In The Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun, William E. Sarmento wrote, “I have to confess many long hours in my youth were spent reading that scourge of the literary field, the comic book. Thus it was with a tinge of nostalgia coupled with a flicker of boyhood pride that I tuned in to catch the first installment of Batman last night. Wonder of wonders, there it was, all of it, just as I had remembered. The hooded champion, his young comrade, the Batmobile, the flashing bat signal in the sky, the sinister Riddler, yes, all there right before my eyes.”129 Jack Gould of The New York Times enthused, “Even with instant books, folk-rock sheet music, Andy Warhol and the design of the new CBS building on West 52nd Street, there was a glaring gap in the arts. Batman wasn’t on television.”130
In Hollywood, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, after noting that she had been approached to appear on the show, wrote, “I haven’t time, so suggested Zsa Zsa Gabor with her Hungarian accent and an amazing hat would be mighty funny...I’m happy that Bill Dozier has a hit. I don’t understand what Batman is about but it makes me roar with laughter. It will make millions.”131 Actress Lana Turner told a reporter, “It’s so hokey, I just love it. How can that Adam West say all those lines without breaking up?”132 George Burns said, “I think it’s funny. I think it’s not only funny but I think it will last. You’ve gotta take your hat off to something different.”133
Trendex, a ratings system based on telephone surveys that claimed to represent 70 percent of American homes, reported that out of the 27.3 percent of all television-equipped households that were watching when Batman first aired, nearly half (49.5 percent) sat glued to the premiere adventure of the Caped Crusader. The following night, Batman’s rating increased to 58.8 percent of the viewing audience. In New York, according to Trendex, one out of three viewers tuned in for both nights’ episodes, giving Batman the highest rating since the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
In the Nielsen overnight ratings, the Wednesday night Batman scored a 38 rating, compared to 11.5 for CBS’s Lost in Space and 13 for NBC’s The Virginian. The rating for Thursday’s segment was 39, compared to 12 for CBS’s The Munster/s and 11 for NBC’s Daniel Boone.134
While ABC reveled in the high ratings, skeptics at CBS and NBC conceded only that ABC had done a good job in promoting the series and getting viewers to tune in. However, they felt that the numbers would not last and that Batman would be a “hula hoop hit,” or passing fad.135
Among the critics who weren’t won over was UPI’s Rick Du Brow, who saw the pop art/camp aspects of Batman as just a calculated attempt by the show’s makers to cash in. “Video cares nothing, understands nothing, about original, genuine motivations but rather grabs the trend by the pocketbook, wrings it dry of all things natural and stuffs it into a hard and fast format,” wrote Du Brow. “The format, in this case with Batman, is tied to a cold, impersonal and brittle wise-crack humor because everyone involved is so painfully aware that he is making fun of something, that he is spoofing, that he is satirizing, that he is just so ‘in’—in brief, the genuineness is totally lost because there is no spontaneous wit but only a series of gags directed at a trend already once removed from its source by promoters.”136
Milton Berle agreed, saying, “Batman is really just an audience show. Bill Dozier has pulled the wool, in a brilliant manner, over everybody’s eyes. Don’t use the word ‘Camp’ with Batman. Let’s use the term ‘hoodwinked.’ The strange thing to me is that long before the word took on its present meaning—whatever that might be, it had homosexual connotations. Like ‘In’ and ‘Out,’ ‘Camp’ is not going to last.”137
After Batman had been on the air for a month, Charles Champlin of The Los Angeles Times also voiced his displeasure, writing, “Batman is now firmly enshrined as the boffo, socko, geewhizerooney showbiz smash of our times, the greatest thing since the safety pin, the graham cracker and soft ice cream, but greater than any. It is high-piled in ratings, merchandised beyond the dreams of avarice, affecting our speech patterns, wreaking insomnia the length and breadth of Madison Avenue, shaping our televiewing for years to come. It is also a listless, tasteless, witless, styleless, humorless bore of staggering proportions. It was born of a devout and monumental cynicism toward the television audience that has probably not been equaled since Hair-raising Tales of pre-coaxial cable days, or since the last car commercial.”138
