WEBVTT - Batman Through the Years 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:14.160 This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories, 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:18.720 the show where America is the star and the American people. Nowadays, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.239 Batman is a household name his list of comic issues, 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.120 let alone live action movies, animated films and TV shows, 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.200 video games, you name it, well, it's nothing short of astounding. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.680 But this wasn't always the case today. Andrew Farrago, curator 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.919 at the Cartoon Art Museum, an author of Batman, The 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:43.320 Definitive History of the Dark Knight in Comics, Film, and beyond, 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.960 is here to tell us the story of the Dark Knight. 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.720 I suppose it's appropriate for a character whose secret identity 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:59.600 is a millionaire and later a billionaire. But money was 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.200 kind of the driving force behind Batman at the beginning. 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:10.560 So as struggling and fairly undistinguished cartoonist named Bob Kane 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:16.160 was working for National periodical publications doing funny animal comics, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.440 he was doing adventure comics. He was doing anything he 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.559 could to try to make a name for himself, try 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:28.080 to just make a living. And he heard that Jerry 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.600 Siegel and Joe Schuster, who were the co creators of Superman, 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.440 were making a really nice living. Hundreds of dollars a week, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.959 you know, just out of the Great Depression tail into 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:40.920 the Great Depression from their creation. 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:44.920 He talked to his editor, and editor said. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.520 Yeah, you bring me another Superman and this will be 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.560 lucrative for you. And he said, you know, I'll do 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:58.040 it over a weekend. He basically went home and tried 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.800 to come up with his version of Superman. And initially 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.320 the character he came up with was really nothing like 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.480 the Batman that we all know. He looked more like 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:11.560 a circus acrobat with a Domino mask, blonde hair, Leonardo 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.919 da Vinci inspired black batwing cape. He's possibly going to 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:21.520 be a flying superhero. But thankfully, Kane was in touch 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.920 with a very talented, very inventive writer named Bill Finger, 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.400 and Bill Finger saw the raw potential there. He took 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:37.560 Kane's ideas, he refined it. He gave Batman the cape 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.600 and cow and outfit really close to what we know, 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.080 know and love today. Yeah, he took Kane's concept and 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:50.120 turned it into something that, eighty years later still energizes 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:57.760 and excites fans everywhere. Batman made his debut in a 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:02.600 publication called Detective Comics, and Detective very much spun out 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.440 of the pulp magazines that have preceded it, So they 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:11.240 were raw, edgy, dark stories. The good guys were very good, 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.640 the bad guys were very bad. Bad guys often met 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.880 very gruesome fates. And detective comics, as the title indicates, 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:25.280 every month had detective stories, and Batman the earliest stories, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.440 and actually, throughout his history, you know, they have been 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.200 detective stories. He's one of the people who claims the 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.520 title the world's greatest detective. So each story had to 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.400 have at least some hint of a mystery to justify 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:44.680 Batman's inclusion. The early Batman comics did have stories like that. 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:51.720 They did have mysteries involving political corruption and gangsters, and 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:53.480 you know, the kind of stories one would say were 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.600 ripped from the headlines. And prior to that it had 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:02.040 been police officers, it had been private investigators, a lot 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:06.160 of square jawed guys wearing suits punching gangsters on the cover. 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.800 So obviously Batman wearing his incredibly dark costumes swooping out 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:16.279 of the night sky grabbing criminals energized audiences the same 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:21.600 way that Superman the year before really energized readers, and 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:22.600 very soon. 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:23.760 Batman became a staple. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.320 He appeared every month in that magazine, and Detective Comics 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:33.240 circulation went through the roof, and he was awarded his 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.280 own solo magazine. You know, in the late thirties. This 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.320 was very forward thinking on the part of the publisher 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:46.400 that's now known as DC Comics. So Caine and Finger 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:51.960 knew we need colorful villains, we need eye catching covers, 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:53.920 we need dynamic storytelling. 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.559 They really were going that direction very early. