Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  With such a precipitous ratings slide, William Dozier took drastic action. “I think we’ve found the answer,” he told Hal Humphrey of The Los Angeles Times. “We’re breaking up the pattern to shake the kids’ confidence.” In mid-January 1967, Dozier aired the first three-part Batman episode, which featured the Joker and the Penguin teaming up against the Caped Crusaders. “We started a story on Wednesday, but instead of ending it on Thursday, we continued it into the following Wednesday,” said Dozier. It wasn’t immediately clear, however, if the strategy worked. “We couldn’t really tell,” said Dozier, “because CBS on that particular Wednesday pre- empted Lost In Space with a rerun of its Cinderella special, which made it an unfair test for us.” The three-parter was followed by a two-part Catwoman adventure, with the first part airing on a Thursday and the concluding part airing the following Wednesday. Then, another three-parter kicked off, featuring the Penguin and Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. It began the same Thursday that CBS unveiled a new variety series, Coliseum, which replaced the poorly-performing Jericho. “You see what that means?” asked Dozier, speaking the day the second part was scheduled to air. “They’ll have to tune in tonight to see what they think will be the conclusion of last Thursday’s show, and we’ll get ‘em away from Lost in Space, but still hang on to them for Thursday of this week because that’s the concluding episode.”328 The executives at ABC-TV had a different idea for revamping Batman. They briefly contemplated converting the show into a one-hour series.329

  Batman (Adam West) on the Batphone, a hotline to Commissioner Gordon's office (Courtesy Adam West, © Twentieth Century Fox Television).

  As Batman’s ratings hit the skids, so did Burt Ward’s marriage. Ward’s 19-year-old wife Bonney sued for divorce in Santa Monica Superior Court in mid- November, and sought custody of the couple’s three-month-old daughter, Lisa Ann.330 When the divorce was granted in February, Bonney was awarded the couple’s home, plus $800 monthly alimony and $400 a month in child support—nearly all of Ward’s monthly Batman salary.331

  The expectations of toy manufacturers were also dropping. Jerome M. Fryer, president of the Toy Manufacturers of America, said in mid-December, “At the beginning of the year it looked as if Batman toys of all types would be the biggest sellers this year, but this trend seems to have leveled off for Christmas.”332 The ratings leveled off, as well. The show never shot back up to the Top Ten levels it had held during its first weeks, but it was still performing respectably enough that when ABC president Thomas W. Moore announced preliminary plans for the fall season at the end of February, sixteen of the network’s current programs were renewed, including Batman.333 By April, however, the show was dropped by two British television companies. Britain’s ABC-TV, serving viewers in the Midlands and north of England, replaced it with a spy series. Rediffusion, which broadcast the show in the London area on weekdays, dropped the series by the summer of 1967, while plans were underway to revamp the show for its third season.334

  According to Adam West, the show’s producers intended to make a series of Batman films, one every year, like the James Bond series. A second film was to have gone into production during the hiatus between the second and third seasons. One idea involved pairing a regular series villain with a new jetpack-outfitted villain called Disastronaut, who flew around with his Meteorettes causing mayhem. A horror plot was also discussed, but dropped when, according to West, “it began sounding too much like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.”335 By the time the second season hiatus arrived, the Batboom was waning, so plans for further Batman movies were scrapped.

  Consequently, Adam West planned to spend his hiatus making a Western film called King Gun, for which he was to be paid $150,000 plus a percentage for three weeks’ work. Unfortunately, weather and union problems in Mexico kept it from going before the cameras before his hiatus was over.336 He did have time for personal appearances, however. When Alexander Dobritch brought his International Circus to the Los Angeles Sports Arena in March of 1967, he enticed celebrities to appear as ringmasters. On the evening of Thursday, March 16, West did the honors, appearing in his Batman costume in the Batmobile.337

  Burt Ward, meanwhile, also received a film offer. According to his biography, he was approached by producer Lawrence Turman to play the lead role in a little film Turman was doing for Embassy Pictures, but—says Ward—he wasn’t allowed to do the film because 20th Century Fox didn’t want their Robin appearing in a motion picture while Batman was still on the air. The name of the movie? The Graduate.

  ENTER BATGIRL

  Midway through the second season, William Dozier began pondering ways that Batman could be revamped to bring in more viewers. Changing the pattern of how the shows were aired to include three-part adventures helped level off Batman’s ratings, but Dozier still felt he was missing out on half of his potential audience, saying that market research had shown that the show had a strong following among young boys but not among young girls.338 The answer seemed obvious—if the boys tuned in for Batman, maybe young girls would tune in for a Batgirl. And by injecting a healthy dose of sex appeal, maybe he would win back some of the older boys, too.