Batman’s producer, Howie Horwitz, took all the brickbats thrown at the show in stride. “I’m amused at all the psycho-analytical answers for the show’s success—the definitions of ‘high camp,’ ‘the current mood of the country,’ and all the pseudo-intellectual approaches to the show,” said Horwitz. “Basically, we are in show business, providing damned good entertainment the public likes, and it’s that simple. The show clicked because it’s different.” Responding to TV producers who bemoaned that if Batman was the future of television, then maybe it was time for them to get out, Horwitz said, “If some producers fancy themselves as creative, talented and knowledgeable people in the medium, let me assure them that putting out an episode of Batman requires all these. We do not spit them out. I don’t understand anyone saying ‘this is not for me—what is TV coming to?’ This requires as much talent as any other form of entertainment. It’s very difficult to produce a show successfully on two levels—for kids and adults.”139
Initially, the show’s ratings held. Throughout its abbreviated first season (actually a half season), Batman continued to place in the top ten, while other ABC series that debuted during its “second season” bit the dust. In Nielsen’s report for the week ending February 13, the Wednesday episode of Batman was in fifth place, while the Thursday episode shot all the way to number one.140 “It’s entertaining a lot of people, and we’re in the entertainment business,” said Dozier. “We don’t pretend it will elevate anyone culturally. Adults may not necessarily like Batman, but they are amused by it. Young kids take it seriously and teenagers see the humor in it, but those around 12 and 13 have blind spots. They don’t take it seriously and don’t find it funny.”141
The show soon went international. In mid-February of 1966, soon after its debut, it was sold for broadcast in England on London’s ABC-TV Ltd. (Associated British Corporation) for the record fee of $4,000 per half-hour segment. ABC began airing the show on Thursdays and Fridays in London, and in the North and Midland areas on Saturdays at 6:35 PM and Sundays at 7:25 PM beginning May 21.142 The London midweek station Rediffusion picked it up for the 6:07 PM slot on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, beginning July 5.143 In July, the Tyne-Tees-TV network cut the shows in half, presenting them in 15-minute segments Monday through Friday at 6:45 PM. Southern TV went the other route, showing episodes back-to-back in a one-hour slot.144 The show was also exported to Japan, where it was televised Sunday evenings at 6:30, and became one of the top 10 imported programs in Tokyo and Osaka.145
Among some U.S. TV stations, Batman became a symbol of corporate greed. Up to that point, it was customary for a half-hour broadcast to include three commercial breaks. Batman went out over the airwaves with four advertising slots. Baltimore station WJZ-TV was so angered by this that they refused to carry the program. WJZ general manager Kenneth T. MacDonald argued that since long-established commercial format standards held that there would be only six commercial breaks per one hour of programming in prime time, if ABC put four commercials in Batman, then they should only air two during the next half hour.146 ABC disagreed, saying that the total time allocated for commercials was within the standards of the National Association of Broadcasters code, and that the amount of program material was the same; they made room for the extra commercial by dropping the announcement that the show was in color, dropping announcements of co-sponsors, and cutting the ads for other shows. Further, they had notified both the Federal Communications Commission and the National Association of Broadcasters of their intention to add the extra minute of commercials, with no complaints from either regulatory body.147
After weeks of commercials touting the Batman
premiere, Baltimore viewers were surprised when they tuned in on Wednesday, January 12, 1966 and, instead of seeing the Caped Crusader, they saw a broadcast of a statement that said, “WJZ-TV regrets it is unable to present Batman as originally scheduled. Permission to telecast the program has been withheld by the ABC Television Network because of WJZ-TV’s unwillingness to carry the program with increased commercial content. WJZ-TV considers such increase in commercial content to be a break with a long standing precedent of commercial standards within prime evening broadcast time and therefore not in the public interest. Consequently, Batman, originally scheduled tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 PM, will not be broadcast on this station.” Reaction was swift—over 2,000 calls came in to the station’s switchboard. While most were disappointed by the cancellation, about one in three callers congratulated WJZ-TV for taking a stand against “over-commercialization.”148
