The photo of Adam West in his Batman suit I posted earlier reminded me of something that bothered me about that show. Actually, there were a lot of things but one was that I thought someone was telling the wardrobe department, "Keep moving Adam's chest insignia down towards his stomach so he looks dumpier."
The pic above at left is unretouched. For the one at right, I moved the insignia up. Doesn't he look more heroic? Why didn't he look that way on the series?
In the meantime, my pal Tom Galloway sent me this link to a report on why it took so long for the Batman TV show to make its way to home video. Some of you may be amazed to see that DC Comics sold the rights to do the series for so little but that was how the comic book business operated back then. Martin Goodman, founder-owner of the company we now know as Marvel Comics, licensed Captain America for a 1944 movie serial for either zero dollars or one dollar, and sold the rights for the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes cartoons for not a whole lot more. The premise was that the TV/movie version would make the character more valuable, boost the sales of the comic book, secure all sorts of licensing deals, etc. In Goodman's case, I doubt either deal paid off the way he'd hoped.
In '66 when DC Comics sold the rights to Batman, they had that in mind but Jack Liebowitz, who was calling the shots then, was also gearing up to sell the company. The success of the Batman TV show enhanced the value of the whole enterprise, brought forth more potential buyers and inflated the purchase price. Batman was a hit TV show when they made the deal in 1967 whereby Kinney National Company acquired. So selling the rights for the TV show even for a pittance was probably a wise, wise move.
In the article, you will note many mentions of my friend, Wally Wingert. Wally is still one of the busiest voiceover actors in the business even though he no longer announces The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I work with him whenever we do Garfield cartoons since he's the voice of Jon Arbuckle and I hear him on an awful lot of other shows and commercials. Still, I think he'd trade it all if he could tool around in the Batmobile with Adam West…