  Dozier contacted the editor of DC Comics, Julius “Julie” Schwartz. As Batman artist Carmine Infantino recalled, “The Batman TV producer called Julie and said Catwoman was a hit, could we come up with more female characters? Julie called me and asked me to do that. I came up with Batgirl, Poison Ivy and one I called the Grey Fox, which Julie didn’t like as much. Bob Kane had had a Bat-Girl for about three stories in the ’50s but she had nothing to do with a bat. She was like a pesky girl version of Robin. I knew we could do a lot better, so Julie and I came up with the real Batgirl.”339

  With input from writer Gardner Fox, DC determined that Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, would become Batgirl. Barbara, an independent young woman with a Ph.D. in library science, was the head of the Gotham City Public Library when not in her crime-fighting guise. Unlike Batman and Robin, who were motivated by the deaths of their parents, Batgirl fought crime out of a sense of civic responsibility and a desire to help others. Though she didn’t have the resources of millionaire Bruce Wayne, she still had an array of gadgets, which she carried in a utility purse instead of a utility belt, and she rode a nifty motorcycle. She made her comic book debut in Detective Comics #359 (January 1967) in a story titled “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl.”

  An article by Jerry Buck in The Chicago Tribune of November 10, 1967 suggested another version of Batgirl’s genesis. In Buck’s article, Jay Emmett, the chairman of the board of Licensing Corporation of America, was quoted as saying that the company’s president, Allan Stone, suggested adding Batgirl to “rejuvenate the show and to give the girls something to buy.” By that point, merchandising of Batman products in the two years that the show had been on the air accounted for an estimated $150 million in revenue.340

  Whether Dozier originated the idea of Batgirl or not, he certainly regarded it as a prudent move. As he said to Robert Windeler of The New York Times, “Anybody with a series which has been on for a couple of years or more is making a serious mistake if they are complacent and don’t keep adding sensible new ingredients to a show.”341

  The first actress considered for the role of Batgirl was Mary Ann Mobley, a former Miss America, but producer Howie Horwitz remembered an actress he’d worked with on the series 77 Sunset Strip, Yvonne Craig. Craig told Norma Lee Browning of The Chicago Tribune, “People in show business know me because I’ve played in lots of movies and on TV. They also know I’ve been trained as a ballet dancer. I was one of the swanniest swans who ever danced in Swan Lake.”342

  Though she was born in Taylorville, Illinois on May 16, 1937, Yvonne Joyce Craig grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where she began studying ballet at age ten. When the family relocated again, this time to Dallas, Texas, Yvonne went to Sunset High School, and continued her ballet training at the esteemed Edith James School. She never graduated from Sunset High, because s
he flunked physical education three years in a row. “I refused to get dressed for gym classes,” said Craig. “I didn’t like wearing bloomers—they’re so droopy in the seat.”343 Craig never dated in high school, saying, “I was very shy. The only thing I wanted to do was to get away from school to practice dancing. I thought of men only as a means of being carried from one part of a stage to another.”344

  During a performance at a Christmas show at the Edith James School, Craig caught the attention of renowned prima ballerina Alexandra Danilova, who arranged a scholarship for Craig to study with George Balanchine at the School of American Ballet in New York. After six months there, she auditioned for Fergei J. Denham of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and was accepted, joining the company in 1954, when she was just 16. When the Ballet Russe arrived for a show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, a film producer approached Craig and asked if she’d like to be in movies. She said, “No, I wouldn’t. I’d like to be a ballet dancer.”345

  On a later trip to California with the ballet company, Craig turned down an opportunity to make a screen test for producer Joe Pasternak. After three more years with the Ballet Russe, she returned to Los Angeles, studying dance at the Eugene Loring School, where she was spotted by Howard Hughes. Again offered a contract, this time, Craig accepted, and soon after won a role in The Young Land, opposite Dennis Hopper and Patrick Wayne (John Wayne’s son).346