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.720 Within about a year of Batman's debut, we had the 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:07.679 introduction of Robin the boy Wonder again, bright red, yellow 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.960 green costume. They called him the laughing young Daredevil. Would 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.799 I would say, that's why we're still talking about Batman 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:19.040 today in the present tense, instead of some interesting pulp 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.920 inspired character whose time came and went immediately. I think 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.080 for the better. Changed the tone of the stories. It 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.120 made Batman a father figure, gave him someone to talk 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.960 to when he was his way through a case, and 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:36.240 that gave the readers a surrogate, a stand in where 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.960 they could feel like, hey, I could do that, I 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:43.480 could take part in these adventures. At partnership really pushed 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:48.440 Batman even farther into the superhero territory. Than he'd been before, 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:53.200 and that pushed the villains that much farther into extremes, 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.359 because right after Robin's debut, you had Joker, who was 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:02.920 evil and dangerous a villain as there was. We had Catwoman, 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.240 two Face, and the Penguin and the Riddler, who are 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.240 just as iconic as any heroes from that era. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.320 They really tapped into something. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.599 They knew what would be popular, they knew what would sell, 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.000 they knew what the kids liked. They did pay incredibly 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:23.520 close attention to their competition, so they paid attention to 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.640 what kind of numbers is Superman doing, what's going on 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.360 in Captain Marvel this month, who's the big new character 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.880 on the stands, And if there was a way for 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.000 them to tap into an audience, even if it was 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.440 taking away readers from other books that were coming out 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:39.880 from the same publisher. 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:40.520 Then they had tapped into that. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:45.760 And the first year before Robin was introduced, the stories 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.120 were very grim, they were very dark, and very quickly 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.680 the publisher realized, you know, we're reaching hundreds of thousands, 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.279 maybe millions of kids with these comics. Maybe we have 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.360 a responsibility here to be a better example. So they 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.520 decided early on Batman doesn't carry a gun. Batman doesn't 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.839 use legal force. He tries to find a better way 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.920 to solve his problems. If he can solve a problem 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:16.200 without violence, by using his intellect and using his detective skills, 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:17.040 that's even better. 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.720 And you've been listening to Andrew Farrago tell the remarkable 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.680 story of Batman's history. When we come back Batman through 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:31.960 the years here on our American Story, liehbib here the 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.160 host of our American Stories. Every day on this show, 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.240 we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.640 from our big cities and small towns. But we truly 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.400 can't do the show without you. Our stories are free 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.160 to listen to, but they're not free to make. If 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.240 you love what you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.360 com and click the donate button. Give a little, give 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.560 a lot. Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.440 and we're back with our American Stories and the story 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:16.840 of Batman. Andrew Farrago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum, 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.200 was just telling us how Bob Kane and Bill Finger 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.120 not only created the character, but paid close attention to 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.480 what the audience wanted with the idea that children were 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.320 their primary audience. The publisher as well as the creators 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:35.160 made it clear early that Batman didn't use lethal force, 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.400 but rather his intellect to defeat his foes. 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:45.720 Back to Andrew, so Batman was fighting murderers, he was 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.640 fighting killers. He was fighting really the lowest of the 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.520 low as far as the villains went. And as more 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:56.119 children were reading these books, as DC Comics was increasingly 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:00.319 concerned about setting a good example, they realized, why don't 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:01.719 we tone him down a little bit, why don't we 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:06.960 have him do funny crimes and zaney crimes? And by 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.000 World War Two, especially when kids wanted lighthearted entertainment, these 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.760 adventures were becoming outrageous, more over the top. He had 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.240 another artist by the late forties early fifties come on 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.200 who really redefined Batman, an artist named Dick Sprang. He 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:26.480 had a more cartoony art style, and Batman was this big, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:34.480 barrel chested, smiling adventurer. Robin started cracking puns and wacky jokes. 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:39.640 They would have crazy adventures that involved things like giant 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:46.000 oversized prop typewriters, or blimp chases or time travel. Bad 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.320 guys that he's fighting during that time include aliens. 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:50.880 They include mad scientists. 