories of Adam and Burt and quite how much sex they were getting. It was like again, some of this is apocryphal, some of this, you know, one will slightly say, one will slightly deny, but there's no doubt they were getting an incredible amount of sex. There was a story that came out that that Adam West told on a s on a chat show, and he's almost the one that will deny it. Bert will often talk it up a bit. Like, you know, the fact he was so big he had to have pills to shrink his bulbs. You know, he's like, did you? I'm not sure. Is that you? I don't know. Um the but the complaints were real, you know. The the there really was. What was it? The Catholic Legion of Decency obviously had nothing better to do than watch boys in pants on television and seeing we've got very focused and very few of Catholics became incredibly interested in the content of this.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

We've taken a photograph of it, we've paused it, and we can confirm it's massive.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

It's disgraceful. We can't stop watching it. And it was so silly. Um, but you know, there there were real complaints about that. Whether Burt Ward had to take shrinking pills, we don't know, but there was certainly complaints about that.

SPEAKER_04 43:42

Or whether he was shoving a pair of socks down his pants before every episode.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

I mean, who he actually Burt Ward accused Adam West of doing that. But again, I think it's all a sort of friendly banter, but there is no two ways about it. They were getting an enormous amount of sex. The popularity was huge, and because the show. worked as a kid show but also it was it was very pop culture as well it was very groovy it was very you know they would there were and and in 2014 uh Adam West went on a show and like I said he was one who'd slightly underplay it or hinted at it coily but he full on said that he and and Frank Gorshin went to a Hollywood party where there was an orgy going on and they thought it would be fun to go in in character um which which I can well believe and they thought it was funny lots of people there thought it was funny but then they got kicked out because I think it was sort of it changed the vibe let's say um and there there's there's I mean yeah Burt Ward you know he's gone interviews saying that like he was new he was 20 had no idea he's catapulted to fame as the boy Wonder and of course Adam West was like single handsome playboy in the 60s and basically just took Burt Ward to all the places and they they really really had I mean it is it's such an important it's such a big part of the story. And I well it makes you cringe nowadays where you kind of see like oh it's sign my boobs and wow she's nice and all the girls throwing themselves at them it's actually a really important part of the story because I think as Adam West and Burt Burt Ward's experience was just like they weren't just movie stars, they were tip-pop TV stars and they were hot property and they would have been getting a hell of a lot.

SPEAKER_04 45:21

But it's also that sort of sexual explosion of that time if you know what I mean of like where we're sort of people are turning their back on traditional values of like oh no 2.4 children and you have sex twice to have your two children on your your marriage night and a year later and that's it and like actually going out and enjoying themselves and Doctor Who isn't doing that.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Even Star Trek there is romance in Star Trek and things like that but it's not until the war machines anyway but this it feels like a sexually charged show because the people in it I mean not all the people but Catwoman Batman Robin they're hot you know Chief O'Hara Chief O'Hara what a babe I'm imagining Eyes Wide Shut with Bat a 66 Batman and Widdler And also that's what I think is very sweet about the show is that it is very you know Catwoman is clear just so sexy and they are you know but but um Batman and and Bruce Wayne and uh and Burt Ward and and or rather Dick Grayson I see I'm getting all their identities mixed up now. But basically they've got no awareness of that. So someone will sort of come on to Batman and Robin a bit and they generally don't know what to do. I think the most you see happens is that in a later series Robin goes on a date and he's drinking milkshake with with you know the same drinking from the same milkshake with two straws. That's about as far as they actually and they don't tend to make innuendos and they don't tend to notice women in that way because they're too busy crime fighting. But behind the scenes of course it was quite the opposite and and I there was there there's I the first odd thing about the 60s I saw was like they mentioned that Adam West first had hadn't he'd done a few you know he'd done sort of TV shows like Perry Mason he'd done movies like Robinson Crusoe and Outer Space but one of his first shows was on something called the Keeney Popo show and I was like what the hell is that? So I had to look at it. I had to look it up it was a a daily live show from Hawaii which was very entertaining and they had a puppet and a chimp very exciting and they would have guest stars like Ella Fitzgerald and Elvis and it made me go oh god it was the 60s wasn't it everything was complete it was an explosion of just crazy can you just imagine Hollywood well the nice thing is this does give you a little bit of Hollywood in this in the 60s but as Luke says it's Hollywood TV in the 60s and that's faster and cheaper and more populist and popular I know I I just thought I thought this thing really covered it well be it the kind of groupy girls or the whatever's going on I thought they really covered it well.

SPEAKER_04 47:55

And it was it wasn't like a a boastful thing of like oh look at all the girls we're getting it was just like it was a snapshot of the time and going no this is what it was like it wasn't it wasn't boastful but it's still pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

What do we think about uh Adam West touching Batgirl's tit? Do you reckon they'd put that in now?

SPEAKER_04 48:14

Uh what if they were writing this version of it? Yeah. No I don't think they would but I'm sure it happened.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Is it real? Is it on an episode somewhere? Or did they like is is it actually a scene from an episode? I've never I've never seen a Batgirl one yet.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

I will say Yvonne Craig is very very good as Batgirl she is really really good. I never like it when they bring in extra characters when when you've got a nice team or a duo and then you bring in the third wheel is is never a favourite the scrappy do or whatever. So and also I was very much Batman for the for the men so like Catwoman's okay but but I don't want a girl joining the group. Yeah girl at every week yeah what's that about yeah I know I I never like that but but back but shoot but Yvonne Craig was bloody brilliant she's chief commissioner's daughter so it's she's Barbara Gordon so she is part of the the world.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

There is no evidence that Adam West touch Yvonne Craig's boob inappropriately for the setup that's that's good then isn't it we're all good it's a fair way gag it's a fair way gag 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_04 49:12

Yeah if you try to apply today's standards to what the hell was going on behind the scenes in the 60s I just make a net um God those people are having fun how do we feel about the bat rap that accompanies this because the music's quite Batman 66 in places and then there's a remix of the Batman theme tune with a rapper on it.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

It's fine. I I don't mind it I think it's a piece of pop culture so it's ripe for reinvention so I thank you think you can do web and stuff like in the Addams Family movies there was a rap version of the Addams Family song in that. So I th I I feel I don't feel too protective about it. I think it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

It was of the of the era yeah they didn't they didn't overuse it I think it was okay yeah I can't I can't say I really thought anything of it.