When the brouhaha erupted, ABC warned WJZ general manager Kenneth T. MacDonald that if he didn’t accept the extra commercial in Batman, they would sell the program to another Baltimore station—which they did. NBC affiliate WBAL-TV bought it, and sidestepped the potential minefield by broadcasting it on Saturday afternoons, when the three commercial limitation was not in effect.149
For ABC, the additional commercial was no small potatoes. If they could get away with it in Batman, then they could carry it over into their other programming. The result would be an additional six commercial minutes per evening, and with that airtime selling for between $25,000 and $55,000, depending on a program’s viewership, it could mean an additional $150,000 to $330,000 in revenues per night. ABC president Thomas W. Moore said the extra commercial experiment with Batman was dictated by simple economics; a half hour of Batman cost $70,000 to produce, and with the program airing in the early evening, when the viewing audience was not yet at its peak, the network could not recoup its financial investment with just three commercials. Thus, a fourth commercial was necessary.150
Two months after Batman—with four commercials—debuted, ABC affiliates meeting in Chicago voted against the network’s proposal to add a fourth commercial to all programs in the 7:30 PM time slot. ABC management told the affiliates they would consider the resolution in formulating their formal plans.151 In protest of the extra commercial, Herbert B. Cahan, the chairman of the affiliates advisory committee, resigned. Not coincidentally, Cahan was the vice-president of WJZ-TV in Baltimore, the station that refused to carry Batman. “Most affiliates are opposed to four commercials in Batman,” Cahan told New York Times reporter Val Adams. “Last November, in an Eastern regional meeting of affiliates, a resolution was passed in opposition to the extra one-minute commercial in the show. The affiliates’ advisory board is unanimously opposed to extending the Batman policy to other shows.” Donald H. McGannon, president of Westinghouse, which owned WJZ and many other TV stations, wrote a letter to ABC saying, “This concern finds its root in projecting what the industry may reasonably expect as a consequence of increasing the commercial content in prime time from three to four minutes. It is safe to assume that the next step will be the escalation of this pattern from two to five nights...on ABC (a speculation that is practically a certainty, I gather), the spread of the same pattern to the other two networks in this time period and, finally, the escalation of the pattern to the entire four hours of prime time on all three networks.”152 Of course, at the time these complaints were being lodged, the average commercial break lasted one minute. These days, it lasts three.
Controversies aside, CBS-TV noticed Batman’s immediate success and took quick steps to get a similar series on the air, acquiring TV rights to The Shadow and The Phantom. Both went into development as potential half-hour series. NBC, also looking for a comic strip property, snapped up producer Sy Weintraub’s Tarzan TV series.153
The success of the TV show energized National Periodical Publications, publishers of the Batman comic books. At their annual meeting on January 25, 1966—two weeks after Batman’s premiere—company president Jacob S. Liebowitz said a 20 percent increase in earnings over the previous year’s $55.7 million was expected in 1966, primarily thanks to the success of Batman and the production of an animated Superman cartoon for Saturday morning TV. Along with those successes, they were also increasing the rates charged for re-runs of the old live-action Adventures of Superman TV series, and still had a Broadway production of Superman in the works.154 In 1965, National’s stock price plummeted to a low of 17-1/2. By March of 1966, it shot up to a new high of 45-1/4. National received $1,000 plus 20 percent of the profits each time a Batman episode aired, as well as 5 percent of the wholesale price of licensed items such as Batlamps, Batkites, games, phonograph records and sweatshirts.155
The success of the show had a significant impact on sales of Batman comics. In 1965, Batman was the #9 top-selling comic book, with 453,745 average paid circulation (copies sold through newsstands as well as subscriptions); Detective Comics was ranked # 19, with 304,414 average paid circulation. By contrast, Archie comic books were #7. The following year, after the series premiered, Batman, with 898,470 average paid circulation, knocked Superman out of the top slot. For a title that had been on the verge of cancellation, it was an impressive comeback. Meanwhile, Detective Comics jumped up to #11, with circulation of 404,339 copies, and World’s Finest Comics, featuring Batman-Superman team-ups, jumped from the #8 position to #6.156