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.480 You may have a criminal where Batman is trying to 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.520 uncover his identity, and they'll realize that the criminal is 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.280 spelling out his name one crime at a time. They 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:02.480 went from being let's be just a little bit different 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.560 than the real world to let's go totally nuts and 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:13.240 have a crazy, fun adventure story. I would imagine anybody 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.640 who read the first issues in nineteen thirty nine and 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.720 then took a break and came back around nineteen fifty 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:25.880 two would not have recognized the character. And actually this 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.880 was totally fine with the audiences, because up until that 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:34.600 point there was constant audience turnover in comic book readership. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:36.960 You did have some diehard fans who started reading in 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.680 the thirties and kept reading, but generally speaking, kids would 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.560 read from about eight until maybe twelve or so, drop out, 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.040 and then a new batch of eight to twelve year 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.560 olds would come in. So stories didn't have to be 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.200 particularly sophisticated. They didn't really need continuity that carried over 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.640 from one month to the next. Stories could repeat themselves 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.360 every few years because they assumed that the reader were 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.720 new and hadn't seen them before. Characters like Batman and Superman. 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.000 They were seen as very safe, very respectable books that 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.880 any kid could read. You knew you were getting a good, reliable, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:20.440 adventure story every month. By the early sixties, Batman was 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.000 actually in danger of cancelation. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:23.520 You know. 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.240 It may have been that they weren't challenging their audiences. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.800 They had competition from publishers like Marvel, who were really 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.719 winning the hearts and minds of younger readers. They were 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.720 seen as more dynamic, more fun, and more challenging stories. 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.960 At this point, they actually turned to some creators who 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.920 had recently revitalized one of their comics. 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.880 The Flash. 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.320 So they took a character from World War Two era 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.679 and came up with a new version of him that 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.600 really engaged readers. It was exciting, it was more modern, 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.679 it was more dynamic, where as Batman in the early 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.880 sixties with like a throwback kind of a relic. So 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.880 they had creators like writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.560 and Fantina come along and this is this is really 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.480 what ultimately say Batman. They did an era called the 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:18.280 New Look. They modernized him. He was not the barrel chested, 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.720 grinning kind of Superman knockoff character that he was. They 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.439 made him more streamlined, they made him a modern detective. 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:30.360 They gave him computer equipment and modernized everything about the character. 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.000 And that was, you know, that was a signal to 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.640 readers that hey, take a look. 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.520 We're changing things. We are aware that Marvel Comics. 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.600 Exists and that that's the comic of choice for young 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:44.440 readers and teens right now. 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.360 But you know, we can be cool, we can be hip, 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:48.160 we can be with it. 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:54.920 And right around that time, executives at ABC were looking 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.920 at bringing they wanted to bring a comic strip to television. 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.679 They want to take advantage of things like technicolor, and 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.520 they wanted to take advantage of nostalgia that people had 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:07.840 for popular characters. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.120 So some producers, including. 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:14.160 A man named Bill Dozier, were determined to bring comics 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:14.880 to television. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.240 Somehow. That was going to be it. That was going 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:18.319 to be the kind of thing. 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.640 That they could put toe to toe with shows like 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.120 The Adams Family and The Munsters that were. 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:25.400 Winning over young audiences. 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:31.800 Those really coveted young audiences and their families, and they 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.520 had all grown up eRating Batman. They had fond memories 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:36.680 of him, and they thought, we can do this, We 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:42.880 can make this a fun television show. The TV show 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.720 and it debuted in nineteen sixty six, was an immediate 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.400 sensation that it was a huge hit in the ratings 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.520 and really nothing would be the same for the character 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:53.320 after that. 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:55.680 It was just a smash in every sense. 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.960 You had Adam West as Batman on the cover of 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:05.000 Time magazine like magazine TV Guide. You had fashions inspired 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:10.320 by Batman, you had catchphrases, you had every possible kind 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.720 of merchandise under the sun coming out. It put the 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.640 comic books back toward the top of the sales charts. 