Rest in Peace great actor Adam West ... and the only man I consider to be a Bat Man of a man.A lot of celebrities on twitter are making nice statements about Adam West, a lot of famous people I think were inspired and influenced by Adam West. His acting style was something that I believe a multitude of comedic actors were influenced by. The silliness of the show combined with the total thespian seriousness of West's acting is something that every comedic actor should have to watch.
The Bat Man show only lasted 3 seasons in the sixties, but you'd be hard pressed to find a person in the entire world who's not familiar with it. Kids from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s .... they all grew up watching this show. It used to be on right before supper time when I was a kid and it was one of those shows you didn't care if you've seen this episode 12 times ... you're still gonna watch it. The Theme Song alone was worth it.
It only has one word this song and that word is Batman.
This show was too much, man. It was so good. They made a movie too which was just supremely beautifully whacky. There's scenes from that movie that are like locked in my head because they were so strange to watch them as a kid. Even if I grow to be as old as 100 and get alzheimers and forget everything ever ... I bet you I'd still remember the Shark scene and the Bomb Scene from that movie.
There's another scene I'll never forget either in the Adam West Bat Man movie and that's one where they solve a riddler's riddle in such an mind-alteringly confusing manner. While watching this movie again when I was a bit older, not a kid anymore but like maybe 16 or something, I tried to make a logic map about how they arrived at this conclusion to this riddle. I wrote it down and I found the logic so supremely ridiculously silly that I hung it on a bristle board over my computer ... and if I look in my desk right now I think I still have it.
It doesn't show up very well in that photo I took but it was just a series of arrows that helped me try and figure out how Adam West and Burt Ward solved this Riddler's riddle. I see these charts called like logic maps or goal trees or something now a days ... I didn't about know those when I made this... I was like a teenager and just really wanted to try to figure out a way to understand how in the world Batman and Robin arrived at the answer of "United Nations!" to this riddle.
The Riddler wrote two riddles in the sky using the wake of a plane and they were:
1) What Goes up White but Comes Down Yellow?
2) How Do you Divide 17 Apples among 16 People?
They get the answer to the first one as "Egg" quite fast but hold the phone it doesn't stop there, no way. An egg they say represents a "Container of Mother Nature" ... which in turn could be called ... "Goodwill" ... Alright and somehow the answer to Query One was "Goodwill." Alright.
Nextly, they tackle riddle two .... they get the answer of Apple Sauce right off the bat but that's not the super correct answer, no way, they had to dig deeper into this burning question. Apple Sauce as everyone knows involves the Unification of Apples and thus Apple Sauce can be said to represent Unification, okay... I'm with you so far Batman and Robin (I guess). What is another word for Unification? Apparently it's Organization...
....and put it all together and what do we get? A Goodwill United Organization....
THE UNITED NATIONS!!!!! (Well obviously!)
This flow chart (which I think is what they call them now-a-days) hung on a bristle board on a wall over my computer for many many years along with old concert tickets, sports ticket stubs, pictures, and stuff... I honestly think it's had an influence on my life. It's just total absurdity. Total 100% absurdity ... and that's what the show was ... it was totally 100% absurd. Absurdly amazingly good.
Who's the REAL Batman?
There's been so many Batmans over the years from Keaton to Kilmer, to be honest without google I could not on-the-spot name every single BatMan. For me personally there's only one Batman and it's Adam West. None of the other Batmens ever had me wrack my brain to the point where I had to make a flow chart (not knowing these even existed) of logic to map out how they arrived at their mental conclusion.
But flow charts and logic maps aside ... is there something that really separates Adam West from the others? Yes, and it's the approach to the character. If you're gonna make a show about a guy who wears his underwears OVER his pants and runs around with a sidekick wearing a green speedo and yellow cape .... it really has no choice but to veer off into a comedic direction. It did and Batman was one of the funniest shows of all time.
The over-ham, theatre-like seriousness deliveries of Adam West and Burt Ward is icing on the cake to make the show even that much more ridiculous. When you wear your underwears over your pants but play the role more seriously than 10 Laurence Oliviers .... you're on to something, man. It's beyond absurd .. it's just a new art form altogether at some point.
The newer movies gritty-up the character a bit too much, I find. It gets harder and harder for me and maybe some other people too ... for us to take a person who dresses up as a bat, puts on a cape, and runs around town fighting crime seriously. At least in the newer Batman movies he no longer wears his underwear over his pants.... but still .... It's a concept that's not exactly designed to be wicked serious.
One movie that made me just really not like the Super Hero genre movies was that Watchmen movie. In Watchmen they don't want you to take it Mock-Serious but they want the audience to take this Super Hero movie super duper like Serious-Serious-Serious. I saw an interview online once with David Hayter (the guy who does the voice for Solid Snake in the english Metal Gear localization and was involved in making the Watchmen film), and he was trying to defend the movie to critics by saying that the audience was just too stupid to understand all the subtle nuanced intellectual portions of the film. I dunno 'bout that.
The audience wasn't too stupid to understand Watchmen ... it was a dumb (and not in a good way) movie. It was over THREE DARNED HOURS long! Why in the world is a super hero movie THREE HOURS LONG for!? A good super hero action movie should be capped off at 1h and 40 minutes MAX. There's not much actual action in this movie even, the CGI was mainly used to animate a blue politician (who for some friggin' reason is always naked with a dick hanging out) who talks to people and doesn't even fight. The only part I liked was when that kid Kelly from Bad News Bears kills the midget from Seinfeld.
The kicker in that Watchmen movie is the underwears-over-the-pants characters ... and they are meant to not be whacky. There's a scene where Die Fledermaus and the spandex woman are having a deep conversation about their feelings for each other ... about the complexities, obstructions, fruitifications, and ennui of their relationship ... it's meant to be this deep, gritty, dark, love scene ... and this idiot Die Fledermaus is WEARING HIS UNDERWEARS OVER HIS PANTS!
Look, the following is an undeniable fact of life that I'm gonna state now, okay:
If your character is wearing his UNDERWEARS OVER HIS PANTS ... he is not gonna be up for an Oscar anytime soon, alright? You can't expect to be taken seriously when you have your underwear over your pants ... it's just universally silly. Go into your parents old photo albums and look at photos of you when you were a kid and I bet with a 95% success rate that they have a photo of you with your underwears over your pants and everyone in it is laughing ... why? Because it's down right funny to wear your underwear over your pants.
If you're gonna do that on film ... wear the underwears over the pants like that ... you should be doing the Batusi, trying to dispose of comedically-large bombs, and trying to solve evil Liberace's schemes against you by solving a series of nonsensical riddles .... That's what Super Heroes who wear their Underwears over their Pants DO! If you wanna be serious while wearing underwears over your pants then try to be 100x Laurence Olivier more-serious-than-serious-itself style serious instead of after-school-special style serious. Okay?
What do you have to say for yourself, Liberace?
"I would have succeeded if it wasn't for those two guys runnin' around town with their blasted underwears over their pants!"
"I would have succeeded if it wasn't for those two guys runnin' around town with their blasted underwears over their pants!"
Conclusion
Adam West was an Icon, if the world still exists 500 years from now I think kids will still be watching those same 3 seasons of Batman. It's one of those things that can't be recreated and will just live on forever.
RIP Adam West
