The Batman Appreciation Thread

The one thing I will never be able to forgive Batman '89 for is the introduction of cheap plastic drinking cups in fast food promotions.  Before Batman, they always had actual glass drinking glasses in their promotions, be it Star Wars, Superman or The Great Muppet Caper.

Conversely, the only thing I'll forgive Batman Forever for is the far too brief reintroduction of glassware promotion.  Sadly, it was too little, too late at that point.

Bummer, They just started playing episodes out of order on H&I. I'll still keep track of the ones I've seen though.


Recent observations - Lesley Gore the singer just appeared as Catwoman's henchwoman. She had to chat up Robin to get close enough to scratch the back of his neck and induce an evil change in his behavior with a drug Catwoman put on the claws of her Kitty costume.


Interesting fact, that she said on the Ellen show that she realized she was a lesbian by the age of 20. When she made the appearance on Batman... she was 20 years old. Coincidence? Sorry Robin, she's just not into you. 


Criminals are dumb. If you were about to transform Batman into one of your evil flunkies, would you let him take a "Bat-pill" first? It was a Universal Antidote, duh! Catwoman this is not your first rodeo!

I love the way everyone tries to escape detection. Several times now Batman has refused police help in order to keep a low profile - so they've nonchalantly entered a society gatherings and a nightclub and hung around the fringes unnoticed IN COSTUME.
Oh, and Catwoman told her flunkies to hide, so they ducked behind a cart, while all she did to hide was turn toward the wall and crouch down. I'm sorry, but a crouching Catwoman is one of the first things in the room I would notice

 
Speaking of hiding, the Batmobile apparently has T.A.R.D.I.S. technology! The trunk is bigger on the inside because the Joker, Penguin, and four henchmen hid inside it to invade the Batcave.

No normal car can catch up to the Batmobile, according to Robin when Catwoman stole the keys! It's turbo charged ...but the unbroken speedometer only goes up to 120mph.

yeah, the Bat-shield is pretty big even when it's folded.


I forgot - when Chief O'Hara and Commissioner Gordon thought Robin had really gone bad, they arrested him and Miss Kitty and brought them down to the station for interrogation, they never tried to remove Robin's mask. Then, when they thought Batman had gone rogue, they tried to trace the Bat-phone so Batman scrambled their efforts, and they went and arrested this guy, inventor Pat Pending...


on the suspicion of Being Batman.

Heresy.

You think you know a guy....

Holy Flat Head Batman!
How could I have forgotten The Great O'Haradini?
Yeah, remember that golden tank? Chief O'Hara drove his squad car into their path, and the whole car was flattened like a can. Miraculously, O'Hara was found under the car in some sort of square hole in the street and very much alive.


I saw a Green Hornet episode - Not only was I a Batman fan in the 60's, I was also a Green Hornet fan. My brother was hooked on them too, but he got to be Batman one Halloween and I was jealous lol, that's OK, Mom made his cowl and cape out of some green material
Anyway, the two shows were made by the same company and once in a while you'll hear the TV in Wayne Manor mention Green Hornet. They did the crossover for ratings, GH wasn't going as well as Bats. They also had to negotiate a fight that ends in a draw (because there's no way Robin could ever kick Kato's ass, it's Bruce Lee for crying out loud lol)

Lee Meriwether (as Lisa Carson, daughter of John E. Carson) asked Bruce if he wanted to come into her apartment for milk and cookies. lol
She was technically the first Catwoman too, the film was the first thing they made before the series.

Today they had King Tut again... quoting Shakespeare... and going nuts over Lisa Carson dressed up as Cleopatra. Tut lived a couple of hundred years before her, not that they were really worried about historical accuracy.

Memory can be faulty, as a kid I recall Green Hornet as having a fancier car. Black Beauty is a cool car.

What a dick.

Man, it is a good thing villains have henchmen - otherwise, Batman and Robin would be beating up old people, Tallulah Bankhead, Otto Preminger, George Sanders, Estelle Winwood... lol

I'm forgetting things again. 

But with a little bit of makeup and stuff Tallulah Bankhead looks exactly like Burt Ward 

Yeah, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) may have had a darker tone and an exotic, gothic/industrial set design, but many of the basics established by the classic TV series carried over.  The Joker's gang all have goofy matching outfits, while Penguin's gang all share a circus theme, except for the ones that are actual penguins with weapons strapped to them.  The only reason Burgess Meredith never had Penguins with missiles strapped to their backs is because it wasn't in the budget.  Joker shooting down the Batwing with a cartoonishly long barreled pistol is just the sort of thing Cesar Romero would have done.  I can certainly see Romero's Joker using parade balloons filled with laughing gas to disable Batman & Robin and the citizens of Gotham while he robbed every bank on main street, rather than just killing everyone in town like Nicholson.  Much of the films were the same things the series would do, but cranked up a couple of notches to match the more cynical sensibilities of an 80's audience.  People who worked on Batman '89 loved to say that they were striving for Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, but they're just kidding themselves.  It's just as well, too.  Most people weren't ready for that.  Batman '89 struck the right balance that moviegoers of the era were able to handle.

There are still plenty of great character actors.  They just don't have a show like Batman to allow them to really go wild.  The nearest equivilent of the past few years would probably be Community.  Almost every episode featured at least one stand out guest star, like Luis Guzman, Betty White, John Goodman, Michael Ironside, Walton Goggins, Jack Black, George Takei, Stephen Tobolowski, Anthony Michael Hall, Drew Carey, French Stewart...  The entire list would be huge.