Batman on The Hub

Batman, the hit 1966-69 TV version of the comic book hero, has recently begun a run on the new cable network The Hub. Now is my chance to get all my favorite episodes on DVD. As you may know, this is probably the ONLY TV series not to be on DVD--I mean they have all five seasons of Gilligan's Island, Family Ties, The Odd Couple, HR Puffinstuff, the Brady Bunch and myriad other pieces of video crap preserved for all time, but not the Caped Crusader. It has something to do with who controls the rights. If the series were on DVD, it would make a fortune. I'm worried the reruns are snipping out little pieces here and there in order to fit in a few more commercials. Anyway, I have some episodes from when the series was on American Family Life every Fri.

My favorite episodes were from the second season when the humor was very campy but had not yet descended to the utter bizarreness of the Batgirl third season. That was when the budget was totally slashed. Anytime the script called for a set that wasn't already built--such as stately Wayne Manor, the Batcave, Commissionner Gordon's office or Barbara Gordon's apartment--they used a black void with some furniture thrown in.

The second season had such kooky villains as Egghead, The Black Widow (as played by Tallullah Bankhead), The Archer, Clock King, Ma Parker (Shelley Winters), Marsha, Queen of Diamonds, the Minstrel, etc.

Bruce Wayne lived in an adolescent world, the only recurring female character--until Batgirl showed up--was Aunt Harriet, a substitute mother for the orphaned Bruce and Dick--or a house mother in the all-male fraternity of the Batcave. Aunt Harriet is a fascinating figure. She is supposed to be the aunt of Dick Grayson. In the comic book, Dick is abandoned when his trapeze-artist parents are killed but Bruce Wayne steps in and adopted the kid. The rather patrician Mrs. Harriet Cooper doesn't seem to be the type to have acrobats in her family. The real reason Madge Blake as Mrs. Cooper was brought into the Wayne household was because it was feared a household full of men would seem too gay. Yes, sexy Madge made the Dynamic Duo seem as straight as a quiver of arrows.

If you look in the Batman comic books pre-1966, you occasionally catch a glimpse of Bruce and Dick sharing a room. Yes, they sleep in separate beds, but doesn't it seem a bit odd for a 30-ish strapping bachelor, and a millionaire to boot, to be sharing a bedroom in a huge mansion with an adoloscent boy? What did Aunt Harriet have to say about that? And didn't she get suspicious that those two were always off bird watching or fishing together? "Hello, Commissioner Gordon, can I have your child abuse deptartment?"

But I never saw any of those other levels when I watched Batman as a kid. It was an action-adventure show to me, not a campy spoof. Just now I watched the one with Sandman and Spryng Byington as J. Pauline Spaghetti. At eight, it went straight over my head that her character's name was a take-off on J. Paul Getty. But even I got tired of it in third season when they jumped the shark and added Batgirl. Still, I often think about what would have happened in a fourth season which would have happened if ABC hadn't destroyed the Batcave set after cancelling the show. NBC was willing to give the Dynamic Duo another shot, but they didn't want to spend $100,000 to build another Batcave.

I had to be satisfied with the Batman cartoons CBS was showing along with Superman, Aquaman, and other DC heroes in the early 1970s. At least in those, Aunt Harriet has mysteriously vanished. They were actually pretty good and Ted Knight did almost all the voices including Penquin, Joker, Riddler, Commissioner Gordon, the narrator, Mr. Freeze, and dozens of others. There were new weird villains including the Judge and Simon the Pieman--that was an exciting segment. The later Batman cartoons with Adam West and Burt Ward doing the voices were pretty stupid because they included Bat-Mite.

There's some much to write about Batman and I've just scracthed the Bat-surface.

Project Runway: Finale, Yawn!

I've been busy having a real life so I haven't blogged in a few weeks. Project Runway came to end and like the rest of this first season on Lifetime, the last few episodes were a big yawn. What a disappointment that the first season I blogged about was so lackluster. While visiting my family in Phila., I was chatting about how bad it was and my dad mentioned that he had read the reason Nina Garcia was not a judge for so many of the episodes was that she had to go to Paris and Milan for the fashion shows, so they sent people further down on the masthead at Marie Claire. He was reading this in a magazine while waiting for the steamroom at his gym.

Anyway, I was so glad they aufed pretty boys Logan and Christopher. Though the episode where Logan finally bit the dust, I would not have objected to Gordana taking the pipe. Her outfit was so drab compared to Logan's zipper-crazy thing.

In the two-part finale, it was kinda dull because Tim Gunn only had to go to Long Island and Manhattan to visit Carol Hannah and Irina. The furthest he had to fly was Ohio to see Althea. I wonder if he looks forward to these trips--sitting in the Cleveland airport, probably having to change planes somewhere, then renting the car, and meeting the film crew, having dinner with the folks. I did think Carol Hannah's mother was very pretty and Irina's dad was handsome as a young man in that old photo.

None of the three collections did anything for me. The gown with the long train was the only thing I liked about Althea's. Irina's was too costume-y (Tim's critique) with all the S&M stuff and those goofy hats. I did like the T-shirts, but there weren't enough of them and you couldn't see them too well. At least Carol Hannah's had some color and I don't care if it didn't tell a story--it didn't put me to sleep like the other two.

My friend Lydia joked that she thought that fashion critic-judge from the International Herald Tribune looked like Aunt Harriet on Batman (Madge Blake for you trivia buffs). But I loved her leopard skin outfit. Tres chic, Aunt Harriet. Getting ready for your date with Liberace?

Now that the whole painful thing is over we can look forward to season seven which is right around the corner on Jan. 14. I pray they will drop Models of the Runway, but I have a bad feeling it's Heidi's baby and she wants to keep it. The final episode of the Models was nothing but a clip-fest. I didn't care about the models, if I did I'd watch Tyra Banks. Because of them, there was only one non-model challenge using "real people"--the divorcee one. Having nonprofessionals to design for was what gave the Bravo Project Runway variety. Hopefully, we will be getting some more and a more dynamic group of contestants next time.