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.240 You know, even though the show was campy, it was comedy, 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:24.640 it was humor, but it really wasn't far off from 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.480 the source material. Adam West was perfect as a stoic, 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:33.560 square job, very sincere hero and crime fighter, and you 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.880 had Burt Ward as his plucky, inquisitive, excitable sidekick. You know, 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.440 if you look at the if you look at the roster, 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:43.960 if you look at the cast list in the second 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:48.640 and third season, you'll see that Hollywood A listers were fighting. 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.760 They were begging to be on this show because they 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:55.000 wanted to be a Batman villain or make a cameo appearance. 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.120 It was the cool hip thing to do at the time. 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.720 You know, all good things must come to an end, 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.360 and the ratings came tumbling back down to earth very 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:14.880 quickly in the third season, but the damage had been undone, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.240 and Batman would have his ups and downs in the 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.760 years since, but there was never any danger of him 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:27.280 going away once the television show hit. The Batman TV 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:32.320 show came to define the character for a long time, 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.160 for a good twenty years as far as the public 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:40.880 was concerned, and in a way it came to define comics. 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:45.520 So you could not see a newspaper headline from nineteen 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.280 sixty six through maybe even the early two thousands that 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:54.880 didn't have Biff, Bam Pau superheroes in the headline. And 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.800 not too long after that final episode aired, the show 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.680 started up again and syndication. So much like Star Trek 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.320 had this incredible shelf life after its cancelation, so to Batman, 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.120 because almost the minute the new episode stopped, UHF stations 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.720 picked it up and kids could still watch Batman every 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.920 day after school. So as a as a kid in 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.480 the eighties, that's how I was introduced to Batman. So 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.080 this really loomed large This was as far as the public. 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:28.920 Is concerned, this was Batman. 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:33.480 But that actually didn't sit well with some of the 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.720 comic book creators. They looked at this campiness, they looked 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.080 at the silliness, and they realized, you know, if we 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.040 try to do this, if we try to translate this 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.520 exactly how it is on the screen to the comics, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.680 you know, we're gonna look like dinosaurs. The TV show 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:50.760 had its chance. 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.520 It came. It went, we want to do modern comics. 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.280 We want to do things that again can go toe 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:56.880 to toe with. 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.040 Marvel comics and with the other comics that are in 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:00.440 the rack. 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.200 And we've been listening to a remarkable story about Batman. 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.159 And it all started with money as the driving force. 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.400 Bob Kane had found out that the people making Superman 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.639 were making a couple one hundred bucks a week in 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:17.880 the Great Depression, and he thought, oh, I can come 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.040 up with my own character. He and his partner Bill 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.919 Finger did just that. By the end of the nineteen thirties, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.080 they had their own book. World War Two came, people 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.919 were looking for an escape, and a different version of 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:33.160 Batman formed. And then came the early sixties. Batman's popularity 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.040 was waning, and in came the TV show, and soon 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.040 every a lister wanted to be a part of it. 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:42.280 Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorsh and Eartha Kit, Jerry Lewis, Auto Preminger, 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.320 Sammy Davis Junior, and the list goes on. When we 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.560 come back, more of the story of Batman through the years, 0:17:48.720 --> 0:18:09.239 here on our American stories, and we're back with our 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.119 American stories and the story of Batman. Despite the widespread 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.000 praise of the nineteen sixties live action Batman's show during 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.320 Adam West, the comic book writers felt the show was 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.720 too campy. They didn't want that reflected in the print 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.240 version because they would rather compete with what was going 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.800 on over at Marvel and other competitors. Andrew Farrago tells 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.800 us how instead the writers sought to pursue a darker tone. 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:43.760 Prior to the sixties, comic books were, whether stereotypically or 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.640 just traditionally, there was something that. 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:47.680 A reader outgrew. 