  After making her TV debut in an episode of Schlitz Playhouse of Stars April 4, 1958, she found more work in television than in movies. She married singer Jimmy Boyd, best known for a recording he made as a child, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” but the union lasted only two years. Afterwards, she dated Elvis Presley, with whom she starred in two films, It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963) and Kissin’ Cousins (1964). Next, she turned up in spy movies, including In Like Flint (1967), in which she played Natasha, a Russian ballerina opposite James Coburn’s super-cool spy. She wasn’t happy, however, with how her ballet number in the latter film ended up. “I worked and sweated and bruised myself for that,” said Craig, “but it was shot so far back nobody could see me or the steps. I guess this is one of the reasons I took the Batgirl part. I’ve decided they’ll never remake Red Shoes so I may as well forget it.”347

  Despite her film roles and numerous guest-starring spots on TV, fame seemed to be eluding Craig. “I’ve done lots of guest shots—everything from playing 15-year-old Goody-Two-Shoes to sexpots,” she told Norma Lee Browning of The Chicago Tribune in 1967. “But people didn’t remember my name. I’ve never had any real identity.”348 Then, she received a call from William Dozier, for whom she had appeared in an unsold TV pilot. ”He called to ask if I would come in for an interview,” said Craig. “When I got there, he said, ‘We’re thinking of adding a new character to the Batman series—Batgirl. Would you be interested in doing it?’ I said, ‘Very!’”349 Dozier asked if she had seen Batman, and she admitted that she hadn’t, but said that she would watch the reruns over the summer to get up to speed. “I had never seen anything like it,” said Craig. “I didn’t quite know what to think then, but now I love the show; there are so many fun things about it. It’s wild and bizarre. While thrilling the kids with its action and costumes, its humor gets through to the adults who are watching with them. In fact, a politician recently told me he thinks Batman has produced some of the best political satire he has ever seen.”350

  By accepting the role of Batgirl, Craig hoped that TV viewers would finally get to know her name. “An actress likes to be noticed,” she said, “and in purple tights, a gold and purple cape, and a masked hood—who could miss me?”351 The 5’4”, 109 pound actress wore a skin-tight costume that, although not an exact replica of the comic book Batgirl’s black-and-yellow outfit, was still eye-catching, with it’s cowl over a red shoulder-length wig. “The outfit is like a second skin,” she said. “A masseur comes to my house twice a week to break down muscles it has taken me years to build as a dancer.”352

  To get the approval of the ABC execs, Dozier and Howie Horwitz produced a seven-and-a-half minute promo reel to introduce the character, and show how she would interact with the Dynamic Duo. At that point, the character hadn’t been entirely fine-tuned. “Batgirl was more flippant than she was in the TV series,” said Craig, “a little more Lauren Bacall.” In the promo, her mask was made to resemble bat wings, with sharp points over her cheeks. “They changed my whole mask after we shot the promo, because my first Batgirl mask made little dents on my face,” said Craig. “Basically, when I took it off, it looked like I had been crying for weeks! So they changed that and opened up the eyes so I could see better.”353 They also rounded the points, so she could speak and smile without being jabbed by the mask. The short promo reel, filmed January 26, 1967, featured Tim Herbert as Killer Moth, a villain who otherwise never appeared in the TV series. Craig’s ballet training came in handy for the fight scenes. Craig determined that her character would be “adroit, but not violent. I think the reason Honey West didn’t stay on TV was because she was always going around clobbering somebody, and you can’t look feminine when you’re doing that.”354 Instead, Craig’s Batgirl dispatched villains with high kicks.

  One idea Craig had for how her character made her quick costume changes didn’t fly. Instead of a Batpole, she said, “I’ve already suggested to producer Howie Horowitz that I slide down the banister in my split-level apartment. I don’t think he’s going to go for it though.”355 He didn’t. She was, however, given a pet—a parrot named Charlie. “That bird was dreadful,” she said. ”They didn’t want me looking like a lunatic talking to myself to advance the plot, so instead of me walking around the room muttering, they said, ’We’ll give you a bird to talk to!’ That would have been fine, except any time you approached his rotten little cage, Charlie would hop to the bottom and you would be talking to an empty perch! After that scene, he would then make horrible squawking noises and ruin all the takes!”356

  SEASON THREE

  The fate of Batman had been hanging in the balance in February 1967, with Quaker Oats, Colgate and Bristol Myers—advertisers in The Flying Nun, which was scheduled to follow Batman on Thursday evenings in the 1967-68 TV season— dissatisfied with the prospects of a weak lead-in. The network had even penciled in a possible replacement series, Tay-Gar, King of the Jungle, a Tarzan spoof for which Screen Gems filmed a pilot starring Mike Henry, who was once set for the Batman role in Ed Graham’s proposed Saturday morning series and whose Tarzan features were still playing in theaters.357 But on March 1, Daily Variety announced that Batman had been renewed for a third season.358 The anticipated addition of Batgirl helped win the series at least one more season on the air.