THE ROGUE’S GALLERY
With a commitment from ABC to air the initial episodes, and the decision to begin showing them in January of 1966, Dozier and company went immediately from filming the pilot into filming the remaining first season shows. The next pair of episodes to go before the cameras featured the Penguin as the villain. Dozier, wanting to go after world-class actors for the villains’ roles, approached Mickey Rooney. “I’m glad we didn’t get him,” Dozier said in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview, “because our second choice was Burgess Meredith and I think he’s a classic in the role.”157
From his beginnings with Eva La Gallienne’s theater troupe, Meredith had become an acclaimed actor on the Broadway stage, in films and on television. As the Penguin, Meredith said he took “a deliberately overblown approach. It may have done me more harm than good, but it made an impact. I thought it had a Dickensian quality—or a spoof of one. It was fun to act...I had an elaborate makeup—a huge nose and a great, extended stomach. It was as complete a disguise as you could get—but people recognized me in it.”158 Speaking to Digby Diehl of The Los Angeles Times in 1967, Meredith mused, “If I spend all my time in a Shakespearean company and only do art movies like Olivier does now, my position would be more dignified and more serious. I might even be a better actor. But this is America, and I’m a man moved by the rhythms of his time, so I’ll just take amusement at being a paradox...Batman is great fun and hammy, like having a slightly drunken night out—and getting paid for it. It’s very heady for me, and a very satisfying change to have all the children know me.”159
Meredith accentuated the avian aspects of the character with a distinctive waddling walk and a quacking laugh. “The famous quack came by accident,” said Meredith. “I had given up smoking years before, and whenever I put the lighted cigarette in my mouth it would irritate my throat—so instead of spoiling the scene by coughing, I would make a quacking noise.”160 In a way, Meredith felt that in playing the Penguin, he had come full circle in his career. “When Eva Le Gallienne was presented with an award and I was one of the speakers,” he recalled, “I told her the first part she had given me was that of the Duck in Alice in Wonderland, in which I had to strap roller skates on my knees, and I said I wanted to thank her because ‘it defined my career: I went from a Duck to a Penguin.’”161
In his 1994 autobiography, So Far, So Good: A Memoir, Meredith paid tribute to his Penguin stunt double, Al Cavens, writing, “He was also a brilliant swordsman—a champion fencer. He choreographed a majority of the great duels seen in films. I was thankful for that; that’s how we met.
He did all my dirty work as the dastardly Penguin in the Batman series. I would make the vocal threats against Batman and Robin and then Al would do battle for me, leaping off buildings with an umbrella as a parachute, dueling the entire police force of Gotham City on my behalf. He lost splendidly for me, and he did it with a foot-long cigarette holder in his mouth. He accomplished my heroics and I got the credit for his daring...He was the one who took the risks and performed the impossible leaps. I just appeared when it was time to quack!”162
Just as Burgess Meredith made a memorable impression as the Penguin, so did Cesar Romero as the Joker. Romero said in an interview, “Why Dozier wanted me I’ll never know because I asked his wife, Ann Rutherford, ‘Why did Bill think of me for this part? She said, ‘I don’t know. He said he saw you in something, and he said, “He’s the one I want to play the Joker.”’ I haven’t the slightest idea what it was that he saw me in, because I had never done anything like it before.”163 The truth is that Romero, like Meredith, was not Dozier’s first choice; José Ferrer, who won an Oscar for his starring role in the 1950 film Cyrano de Bergerac, was the first actor approached. He declined, so Dozier next went to Gig Young, an Oscar nominee for his supporting roles in Come Fill the Cup (1951) and Teacher’s Pet (1958) (he would win the Supporting Actor Oscar for 1969’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?). When Young passed, Dozier went to Romero, whom he later proclaimed was “just magnificent.”164
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