SPEAKER_04 49:58

I didn't notice it well it was done by an artist called J Flex who believe it or not although I didn't know this song I'm quite familiar with J Flex's work. Oh do you know what I have gonna say when I heard it I was like I'll miss Google that and I was like you know what didn't know who it is and here you are tell us J Flex Jay Flex was signed to Death Row Records and had releases on the gang related gridlocked and Friday soundtracks all of which I owned on compact disc as a child and he worked heavily with Dr Dre. So it was quite exciting to hear him here rapping about Batman and what a banger it is too.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Fantastic and then you know that's also in the spirit as well because back in the day they would like you said the the with the rights issues because there'd always be a a a character at the window and they were often like Sammy Davis Jr. or a musician of the day and you know in in the very bloody first episode of Batman you know he does that dance which is like it it which it kind of annoys me a bit because everyone goes on it shows clips or gifts of Batman doing some silly dance in fact he does it once but of course that's what everyone thinks but it's very very appropriate because in the 60s they would always have pop culture people in there Bruce Lee whoever so I think it's I think it's totally fine for this to you it makes sense you know just get a pop artist in it's art so I think it's totally allowed.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

You you want to do something with the theme and remix it for that era and 2003 rap music was massive so it sort of makes sense and as you said it happened on the Addams family. It happened on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

And we had Prince in the 89 one yeah yeah exactly's gotta happen.

SPEAKER_04 51:29

Yeah. Do we have much more we want to say on this one I'm glad Reese Shearsmith didn't come in as Michael Keaton and uh that would have been a total shift.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

No, not really it's just a really fun time in their company fun time recollecting and it's perfectly judged. It's very charming and most surprisingly it's a half decent Batman story with Batgirl in it.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Fair yeah I just wanted to give a just a few little bits I do like the narrator thing uh oh yeah the narrator uh was you know was great and then only Adam West can hear him for a while and you know and that that was a great I'm always it's they used to do it in the Muppets all the time they used to go tune in next week and all the Muppets would look around and see who was saying it and I've always found it a funny joke. But then after all Bert Ward can hear can hear it as well. And I thought and actually that was about the time that I was really invested I started to go, no I'm into this. And so it really bloody worked. So I loved that I love all the Dutch angles on the villain's lair. They got that absolutely right and they even explain why it is and I also really enjoy talking about a good script I really enjoyed Bert Ward's line I get paid weekly very weekly which I've never heard before and I've gonna use it. That's a great full marks.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

Yeah fantastic for me uh I love the egg fight they have in the middle of one of the episodes which is just a bizarre little moment.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

It is true uh Vincent Price played the egg man and he was a bit a bit narky and he did throw a lot of eggs at the he did throw a few eggs at the crew and apparently uh Burt Ward he didn't get on that well with Burt Ward and he absolutely pelted him with lots of eggs so that's actually true.

SPEAKER_04 53:10

No, there we go. I I love that we end up in the bat cave towards the end the real cave you know not the studio bit um and that the bomb goes off and only Burt gets hurt because obviously he doesn't get a stomp stump man which has been a callback throughout the whole thing. And just generally what a joyful celebration of a of a TV legend. So we must rate this is it a clanger a banger or an average meander holy homage it's an absolute bat banger love that Luke holy lunch specials it's a banger I've got nothing shit I'll add something in in post holy fuck uh it's another banger from me so the next thing we're going to cover is Batman vs two face it was directed by Rick Morales and written by James Tucker and Michael Jelinick. It was released in the United States on the 17th of October 2017 and in the UK on the 30th of October 2017 and went straight to digital versatile disc. Looking at the landscape we are in the age of the superhero at the cinema we've got Logan Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Spider-Man Homecoming Thor Ragnarok Wonder Woman and the Justice League on television we've got Agents of Shield season 5 The Defenders The Flash season 4 Gotham season 4 Legends of Tomorrow season three superheroes were massive how do we feel about that time because I was very immersed into the superhero world at the time and I'm also one of those people that is very fucking fatigued by it now. What about you Conrad?

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Yeah no not for you no I'm sorry yeah no all that franchise stuff uh I did go and see Avengers assemble there you go can I get a point for that did you like how they assembled yeah they were very good and there was the man with a big glove uh and he turned Spider-Man to dust and there were lots of other people over there but I didn't yeah that's endgame disassemble and I saw that one I saw that one I saw that I I mean how are you supposed to tell the difference it's I tell you what what I'm not I do I I remember once in 2016 when was it? I can't remember I went to see Batman versus Superman at the cinema and I remember at one point I think it might have been close to the end but there was a big fight and I could no longer tell what I was seeing or hearing on the screen and I just stood up and walked out just because I was like I wasn't didn't didn't hate it but I was just like I just can't tell what's happening so I stood up and walked out and so I'm afraid that all that franchise stuff is out there there there are some good ones in there but generally it's not for me. That whole stuff was sort of lost on me.

SPEAKER_02 55:59

Sorry that happens at the end of every DC film. I I quite enjoy Batman versus Superman but at the end of every DC film there's about 20 minutes where there's black and orange colours and then it ends I'm so glad thank you characters being thrown really hard against walls and the walls going and that's it and that that's what happens every time on a giant scale yeah just bigger and bigger and bigger yeah sorry that that's me on franchise land I've no I've got no idea I I just go I prefer the original and then just go and watch an old one. Yeah no I'll get you and I think a lot of people feel that fatigue now I never bought in but I wasn't completely out so I think I was I think it had a bit more of a healthier relationship I went to see the big Avengers ones I would have seen Batman and Spider-Man and that's about it. I sort of had people that would always inform me about what the overall thing was but all you needed to know is there was a guy collecting some rocks really and the DC one didn't really have anything. Every time you looked it rebooted at some point so yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

Fair to have a TV Gotham celebrates the apparent cure of district attorney Harvey Dent whose split personality as the villain Tooface is removed through an experimental device developed by Hugo Strange. During the celebration an accident causes Dent's evil persona to be physically separated from him as an independent being allowing Too Faced to escape and embark on a crime spree with several of Gotham's villains while attempting to permanently rid himself of Harvey. Batman and Robin pursue him as Too Faced's increasingly unstable schemes threaten the city while Harvey struggles with the idea that his darker self is inseparable from who he really is. In a final confrontation Harvey realizes that denying part of himself only empowers it and he willingly reunites Too Faced restoring his full personality and stopping the villainy while Batman cures the city of Gotham whose citizens including Robin have been turned into villainous two-Face monsters. So I mean in the midst of all this we have Batman vs two face this animated straight to DVD new bit of Batman66.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

