Suddenly, it’s January 1966 all over again!!!
Jim Morrison, lead singer and driving force of The Doors, had been dead one day, and America was celebrating its 195th birthday that Sunday. I was headed to summer camp that day at Camp Barton, north of Ithaca, so I had no way to watch TV at all.
But after an absence of three years, the 1966 Batman series would be shown again on ABC, this time as the motion picture that was the featured Sunday Night At The Movies, immediately following The FBI. While the movie benefitted from a very strong lead-in from the law enforcement television series, its ratings were so good that it was rebroadcast on Labor Day weekend.
Had this happened today, the network would have likely ordered new episodes of the series. But times were different in 1971, and that just didn’t happen. But let’s explore what might have been the case had ABC decided to revive the Bat (and the Cat)!
The time period
When Batman ran as a series in 1966, it had done so in part as some sort of fad. It was immediately popular, then faded in the ratings as the series kept on with repetitive plots and increasing campiness. At the time of its cancellation in March 1968, adults had largely tuned out, leaving kids as the primary audience. Fantasy shows were losing ground to more gritty fare, such as The FBI and to stalwart shows like Gunsmoke.
By this time as well, the Batman comic was no longer on life support, as it had gained new life in the 1970s. Denny O’Neill and Neal Adams brought the Caped Crusader closer to his roots, and their stories are classic. How a revived show might have worked with DC Comics is a good question. Would it have taken a darker direction? Given how the Bronze Age was during this time, as well as what was seen with ABC programs during this time, the show would have been more like Season One, and possibly have tackled the issues of the day, while still remaining relatively light-hearted.
And television had changed in three years as well. While All In The Family was a major hit, ABC also had its share of lighter fare and there might have been room for a revived series. Two years later, production began on a Wonder Woman movie; while that production, starring Cathy Lee Crosby, didn’t fare well, the next one, with Lynda Carter, did.
The casting and production
How the casting would have happened is a good question. During this time period, Adam West was looking to distance himself from the Batman character. In a public service announcement from 1973 (see below), Burt Ward (who turns 76 today) and the late Yvonne Craig revived their respective characters of Robin and Batgirl, but Dick Gautier plays the Batman role.
As for the supporting cast, Madge Blake (Aunt Harriet) had died in 1969, and Neil Hamilton was retiring from show business in 1971. Stafford Repp was still working, but he only had three years left to live. Alan Napier remained active. We can only speculate that, should the show have been revived in 1971 or 1972, some other actor such as Eddie Albert (just coming off of Green Acres) or Lyle Talbot (who was the first to play Commissioner Gordon, in 1949) could have been substituted.
All of the performers who had been major villains remained available in the early 1970s, and there was a stream of new talent available as well. For example, had Julie Newmar or Lee Meriwether not been available, the producers could have called on some actress such as Michele Carey for the role. And we didn’t mention Eartha Kitt because she was blacklisted in the United States because of controversial remarks she made in 1968 at the White House concerning the Vietnam War. That said, a revived show could have from such people as Robert Reed, Shirley Jones or Edward Asner. Then, there’s always the prospect of returning performers, such as Francine York or Jill St. John (who was busy at this time, filming Diamonds Are Forever).
As for the production, would William Dozier been involved? He did narrate the 1973 PSA. However, he already had the original 120 episodes out there for syndication. We can speculate that, had the show been revived, that someone else such as Quinn Martin, might have taken a shot at producing a new series.
If nothing else, the 1971 airing of the 1966 movie proves that the series had kept its appeal, and has done so over the past 55 years!!!
