This is kinda genius. Adam West, in character as Batman, sings the Nat King Cole standard “Orange Colored Sky” in an awkward production number on The Hollywood Palace TV program.
West was the guest host that evening and this was his big entrance. The episode also featured Ray Charles, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, George Carlin, and the sultry Joey Heatherton.
We normally try to stay away from “cute” animal posts here on DM, but this cat who looks freakishly like Batman (I mean, just look at him!) was simply unavoidable.
Mr Morrison said that Batman was “very plutonian in the sense that he’s wealthy and also in the sense that he’s sexually deviant.
“Gayness is built into Batman,” he said, adding, “I’m not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There’s just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he’s intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay.”
The writer also said that this very “gayness” was responsible for the near-universal appeal of the character. “I think that’s why people like it,” he said. “All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn’t care — he’s more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid.”
On Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, he said: “He’s Batman’s perfect opposite, and because of that he’s as sexy as Batman, if not more so… I quite like him, because he’s a pop star—he’s like Bowie.”
Jason Weisberger over at Boing Boing directs us to an amazing flickr photostream of high resolution behind-the-scenes photos from the set of the Batman TV series. The quality is outstanding.
Holy vocal chords! Batman sings! Adam West gets all matey on the poop deck while charming (shurely hams? - ed.) his way through “This Is The LIfe”, from The Milton Berle Show. But first pop fiends Mr. West gives his rendition (shurely torture? - ed.) of a darling little heartfelt ditty “You Only See Her” found on the wonderful site Lord of the Boot Sale.
Lovely superhero emblems reflected in a droplet of water by German photographer Marcus Reugels. Visit Mr. Reugels’ Flickr page to see more of his awesome work.
Legends Of The Super Heroes was the name given to two Hanna-Barbera-produced live action TV specials from the late 1970s. Batman’s Adam West and Burt Ward once again donned their capes and cowls (which fit a bit tighter by that time) for these atrocities which were about on the same level as Donny & Marie and featured a laugh track.
In the second special, “The Roast,” Ed McMahon served as the master of ceremonies while various lame insults are leveled at the chuckling, good-natured Super Friends.
In this clip, uh… “Ghetto Man,” an inner-city super hero tries to bring the funny and fails miserably.
I suppose you could look at this the same way as Paris Hilton’s short-lived pop music career.
Below, Baby Jane Holzer sings Frankie Valli’s “(You’re Gonna) Hurt Yourself” on HullaballoMarch 28, 1966:
Holzer was famously photographed by David Bailey, she made the cover of Vogue and appeared in a handful of Warhol’s early films, such as Couch and The Thirteen Most Beautiful Women. She was largely absent from The Factory scene after Edie Sedgewick’s arrival, when Warhol’s entourage became too druggy for her tastes,although she and the artist stayed close friends. The essay “Girl of the Year” from Tom Wolfe’s anthology The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby is about Jane Holzer and Roxy Music later referenced her in the the lyrics to “Virginia Plain” (“Baby Jane’s in Acapulco / We are flying down to Rio” and “Can’t you see that Holzer mane?”). She is now a real-estate developer in Manhattan and an avid and celebrated art collector.
To tie this back into Batman again, there was actually a character based on Baby Jane Holzer, in an episode called “Pop Goes the Joker.” “Baby Jane Towser” is a rich girl preyed upon by The Joker (who has inadvertently becomes an acclaimed Warhol-esque pop artist after defacing some art ala Marcel Duchamp) to lure in millionaire patrons to buy the Joker’s art! It’s obvious that the writers for the (arguably) most “pop art” TV show in history were well aware of the “Pope of Pop’s” movements.
Part one of “Pop Goes the Joker” is below, the rest follow on YouTube. The second half of this typical Batman cliff-hanger was called “Flop Goes the Joker.”
Below, one more Batman/Warhol/Baby Jane Holzer tie-in: In this excerpt from Batman/Dracula a long-thought lost collaboration between Andy Warhol and that icon of the perverse, Jack Smith, Baby Jane Holzer plays, one can assume, “Catwoman,” with Smith in the title role. This pre-dates the 1966 Batman series by two years.
The second trailer to The Batman Complex, an imaginary film made from assorted movies is now up on YouTube. Like the first, it plays with the Batman myth of what if Batman was merely a figment of Bruce Wayne’s imagination. The trailer’s creator explains:
Here we have a full length (well, a bit longer than the norm, but hey, what can you do…hahaha) theatrical trailer that delves a little deeper into the story behind The Batman Complex. As explained in the teaser, the gist of the idea revolves around a few fun topics, mainly the whole “what is real?” train of thought, and also every fans desire, deep down or upfront, to be Batman at least once in their lives. LOL. And so, I tried to craft a story where we see what happens when someone takes their dream of being Batman a little bit too far. An idea, after all, is a truly resilient parasite.
While some of it is still left a bit ambiguous (both unintentionally and intentionally - while there’s only so much that can be strung together, I often like to leave a little bit open so as to see what fellow fans are able to imagine/create), I believe it offers a bit more than the teaser. As you might be able to tell, the theatrical trailer takes on less of a “horror” vibe than the teaser. For this extended look, I wanted to focus more on the character aspects (and a bit of the tragedy as well), and attempt to move past the initial shock of the psychological twist. One aspect I tried to hint at was the paralleling descent of both Bruce and Cobb. As Cobb and the team go deeper into Bruce’s mind, they start to encounter the truly dark issues that his subconscious houses. As a result, Cobb himself gets caught up in the obsession of all that lingers in the mind of a Batman. There are a couple fun things in there that are best left to surprise, but all in all, I’m relatively happy with how it turned out. It’s fairly fast paced and doesn’t leave much room to breath, which helps amplify the tension I think.
It’s a well constructed trailer and a more than interesting take. Check here for the first trailer.
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was the name given to two Hanna-Barbera-produced live action TV specials from the late 1970s. Batman’s Adam West and Burt Ward once again donned their capes and cowls (which fit a bit tighter by that time) for these atrocities which were about on the same level as Donny & Marie and featured a laugh track.