So Conrad have you seen this before I have yeah I've got that and the first one Return of the Cape Crusaders I think it's called the first one I was there. Yeah I did so I got the I I found out of them I got them because I was big on going through my Batman 66 phase. And so yeah I did see them at the time I and I really enjoyed them at the time I was like oh actually these are pretty on the money. Since then I've seen the Batman animated series so that's completely changed my rearranging my brain in what's possible with Batman and animation. So this doesn't match up to that. It's still pretty good but it's and again just having seen what we've just seen it's made me m much more aware of of that that lie. I think there's a lot I think there's a lot they really get right. I think it's overall pretty good but there are a few tells which say they're not quite getting it right I think. What did you make of it?

SPEAKER_04 59:05

Interesting uh I enjoyed it I'd never seen it before so I was I've been aware of it and it'd been on my list of something to watch at some point because two new episodes I mean that we're only doing the one but there are two new episodes out there of Batman 66 with you know largely original cast member or at least the lead two and it's like that's something you've got to dip into if you've even got a passing interest I guess. So yeah I mean I had it I had a good time but I did prefer the previous film. What about you, Luke?

SPEAKER_02 59:33

Yeah I hadn't seen it before it was sort of on my watch list along with the other one which I still haven't seen I haven't seen Return of the Cape Crusaders. Yeah I thought you was it was good fine but quite disposable it won't impact my life what were you expecting to just devote your life to the teachings of this film? I don't know to be honest I didn't know what exactly it was going to do and I thought for for the most part it did what it wanted to do and it was fairly competent. I think I might have preferred it if you know and this is might be where Conrad is going to go but I might have preferred it if Adam West and but you know just hadn't been in it. If it had just been something completely new and they they'd just gone for it. I think you know there's something a bit tragic about trying so hard to recreate the past Jeff to like animate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:24

Anyway when are we doing that Fiori from the Deep Steel book dealers I mean I I know that when you're that this steeped in nostalgia and I think as long as you're not churning them out having a couple of things like this and just going we're just gonna have a last outing for these guys the fans will like it is quite an interesting thing to do and quite fun to have like obviously if you put all your weight and expectation on it to be the best episode of Batman 66 ever, I think you're gonna fail because nothing's gonna beat that original run. And I think this is probably the last time you could have done something like this because the straight to DVD market doesn't exist anymore. You go to a streamer where things don't make that much money so you can't have a niche product like this of this standard of animation anyway I guess you'd say so it's a lovely thing to exist and I think the big draw was hearing them back and then hearing William Shatner as as two faced was an irresistible proposition.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

So how do we feel about this approach then of using animation to to make a few new episodes I mean okay in theory I think I think these two are enough um I think there was a trailer on the on this for maybe another one maybe they're planning on doing another one. I'm quite glad it was only two um I mean obviously this it ended up being released four months after Adam West's death so like it's not like as a last hurrah you can't really begrudge them of a you know a last a last go um and as they were then like Adam West was 89 but was 72. So so I think moving it into animation is and Julie Newmar turns up as well still and they said William Shatner for that real 60s feel and he feasibly would have been or could have been a guest star on the show at the time. So that I thought that was actually a really smart move and it actually unlocks something very very interesting. They've both got that daytime smooth persona of millionaire playboys and William Shatner versus you know Adam West is irresistible and it works. I I I actually think overall this is a worthwhile thing and it's interesting it wraps things up and it kind of puts a bookmark on the whole era and I think it's pretty respectable for that it does a pretty good job as I said with a couple of reservations overall a pretty good job so I'm glad they couldn't do many more of them twos and it's fine I mean Luke bear in mind that you are a a big Finnish consumer when it comes to Doctor Who of consuming elderly actors revisiting their parts again and again and again and you know How dare you how you I'm talking about Colin Baker oh how dare you don't say word against word quite quite happy for him it feels like it would have been a nice thing for Adam West to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

So I think that's very nice but it sort of just makes me sad rather than excited or happy when the the voice has basically the same rhythm but it's completely different because it's older and you know it's sort of it's lost that sort of smoky velvet and it's it's just a bit nasy and it's a bit odd you know this is why Tom Baker shouldn't come back to Doctor Who for a 13 episode series even though some people might say because it I think fundamentally it just I I can't get past it it makes me a little bit sad that it's it's that it's over you know and I think it's very nice for for him I mean it only would have brought joy for him in like the last couple of months or whenever this was recorded. So that is nice and as as I say I think it's perfectly fine. I just don't need it. But he might have so that's quite nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:01

Yeah fairly what do you make of that? Obviously they sound older and I think they get away with it because it's animation that you know they're editing it it's not a real-time performance I I think there's probably a tight sort of 50 minutes in it and what is it like an hour and ten something like that and I think the pacing like if you're just a bit snappier with the editing and get even more into the style of the time but I guess they're also going who's gonna buy a 50 minute DVD really to make it appear like it's a a full film even though even though it's really not I think that is a really good point out the format of it it is a bit too long and there was a scene I remember that there was a court scene in there and it does like this doesn't feel like Batman 66 an extended courtroom scene unless there was a the judge was a supervillain and they were all going to beat each other up and have a fight in the courtroom scene a courtroom scene in Batman and Batman 66 just didn't ring true you know courtroom things are just talky and boring and that's not you know in the world of crime that's not the edge we want to see.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

You know we make reference to you'll spend your rest of your life in jail or you know tell that to the judge but we never actually want to see the judge.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:09

No that's something you get in Gotham the TV show or something like that. Or even like the Nolan things where they're doing this more serious things oh we need to have the court but no you don't want to be in the court unless someone's getting acid splashed in their face or as yeah that that there's a supervillain in there. I had an issue a little bit with William Shatner in that I thought you played Harvey Dent really well and probably how he would have played it at the time but I kind of wanted a bit more from his two face which I don't think I quite got but it worked for you right combat.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

To be honest I now you say that I actually can't remember the voice of his two face I I just remember that I I I was just all the bachelor bit was was I just enjoyed that so much. I actually can't remember so you're probably right because I can't remember his performance has it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

