Olan Soule – Batman/Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth
Casey Kasem – Robin/Dick Grayson, Chief O’Hara, Mayor, various
Jane Webb – Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, Catwoman/Selina Kyle, various
Ted Knight – Commissioner
James Gordon, Penguin/Oswald Cobblepott, Riddler/Edward Nygma, Mr. Freeze/Victor Fries, Scarecrow/Jonathan Crane, Mad Hatter/Jervis Tetch, Tweedledum/Dumfree
Tweed, Tweedledee/Deever Tweed, Simon the Pieman, Dollman/Darrel
Dane, Judge, Narrator
For the history of Batman, check out the post here.
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| Batman, Robin and Batgirl make their animated debut. |
Nearly 30 years after his debut in the pages of DC Comics, Batman
finally made his first appearance in animated form in 1968’s The Batman/Superman Hour.
However, this wasn’t always the intent.
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| The 1966 live-action series saved Batman and made him popular again. |
Beginning as the half-hour The
New Adventures of Superman in 1966,
the show’s success sparked Filmation to produce another show based on a DC character. They chose
Aquaman and added his half-hour program alongside Superman’s second season to create The Superman/Aquaman Hour of
Adventure. Filmation began
work on several more DC-based pilots for the next season centered around Metamorpho, Wonder Woman and Plastic Man. Those plans were ultimately changed when ABC suddenly achieved a massive hit with their live-action Batman series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. Batman was now not only part of the public consciousness, but that
success saved the character from cancellation after his comics had experienced
a steady decline in sales
(yes, kids, there was a time when Batman wasn’t popular!).
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| The Filmation Batmobile utilized a simplistic design easy to animate. |
Upon learning ABC hadn’t secured the animation
rights to the character along with the live-action, head of daytime programming Fred
Silverman quickly snatched them up for CBS and had Filmation get right to work on adapting the character into their next
animated series. As a result, all other new DC Comics shows in the works were
scrapped to put a full focus on developing Batman. As the decision came
virtually at the last minute, Filmation also pulled additional animators from
other projects in order to make the show ready for the 1968 season. Aquaman was broken off into his own
half-hour and Batman joined Superman for the renamed The Batman/Superman Hour. Independently,
the show was known as The
Adventures of Batman.
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| New villain Simon the Pieman. |
The
Adventures of Batman debuted on CBS on
September 14, 1968. As with their Superman
series, Filmation’s Batman episodes
were broken up into three segments each comprised of two adventures: one told
in two parts and one complete shorter one between them. Olan Soule and Casey
Kasem were cast as the dynamic duo, and Ted Knight assumed the role of the show’s narrator as well
as most of the villain and supporting roles. Those villains included the maniacal
Joker; dapper thief the Penguin; the arctic Mr. Freeze; the quizzical Riddler;
the fear-inducing Scarecrow; the Alice
in Wonderland-themed the Mad Hatter; and agile thief Catwoman (Jane
Webb). Two new villains were created exclusively for the series: Simon the
Pieman, who had a baker theme, and the Judge, who posed as a judge in order to
infiltrate trials and recruit the accused for his gang. Additionally, while DC
did have a character named Dollman,
the version used on the series more closely resembled the villain The Puppeteer due to his use of
toy minions, rather than the ability to shrink to doll-size.
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| The coming of Batgirl! Detective Comics #359. |
Also making her first appearance in animation
was Batgirl (Jane Webb). The live Batman producers had asked then-editor Julius Schwartz for a new female character to include on the show to
attract female viewers. Carmine Infantino provided the design for what would become the new Batgirl;
usurping the name from an earlier character Schwartz had removed from the comics. At the suggestion of
the live series’ executive producer William Dozier, she became Barbara Gordon, the daughter of police
commissioner James Gordon (Neil
Hamilton on the live show). She appeared in Batman’s third season portrayed
by Yvonne Craig,
while debuting almost simultaneously in the comics in Detective
Comics #359 by Gardner Fox and Infantino. However, the cartoon chose to make her an
employee of the District Attorney’s office rather than the librarian she was
established as being. Chief O’Hara (Kasem) was also featured, based on his
appearance in Batman. The series was written by comic
book writer/editor George Kashdan, Dennis
Marks, William
J. Keenan, Oscar
Bensol, Bob
Haney (co-creator
of Metamorpho) and Bill Butler, with music by John
Gart. Although
the series had its campy moments, it wasn’t quite as campy as its live-action
counterpart and played as more straightforward Batman adventures.
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| Joker, Riddler and Penguin. |
The show ran for a single season as Batman’s
popularity began to wane once again, leading to the cancellation of ABC’s show
(although NBC was willing to create a fourth
season, the decision came too late and the sets had already been destroyed).
For the 1969 season, the cartoon was repackaged into a 30-minute format without
the Superman segments and called Batman
with Robin the Boy Wonder. In 1970, Filmation produced three shorts that
aired on Sesame Street teaching
children to cross the
street safely, spatial
concepts such as “around”, “up” and “through”, and the difference between clean and dirty. Gerald S. Lesser,
head of Children’s Television Workshop,
explained that “some celebrities such as Batman and Robin are enlisted because
of their unassailable authority with four-year-olds.”
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| Batman and Robin meet Scooby and the gang. |
By 1972, DC had left Filmation to begin a long association with rival
studio Hanna-Barbera,
with Soule and Kasem retaining their roles. That year, Batman and Robin
teamed-up with their flagship franchise, Scooby-Doo,
for two episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies before joining the Justice League as
part of the Super Friends franchise. Batman would return home to Filmation in 1977 for The New Adventures of Batman with West and Ward reprising their
respective roles from the live series. Simon the Pieman also eventually
returned to animation in an appearance on the campy throwback series, Batman: The Brave and the
Bold.
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| DVD case. |
In 1985 and again in 1996, Warner
Home Video released five episodes to VHS
as part of the “Super
Powers” video collection. In 1993, Warner released a four-volume VHS
collection with four episodes each tape in Australia. In 2008, episodes were
released as digital downloads on iTunes
and for streaming on Amazon Video,
and eventually to WB’s own streaming service, Max
(originally HBO Max). In 2014, Warner released the complete
series to DVD. Nearly a decade later, it was re-released
onto Blu-ray for the first time.
