Adam West was born on 19 September in 1928. He died back in 2017 at the age of 88.
People know West almost exclusively for the 1960s Batman show. People still thought of that character when they saw him doing guest appearances on TV or hearing his voice as the mayor on Family Guy. But he did have an impressive career outside of the show.
He played small guest roles on various TV shows during the late 1950s and early 1960s. This led to a regular part on The Detectives in its third season. His career continued on after that as it had. And then came Batman.
William Dozier was the creator of the series. He wanted to make a feature film to generate interest in the show. That was not unheard of in those days. But he didn’t get his wish. Rather, during the first run of the first season, the film was shot. It was released shortly after the end of the first season.
When I was a kid, I watched Batman every day after school. But I wasn’t a huge fan of it. I thought it was pretty silly. It was only as an adult that the silliness became a positive. What’s more, as superhero films and TV have become so big, I see Batman as a kind of eternal critique of the genre:
Superheroes are fundamentally silly and trying to make them serious makes them stupid.
Unfortunately, I don’t find free copies of the Batman TV series sitting around on the net. So let’s celebrate Adam West’s birthday by watching the 1966 movie, Batman. It’s a lot of fun!
Want to see Adam West as a bad guy? Check him out in Zombie Nightmare!
Image cropped from Adam West at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con by ovoviviparous under CC BY-SA 2.0.