Yeah. Uh what about you Luke? I think I was a little bit confused why Bruce and Harvey Dent were best Is this a thing because I've never really seen this before. Where has this happened before?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:05

Well, it's not in Batman 66, but it is. I think it's something that is sort of hinted at in some of the films, but they haven't got time to develop it. And I think it happens in the comics that their lives are intertwined with each other. Because when they're not being the other version of themselves, they're the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:23

But that that just threw me a bit because I've seen a lot of Batman, and he was like, You're my best. To the point where Robin is like, Oh, Batman's got a new friend. And I was like, What is what is going on? I think I probably could have done with a bit more of Toothface actually. Now I think about it on reflection. I can't really pick think of what Toothface really did. Apart from that crazy bit with the game show, which was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:47

Yeah, I mean the game show felt like the most Batman 66, but they've amped it up to 11.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

That's exactly the kind of set I was talking about. It's like we haven't got much money. Let's put some curtains, shine a big light on it. It's a nice big pop set that really worked in the way that like the courtroom scene and stuff doesn't. But yeah, I think we're all I think now you're saying it, like I think he was I think he was really good as a battery, and it did. It was really interesting because like in his world, you know, he's a millionaire playboy. There will be other millionaire playboys. They go to these charity functions, he's always going to charity functions, then there will be other eligible rich billionaires in this kind of world of his. So it's it was nice to meet another one, but I think that no you said the the two-facing didn't completely work. Although some of the animation was really good, there was a bit where he'd had surgery and he thought it'd be repressed, and then all the stuff bubbled out of his face. I thought that was a really exciting yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:36

It also threw me a little bit where at the start we get the conversion into two-faced, a story that I think most people are vaguely familiar with. And then we sort of fast forward six months later and he's been cured, and then two faces in the background. I was like, I'm not sure that's the right way in. I'm not sure it's the right angle. It just it set things off on a point where I was like, not that it's a mystery, but like, have I missed something?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:00

This is where I thought it might relate to the first one. Because I was exactly the same as you. I thought, is this carried on from the first one, or am I missing a few threads from you know, Return to Cape Crusader? But yeah, it did seem to just revert and then go again.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:15

Yeah, I really love the character of Two Face, so which is again a reason I was keen to cover this. And it's a crying shame that they didn't do it in the 60s. But apparently, a synopsis for an unused episode called The Two-Way Crimes of Two Face was written by Harlan Ellison and covered similar ground as this movie, but gives him a different origin story, and it was expanded into a comic of Batman 66 as a lost episode, which is something I would I would like to dip into because it's an irresistible thing seeing any of the Batman villains that weren't in Batman 66 done in that style. And I I can't help but feel I'm just missing something here, as I said, that is not the two-faced I wanted from that era. It's it just two-faced isn't broad enough. It doesn't I don't walk away and go, William Shatner's up there with the penguin and the riddler and the Joker performances of that era.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:07

I think it's a script thing. I thought I think like for the reason you mentioned the pacing's a bit off, it's a bit too long. I think had this been shorter, like for instance, in the Batman Animated series, you know, it'd have been 40 minutes and you'd have had or maybe a two-passer and you'd have an extremely clear through line and know where you are with him. Whereas this they kind of go back and forward a bit, which I don't think helps the plot.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:29

They incorporate a lot of elements, uh iconography, characters, villains. Do they successfully weave them all into this?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:36

So I thought, you know, uh you're saying like the pace job, it did a little bit, but I actually thought it was quite odd how it did have the feel of old Batman, but it was passier, you know, like the set pieces were sort of bigger and quicker, and it it goes to more places, more locations, but the bases and the computers have that old feel and so I thought the tone was right, just the shape of it doesn't really hold when you look at it overall, you know. I d I don't really know what the story is by when I look back at it.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:10

Yeah. I really enjoyed the incorporation of the other villains like the Joker and the Penguin, the Riddler, and King Tut. I love King Tut. Fan favourite.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:21

Getting 15 years in prison seemed very harsh. Did you not think?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:28

It's Gotham Justice.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

Yeah, he'll get out. He'll get out.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:31

Yeah, if they all get out the next week. Yeah. And obviously Cat Catwoman's there again. And I love that bit at the end with the game show with them all on. I thought that was very Batman 66. When I think about it now, and if I think about it in a year's time, it'll be that game show and the spinning wheel sequence at the end that sticks in my mind, whereas I don't think anything leading up to it was that exciting.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:52

No, it's funny, it's the big set of pieces that really stick in your mind, like the um when they're attached to a giant coin that's going to catapult onto a bed of spikes. That is it's so it's so uh outsized and so and also when they arrive at the um winning pair casino place or whatever, when then there's a giant billiard table. Oh, d this is one of the sort of slight niggles I have with it, what in contrast with what we've had with Batman 66 and what we saw before, because they turn up and I think Robin has a sign of like, look at the size of those balls. And it's to Burtwold's credit, is that he just plays that line completely straight with no irony, if anything, he's really just trying to sort of just go straight through the line. He never would have said that in the series that innuendo didn't work like that. Things were sort of, I mean, maybe alluded to the beauty of a woman or adulthood, but it was all in very, very opaque terms. They had no aware. And I the sort of d double entendre coming out of Batman and Robin's mouth ain't right.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:51

He would have said holy Bat billiard balls or something like that, wouldn't he?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

Yeah, holy billiards. But like look at the size of those balls, it's like that I could hear the writers all chuckling to themselves. And Burt Ward, to his credit, just goes through the line completely straight. I was having this conversation the other day about when you can tell on audio if an actor's had to say a line that's a bit got a double entendre, often there's a bit just there, you just get a little tension in their voice. There's just a little bit of tension as they're trying not to laugh or trying to their awareness of it just changes the quality of their voice. And his doesn't at all. He just goes straight through the line with ease and doesn't take any notice of it, which I think is really good. But that was like a I can hear the writers thinking they're funny and that's not Batman 66. That's not how the humour worked in Batman 66.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:34

I did like the resolution that they've got this cure to this virus that's turning everybody in the city into Two-Face, and they solve it by pelting bullets and bombs from aircraft at everybody, and like it it just cures them. There's no thought of like, oh, the shrapnel from that bomb or bullet is gonna tear, tear through their heart or anything like that. And I thought that was quite a silly but fun Batman-ish idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:01