  Besides the inclusion of Batgirl, there were other changes afoot. Chief among them was scheduling; in its third season, Batman was shown only once a week, the network having decided to give its Wednesday time slot to a new Western series, Custer, starring Wayne Maunder as the doomed Lieutenant Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry (as it turns out, the series was also doomed, ending after 17 episodes—before Custer got to the battle of the Little Big Horn). Since Batman was now airing only once a week, the network ordered only 26 half-hour episodes.359Batman also underwent some cosmetic changes. The title sequence was altered to feature an animated Batgirl and Yvonne Craig’s credit, and—with severe budget cuts—Serge Krizman’s sets for the villain’s lairs became more expressionistic, generally featuring garishly-colored props set on a bare, cavernous black soundstage, the result looking like a sort of comic book Our Town. The budget cuts also dictated simpler stories with less special effects.

  Filming of the third season got underway on July 5, 1967.360 “We had a really tight schedule,” said Yvonne Craig. “We would start on Monday, end on Wednesday, start a new episode on Thursday, end on Tuesday, start a new episode on Wednesday, and end it on Friday. I was so tired that sometimes I felt like an automaton. When the network would want to send me out on weekends for personal appearances, I would ask:
‘Is this a Nielsen city?’ ‘Cause if it isn’t, I would really like to sleep late.’”361

  The third season of Batman debuted on September 14, 1967, beginning with an episode featuring the Penguin, in which the fowl fiend kidnaps Barbara Gordon with the intention of forcing her to marry him; with Commissioner Gordon as his father-in-law, he believes he’ll be immune from prosecution. With all of the action crammed into a single episode, it had a brisker pace than many second-season entries.

  For her debut episode, Batgirl roared into action with her own unique Batcycle—a modified Yamaha YDS-5E with a specially-made purple scalloped batwing faring, oval windscreen, lace ruffles, and a yellow bow on the seat. Behind a revolving wall in her apartment’s bedroom was a hidden freight elevator that lowered the Batgirlcycle to the alley below, where a secret door opened allowing her to ride out into the street. According to Craig, when she first went to meet with William Dozier and Howie Horwitz, they asked if she had ever ridden a motorcycle, “which indeed I had and owned one at the time,” she said. “The motorcycle ride out of the secret exit was an interesting episode. It was the first day of shooting, and I knew the special effects man from somewhere else in Warner Brothers. I had been practicing riding out because I was supposed to ride through a brick wall. It was set up like a long tunnel, and he said, ‘Look, if you hit this mark and you at that point absolutely stand on it and give it all you got, it will look like you are riding the wall down. It will be real exciting.’ I said ‘Terrific!’ So, I did exactly as he said, but a little voice in my head said, hand close to the brakes because, if something goes wrong, you would like to be able to hit the brakes. Sure enough, the first shot of the day, I went tearing out, and the wall didn’t come down. It was made of plywood and I wouldn’t have liked to have gone through it. I hit the brakes, and I went skidding sideways, missing the wall by about an inch. Nobody on the other side knew what was going on. They figured somewhere along the line I had chickened out and decided not to do it at all. Anyway, it worked the second time around.”362 The cycle wasn’t the most comfortable ride, however. “They had taken off the shock absorbers to put on the bat wings, so whenever I went over a bump, it was like jumping off a table stiff-legged,” said Craig. “It would really jar my teeth!”363 Talking to Walt Dutton of The Los Angeles Times in July of 1967, she said, “I can ride it all right. I just have trouble when it’s stopped; it’s so heavy I can’t hold it up. It fell over the other day and I decided to try talking to it. ‘Come on,’ I said nicely, ‘you can get up, can’t you?’ It didn’t, so I kicked it.”364 Filming an episode with guest villain Vincent Price as Egghead, she almost ran over the veteran bogeyman and art connoisseur. “In the scene I race in on the Batgirlcycle and make a panic stop at the curb, where Vincent is standing,” recalled Craig. “Well, it stopped; but then—voom! voom!—it started again. He dodged it, but—voom! voom!—it went after him a second time. He ended up straight-arming it and cut his hand on the bat wing. It ran over his foot, too. I thought I was going to kill him; that would have been the end of art in Los Angeles.”365