It's no different to New Earth, is it? It's the same resolution as New Earth. I actually thought, to the credit, you know, and I said it's sort of the exact same thing about the elephant. What does an elephant always do? Never forgets in Return to the Batcave that the logic that they work out of everything they've come across having a duality, like Jekyll and Hyde, the double decker bus, the biplane implies that two faces behind it all. I thought that was very tone perfect in all Batman. So I thought that was something that both of them got right.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:33

For the things they got wrong, there are there are actually plenty here that got right. I mentioned a henchman earlier, twin one and twin two. That was fantastic. I love twin one and twin two. I like, you know, King Tut was brilliant, and I liked his jack in the box thing with these and these paper snakes with fangs uh attached. And I was like, that is completely the sort of sort of cheap thing they do. One line that really made me laugh is that that uh I think Harvey Dent said he was going to a charity for the Society for Underprivileged Fraternal Twins, and to which Bruce Wayne says the stigma of being the less attractive twin is a heavy burden no one should have to bear. And I thought that we love that. I thought that was brilliant. And that was my laugh at that moment. And then again, that's exactly what they'd have said in Batman 66.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:18

What do we think of the recasts? Because obviously Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar are there, but pretty much everybody else is a recast. They're the ones that they get right are the ones that they get wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:29

Yeah, I mean, Alfred's right, and Aunt Harriet's sort of right, but the character's a bit too much, but the performances are good. Commissioner Gordon's okay. Chief O'Hara is absolutely shocking. It is he's trying to do an Irish accent and it is straight up Caribbean. I don't know what he's doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:51

I thought it was brilliant. As you say, it may not be exactly how you remember it. I don't think it's brilliant as a ch a Chief O'Hara, but every time he came on the screen, he lit it up.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

Are you actually because he was so bad? I don't get it. Yeah, yeah, because he was so bad. He was so bad. And also I get to get cross because I'm just like, I'm sorry, we're over here in this country trying to scratch scratch money being audio actors out of nothing. And sometimes we do occasionally do very bad bad accents. But if you're pay getting paid that much in Hollywood to make a great big thing like that, and someone is is turning out an Irish accent like that, which is by any standards lamentable, it's a big no from me, dog. I hate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:28

Luke, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:31

Yeah, all fine. All fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:34

Would you accept a version of something like this where it was all recast, including the two leads?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:41

I mean, I think actually when when Luke made the point of like, oh, you know, maybe it shouldn't be Adam West and Burt Wood, I'm like, what are you talking about, man? But actually I can see what he means as in if you're gonna do it, it would be nice to do a version where it is kind of brand new and recast, and you found a really great, you know, but you know, Robin. So yeah, I yeah, the answer is yes, but if you need to see Batman 66, just watch Batman 66 or that documentary or documentary you just watched. I sort of think the only reason for this to exist is Adam Western Belwater. I'm not sure. I I feel less sure about this.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

No, I agree with Comrades. It's like it it all exists there in 66, and there's sort of a reason why it started to dwindle, because it's it's it's done and it's done perfectly, and I don't think there's anything new to mine out of it even now, really.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:26

Yeah, I suppose you are just ticking the boxes of like, oh, we did they didn't do two-faced, so let's do two-face and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:32

I mean, sure, you can do it for a couple of things, but I I'm not too sure what to do with Batman, really, now, even in film or or whatever. Um, and the same it's the same with Doctor Who. I'm not the guy that has the the vision for it, I do, I don't think.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:48

That's fair enough. Anyone that's asking. You're not the guy with the vision to it, neither's the guy that was running Doctor Who.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

I thought Luke was about to come up with the answer. I'm gonna go, by God, that's brilliant. Hang on. No, never mind. Come on, Luke, you've got it. I believe in you.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:04

Maybe we take Batman and Doctor Who and just smash them together, see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:08

Sorry, I'm not doing crossovers, I'm not doing crossover conductors.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:12

One day, one day it'll happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:14

So, a couple of things I like. I did appreciate uh that was this was a really good joke. I I thought we're like, oh, we'll have to go to the abandoned sign factory, and they go there, and it's got a sign on it which says abandoned sign factory. That's fantastic. And you know, with the whole thing of labels in Batman, I think that was really good. And simply I really like the um in their prison was labelled female super crooks row. Uh enjoyed that. I like the animation on Catwoman. I thought they did that lovely, I thought, you know, she's just gorgeous in that cat suit and she looks all curves at there. She's gonna be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:49

Oh well, the opening titles, you know, when I when the road on this yeah, the road turns into the curves of Catwoman's ass. Amazing. I actually thought the credits was the my favourite part of this, and not in like an ironic way, like I'm glad it's over. The credits were crazy and they were brilliant. It had a jazzy Batman tune going on, and it had all the characters moving about 10 times quicker than they'd moved in the past hour, all dancing. I thought it was bloody great.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:19

W well what do you think of the animation style in general, look? Because you're not a fan, are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:25

It didn't grind on me. No. Yeah. I mean, it was better than Fiori from the Deep.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:31

I think they've got a bit more money for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:34

Yeah. I don't hate animation styles. And I don't really I don't hate animation either.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:39

You just find it hard to invest in.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:41

Find it hard to engage in it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:43

I thought the animation was really good. For something that is a fairly niche product, I think it's probably the highest standard you're gonna get. I thought they captured the likeness as well, the angles well. I thought, yeah, it it all works. What about you, Comrade?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:56

Yeah, I thought it was good. Like I said, I think I I was much more impressed with it when I saw it the first time around. I was like, God, this is really good. And the the you know, the turnarounds and the character art, the likenesses, really good. Even William Shatner, he looked, I was like, oh my god, I remember it made me remember the old Star Trek cartoon uh way back in the day. But but the animation was very satisfying to see these really good turnarounds of everybody. So I really was impressed at the time. But again, since then I've seen the Batman animated series, and after you've seen that, animated Batman, the standard is just so crazily amazing in that that it's hard to you know, just the fact they animate the whole thing on on instead of using white background for the artist to draw and they make them all drawn black. So everything is given. It's just so it's a work of art. So after that, I'm a bit like, yeah, it's okay, but I do it's just making me Jonesing for the Batman Animated Series.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:45

I think you're right. The the the Batman Animated series, which I've not seen since I was a kid, but I can still see bits of episodes and images from it in my mind. And I don't think I'm walking away from this with loads of key iconography. So yeah, it was a perfectly serviceable bit of Batman 66 animated. There was never a point where I was like, oh, that character's too jerky, or I can't tell who that is, or oh, it's really flat because they can't afford to turn the character's head or anything like that. It all works really well. Whoever's behind this, if I wanted to see an animated version of any one of my favourite shows, I would love it if these guys did it. But I'm I'm not coming back for 25 episodes of it at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:29

I I did like some of the dialogue which I quite enjoyed is uh, you know, they say, if you can't kill them in a horrible lab experiment, join them. I quite enjoyed that one. I enjoyed Batman Slapped Robin at one point. Recreating the Batman slapping Robin name slap, which that felt okay because again, it's funny how they can get away with some things and not others. That's a sort of pop culture reference. So it sort of works, you know what I mean? It's just like I think that's okay. Uh at one point, somebody levels the insult, your mother wears combat boots. I've not heard that. I thought Burt Ward did a really good job vocally in the two when he gets two-faced. I thought his the contrast between his two voices I thought were was brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:08

And more and more, like after seeing these two and revisiting some Batman 66 this week, the TV series. I think as a kid, because you're like, well, it's Batman, it's Batman's story that you're so into Batman. But Burt Ward is not the unsung hero, obviously, because that's not true. But I I think I walked away from both of these with just a real appreciation of how good Bert Ward is. And I think he's like he brings so much to the TV show, but so much to these two things, and he still sounds the same. He captures the performance and he's still got his voice is still the same. He or at least he manages to pitch it up a little bit to still sound the same. And bravo to Bert Ward.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:47

And any other time, in any other Batman where they try and bring Robin in, it's just fucking infuriating. And and yeah, Bert Ward makes it brilliant. Like you just love watching them two together.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:00

And as he's the voice of the audience, effectively, you know, he's the one that's got to ask Batman what's happening and working out the clues and express things, and things have to occur to him. Like as an audience member, that level of enthusiasm and and just drive and energy and zip for everything is just infectious. It makes you excited because he's your identification point, and he's the most energetic little rock pocket rocket in the world. He's I just I just adore him. I'm now gonna hold up my Robin on the Batcycle thing that somebody bought me a couple of years ago. Beautiful. A beautiful toy of just Robin. I love Robin.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:35

I I think also because the series is so visually iconic and everybody knows what it looks like, it lends itself to merch as well in a way that other iterations of Batman, you've like, I'm sure if you're a kid and you've got your Robert Patterson Batman or whatever, or you're a collector with the really articulated one, but those characters, they're so comic and cartoon-like in a way, anyway, and so well realised that they just lend themselves to merchandising. And whether that's putting them on the cover of a diary or a tablecloth or whether you've got an action figure, I just think every time I see a bit of Batman 66 merch, I'm like, I want it, but I don't buy it because I'll be poor.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:15

Do we have anything more we want to say?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:17

Because it was nice to see the Bat Shield.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:18

But actually, the Bat Shield's very, very cool, and when they use it in the TV show, it's actually incredibly cool. So I'm glad they put that in there. There's a very, very good scene with the bat shield. We love the bat shield.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:27

That and and the inside road of the bat cave. Have we ever seen that before? That's in that is in this. No, I don't think we have.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:34

Excellent point. Yeah, that was really exciting. I was like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. This is so exciting. I've never seen any exciting bits.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:44

I'd never seen that before anywhere.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:46

That's that's a fan-pleasing moment. Because obviously in the series, they're going from set, drive out of the set, the corner of the set, to cut to that rope.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:55

What are you talking about, man? It goes from the Batcave out of the back. How can we do that? It's the real thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:00

We haven't mentioned the Batmobile in either of them because I think it's a piece of iconography we're so used to seeing everywhere. Any Comic Con you go to, there's a fucking 66 Batmobile. But it still looks fucking cool, whether it's animated or in the flesh in the other one. It's the it's the It's the best one. It's the coolest car ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:18

Yeah, it's the best one.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:19

It is the coolest car ever. And again, it was really nice in the the previous one, the documentary, they sort of said that it was based on a 1955 Lincoln Futura or whatever. Like, and it is just so it's perfect. Like you like, I'm really delighted to hear you say you can't improve on it because I just don't think you can. It's so beautiful. The fire out of the back is is incredible.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:38

There are other iconic Batmobiles, but this the 66 Batmobile is the best design.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:43

I've got to say, this is really good, but there was a very, very, I was talking like right back, like when I was a kid, everyone had a Superman something, everyone had a Spider-Man something, everyone had a Batman something. And the the thing everybody had was a Corgi metal, Corgi metal car. Good news, they've just last year reissued it. Corgi have reissued a brand new, like beautiful with all the with all the features that they weren't allowed to put in the time. They're like there's a little buzzsaw thing that comes out the back. There's rockets that fire. It's 39 quid, and you can buy it now, and I'm just gonna have to go and buy it because it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:17

I think I had one that must have been from a jumble sale or something like that when that was at the end of the year. Everyone had one.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:22

They've been knocking around for years, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:24

It would have been 20, 30 years old or whatever, made of lead. I was probably sucking on it and giving myself lead poison. That's what childhood was all about, you know. Like if at least one of your toys doesn't give you a condition later in life, then what's the point? What's the point? I went into these two things expecting to enjoy this animation more and actually to, as I mentioned, really not get on with the first one. I enjoyed them both, but the first one I think I would I will watch again at some point in my life. It'll be late one Friday night. I'm half a bottle of wine deep, and I'll be like, I'll put that on. This, lovely to have. I will check out the other animation at some point, but I don't think it really added anything for me apart from ticking the two-faced box and just seeing them play the roles one more time, but nice to have.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:12

And it's a good solid effort, I think. Like I said, at the time, when I saw it first time around, I was like, oh, this is really good. But but yeah, I think other things have sort of superseded it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:21

So we must rate it. Is it a clanger, a banger, or an average meander?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:25

Uh I go average meander. It's heart's in the right place, it captures the era, but there's no real reason why it should exist. I think it's a fine way to pass an hour.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:37

Yeah, I think I I probably would have said banger at the time. I think some people will find it a banger, but I am more inclined in comparison when you see something like the other one, I th or something like the animated series. I think I'm gonna sort of categorize that as an average meander.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:49

It's another average meander for me. I think everybody puts in a lot of effort to make it, and I think it's a lot of fun, but I can only compare it back to back with these two things, and this just isn't as good as Return to the Batcave, but still well worth a watch if you're a fan. So, to wrap things up, I have two questions for you. Was it right to end the show when it ended? Was there room for more Batman 66, be it in the 60s or maybe bought back a few years later, something like that? I don't know. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:22

Um, despite being a huge Batman 66 fan, or maybe because I'm one, I think it was right. It's weird. Although it's poppy and cheap and should be easy to do, it series season three does get tired. It does start to feel just I don't know why. It's hard to imagine it ever not, but and it's always sort of fun, but it does run out of steam a bit. And bringing back girl was okay, but it does dilute it. So actually, I think it was right to finish it at the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:46

I think there's a thing with American television of the time where they're going for that syndication thing if you need three seasons of like 24 episodes or whatever it is. But sometimes there's a case of you see the same thing again and again and again and over again, where actually If it had run for the whole of the sixties with the same number of episodes, by the end of the sixties you would have gone, that's right. But three seasons sounds like a small amount of stuff, but it's not. There's loads of it there. I don't think it's something that you marathon and do loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of episodes. But whenever you jump in, you have a good time. So I think there's just enough of it. And you know, the the film they do as well is a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:20

Yeah, like I've still got like 80 episodes to watch, and I'm in no real rush to watch them. Like you're right, there it's just not something that I particularly want to marathon and I feel like it's always there. It it's not it hasn't got that sort of Doctor Who thing in me where I just need to go complete it now or watch it now because they sort of all feel like quite the same, and that's the nice thing about it, but it it doesn't really sort of renovate or move on because it is a very 60s thing and a and a s a very sort of particular product. Yeah, like it's impossible. Uh to me, I just can't think of it ever being remade or redone in any sort of way, not Batman 66. So yeah, it did end at the right time.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:08

And I touched a bit on this at the beginning, but Luke, do you think there is room for a more comedic or at least more fun take on Batman now?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:16

Uh I'm not the man with the vision. Um I I I hope so. I I don't know, you know, I can only really base it on like the Batman, because that's our most recent thing. But it does, yeah, it does sort of feel strange. So you have like the Nolan trilogy, which is generally regarded as like it knocked it out of the park, and that took Batman Darker. So to then do DC Universe, where he's a bit miserable, and then do the Batman where Bruce Wayne is effectively like a loner goth. It's sort of like sort of waiting for that for something a bit more fun. It maybe the Batman, the brute uh the Robbie Patterson one would be prime for having a Robin in it. Now that they've done the first one, maybe it would be prime for sort of let unlocking him a bit with a Robin. Because I thought there was elements in it, like Zoe Kravitz's Catwoman was great, and you know, I thought his Batman was great, I just didn't gel with his Bruce Wayne. I think that boils down to something I said very early on about the alter ego's gotta be just as good as the superhero to to really get on board with it. But yeah, I think it's hard, isn't it? Just get that as soon as they start to go silly, they just get absolutely panned in this day and age, and I think big companies are scared of that. But I think I think it needs it at some point. I think someone's gotta be brave enough to do it, just a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:36

I mean, things like Guardians of the Galaxy and stuff like that, and even the later Thor films veer more into comedy, so it can be done if you've got the right person in charge of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:45

And I think people are always like, oh Batman, it's gothic, he's the he's the dark detective.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:49

Yeah, it's really interesting because actually Batman 66 was obviously a huge, huge hit, but actually, comic book fans, there was a big backlash against it. They hated it because I mean, even back then there was no real comic culture like we have now. Um and they actually, so Batman 66 was really panned by the critics and the experts who loved the comic and thought this was too silly. And then of course it came back and it's like, okay, like I said, in 1989, the excitement was it's gonna be dark. And then when it starts to get comedic, totally slagged off. But it's been dark ever since. And I think then then I have to believe there is some variety or some room for another tone of it. And when you look at, I think when you look at Spider-Man and in like into the Spider-Ver, they managed to do something that I don't like multiverse stuff at all in any format. I don't like multiverses. And yet what they did with that was completely unexpected, it was funny, but it was incredibly cool. And and really good. So you have to I have to have hope that someone will find people will always return to the story. It's an old detective noir story, but you have to hope that someone's got to do something good with it. But uh all Hollywood will generally stick to now is just dark because it sells.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:00

I don't like animation, but what they did with those two Spider-Man films is brilliant, and yeah, there's there's definitely, you know, fresh takes that can be can be done. It's completely new Spider-Man, and yet all the Spider-Man at the same time. Yeah, you know, someone can do that with Batman.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:17

Excellent. Well, this has been an absolute hoot to jump into the world of Batman 66 and find out what that expanded universe looked like. There are a few other things out there that like there's the legend of the superheroes, which I've seen a little bit of from the 70s. I'd love to see that one day. Who knows? Maybe I can tempt you back for that in the future. Or maybe there's other shows we want to cover. But if people want to find you on the internet or on podcast, Luke Malloy, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:44

On TooOp for TV. Uh I'm on Strangers in Space, Hamster with a Blump Pen Knife. They're usually my my three haunts. Comrad, what about you?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:54

Yeah, I'm part of the Trap One gang on the podcast front. Um, but yeah, I'll I'll I'll do the odd Too Hot for TV now and again or the odd flights for entirety. But yeah, and you can find me on uh Blue Sky or anywhere at Hair of the Hound.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:06

Well, it's been a pleasure to have you both here. Thank you so much for joining me. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as it helps people to find the pod. Look for Too Hot for TV on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at TooHotTheNumber4 Pod. That's Too Hot the number four pod for the latest updates and additional content. Next time, I'm going to be jumping into the expanded universe of Star Trek. But until then, I've been Dylan. I've been Conrad. And I've been Luke. And this has been Too Hot for TV.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:24

On my last Halloween costume, where I dressed up as Spider-Man, because I've always wanted to dress up as Spider-Man. So I dressed up as Spider-Man. And I but I got I kind of got the black, uh kind of quite cool, black Spidey outfit, which is quite cool. And I just wanted to just share this generally. Because in that first documentary, they show a lot about them getting into their costumes, which I very much enjoyed. Um because it is so weird, they're such strange costumes, but like just the experience of yeah, you really don't have to put this in. The experience of wearing on putting on an a sort of a second skin is really interesting. It's very comfortable, it's very cold if it's uh October. Um I had to stuff a sock down there, full disclosure, sorry. Um it's gonna look right, right? It's gonna look right. You don't want too much, you want to, it's just gonna look right. But the weirdest, weirdest thing was I I realize shooting words.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:19

You started shooting words.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:20

You start shooting something everywhere. That sock has full. Oh my god. Okay, this is definitely not going to. Or maybe it is, I don't know. Um but the the here's the weird thing. Um, because they've got this is a proper one where it's actually got soles in the feet. It's got proper it's like walking kind of fairly thin trainers, which is like which is great because it means you're not wearing trainers, you've got the proper feet. You wouldn't want to look ridiculous. What's that? You wouldn't want to look ridiculous. No, no, not at all. But you know, I what look if I do it, you just do it properly. Yeah, come in. A couple of a couple of things, a couple of things. With the second I put my foot, it's they're weird to get into, but the second I put my foot into the shoe and pulled the sort of spider thing over with it, my foot just w looked like the shape of like the spider, like like a superhero's animated foot. It kind of was like angular. And I was like, oh my god, that's weird. The really weird thing was though, I just so I thought the soles of the feet are okay, but the your vision's a bit odd because you kind of got it was like a it was the suit was obviously fabric, then you have a hard shell uh face, then you put the thing over it, then you've got two holes for the eyes, and then you magnetise on the two white uh things, which are made of like a white lattice thing, so you can see through it. And the visibility's not bad. Uh, this is totally relevant now. Don't put this in, this is exciting. Um, and I thought, oh it's it's gonna be too difficult. I can't go to a club or a bar or anything. So I'm just gonna go for a walk around the streets of Birmingham and just see what happens. Also, it was Halloween, so I'm like, if there's any I've always wanted to do this, so if any night you can do it, I'm gonna do this. So I only walked around the block a couple of times. And what happened was completely extraordinary. Everybody is extremely happy to see Spike. Um people are everybody is shouting, so there's like a bang on the window next to me. Blokes in the pub were just banging on the window, going, hey, hey, and they love it. Like huge gangs of scary-looking blokes coming towards you, and the second they see you, and you're basically mummy mincing down the street, basically naked, like it's it's very exposing. You feel you sort of feel like you're naked in a way, but like they were just delighted, and everyone was and and the way people were shouting out to you and calling out, not in a derisory way, they were all so happy to see you. I remember I I just had experience, no one talks to me like that. So I was like, it made me just go, God, whoever this guy is, people really like him. It was just it was I reckon I you I think you should everyone should try it once to try dressing up as a superhero character of some sort. It is, it makes you feel totally different. It was really exciting. The only thing is, there was a couple of the one advantage was I got in and I was just like, Do you know what? It's great because I'm sort of I took the mask off. I was like, I'm ready for bed, I'm basically wearing a onesie. So this is great, very cozy to sleep in, highly recommend it. Three in the morning when you need to get up for the loop. Uh, two things, switch on the hotel mirror, and you're like, oh my fucking Christ, it's Spider-Man with your head on your like, and you've you've got spidey hands, and it's like it's really weird. And then you go, Oh, time for going for a pee, and you're like, and you realize you have to unzip yourself to try and have a pee. So there you go. I thought I'd just give you the like you could put that in or not.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:38

Right, that's next Halloween. I'm walking the streets just as Cariz, and I can't wait to see the people that come up smiling, saying hello.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:47

It does show, do you know what? I did see bless him. There was one kid who cosplayed as that when he's fate, he had all this stuff on his face and everything. There's one kid who did, bless him. But yeah, to be honest, it meant anything, it just shows you the difference between between everyday you and and it was I I can't, it's really, I think I just described it as best I could, but it wasn't just people going, people were really happy, they were so excited. They just everyone just for blokes, particularly, they just forgot themselves completely. So, hey, it's by haven't you had to just go like this and we're like that and give them a lot of and they just loved it. I was just like, do you know what? I'm I'm I think I'm gonna get a sort of classic. I see, I've got one here, I've got one of those. I might get myself a classic one of those. And anytime you're feeling depressed or sad, I'll just put that on. And also, that was at night, just around the block, so there weren't even any freaking kids around. So I was like, if you like, it's nuts. So I just think I might just get one of those outfits. But next year, basically, I'm gonna try. I've got to get I'll just have to find a boy. Maybe Luke, you could be a Robin, who knows? But I'd like to um You would make a good Robin.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:49

That's right, that's exactly right. That's just what I was thinking. Well done. Yeah, no. I've got once in my life, I've got to try dressing up as a good robin, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:56

I've got a fancy chess party coming up in May. And a massive penis.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:02

How tall are you? How tall are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:05

Five ten.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:06

Five something's great. Five something's great. Yeah. I'm six foot something. I could go for uh but I've got to do Batman 66.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:15

Well, I'm not gonna go as the Clooney Robin, am I?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:19

It depends what kind of party, depends what kind of party it is. I'll come as that was a really long side hop. I'm really sorry. I can you just you might need to do gear to get back on track. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:28

I just that'll be the post-credits thing. Uh I'll show up, I'll show up as Mr. Freeze, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:33

Let's kick some ice.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:37

Do you know what? You'd be really good as Mr. Freeze. You'd do the whole character as well, it'd be brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:42

I could I could I could do a freeze. I'm too tall to be the penguin. Can you do Mr. Freeze for your wedding? Yes, yes, I will. I'm I'm sure I'm I'm struggling to find what to wear, so that could be the answer. Yeah, it's poison ivy or something. She said it's got to be a suit. She didn't say it couldn't be a bat suit. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:02

I'm really sorry, Dun. That little anecdote is just completely derailed the whole thing. Should we just get back on track to Rackle?

SPEAKER_04 1:41:08

I mean, I mean I mean, look, there isn't much more to say.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:12

No, I had one more note, which was it was nice to see the bat shield.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:18

So it was set it properly. Let's do it now. Let's do it now.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:20

It was nice to see the bat shield. I was gonna say, do we have anything more we want to say? Let's let's do it now. Has anybody seen the bat shield recently?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:38

Um it was nice to see the bat shield in in um this two face animation that we watched.