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.879 The cliche is it's something that boys are into until 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.639 they discover girls. But with Marvel comics in the early sixties, 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.760 you know, they had stories that were more geared toward 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:00.800 the older audience. 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:02.359 They were geared toward teenagers. 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.200 They had storylines that continued from one month to the next, 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.800 and they encourage readers to come back. With creators like 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.480 Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and stan Lee, Marvel felt 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:19.120 like a clubhouse, and stan wrote columns and he answered 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.120 letters in the books that encouraged a dialogue between him 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.280 and the readers. So the Marvel Comics creators, instead of 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:31.760 being faceless, uncredited people behind the scenes, they were up front. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.199 They had stan Lee's name, they had Jack Kirby's name, 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.119 they had Steve Dicko's name prominently displayed in the books, 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:39.720 and readers responded. 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:40.359 To that in a huge way. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.080 DC As they lost more and more of their market 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.560 shared to Marvel, they realized that they needed to catch up. 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.919 They realized, if the audiences are sticking around, if we 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.199 want them to stick around, this is how we have 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.240 to tailor our storytelling. This is what we have to 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.879 do to keep these readers here, keep them coming back. 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.280 I give a lot of credit to Dennie O'Neil. He 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.320 was very smart, he was very well read. His formal 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.600 training had actually been in journalism before getting into comic books. 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.760 He actually got into them kind of by accident because 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.119 he was interviewing Roy Thomas, who was a writer and 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.800 editor at Marvel Comics, and Roy suggested, hey, we need 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.600 we need more, We need smart guys like you writing 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:28.200 comic books, and Denny went that direction. He was a hippie, 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.520 so you know, he brought kind of a more adult, 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.000 mature sensibility to the comics compared especially compared to what 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.200 had gone before, and they brought that sensibility over to Batman. 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:46.359 Their signature villain was a shadowy ancient criminal mastermind named 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:52.199 ros al Gul who planned to actually exterminate up to 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.280 ninety percent of the Earth's population because he felt that 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:02.240 eco terrorism was necessary to restore balance to the Earth. 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:07.439 So this was very heady stuff compared to two Face 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.680 robbing the Second National Bank at two pm on Tuesday. 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.280 They also had Robin grow up and start going to college, 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.040 so he had solo adventures, so he had Batman throughout 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:22.640 almost the whole decade of the seventies. He had Batman 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:30.040 as this solo adventurer and Robin so after about ten 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.560 years of solo adventures, there was kind of a half 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.360 hearted attempt to bring him back into the Batman stories. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.840 The problem was he was now an older teenager. So 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:43.960 the solution was to have Dick Grayson, the original Robin, 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.120 grow up a little bit and take on a new 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.320 superhero identity. So he did that and became a character 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.280 called Nightwing, and they introduced a new sidekick for Batman 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:55.840 named Jason Todd. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.120 And then in the mid. 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:02.960 Eighties, DC, to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary of publishing, decided 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.520 to kind of start everything from scratch. 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:07.160 They were worried that. 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.240 New readers may have been put off by having fifty 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.879 years of history to all these characters, so they wanted 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.879 to do a fresh start with their comics. And with 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.560 this fresh start, they decided that Jason Todd, instead of 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:24.120 having an origin that was directly cribbed from Dick Grayson's, 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.560 they decided he should have a new origin. They reinvented 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:32.199 him as a street kid, a tough kid who actually 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:39.640 met Batman because he stole the Batmobiles tires. Readers didn't 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:45.040 really like this new version of him. They thought he 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:47.840 was kind, he was kind of a punk, you know. 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.919 He was not properly deferential to Batman. He was written, 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:56.119 especially by the next writer of the Batman comics, Jim Starlin. 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:58.600 He was written as kind of a hothead. Yeah. 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:04.560 Starlin actually did not like Jason Todd or sidekicks and principle, 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.440 so he kind of wrote a version that. 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:09.679 He knew would be unlikable, that he knew. 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:13.359 Readers wouldn't warm too, and kind of brought everything to 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:17.439 a head with a storyline called a death in the family. 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:24.840 They wanted to do a big publicity stunt draw attention 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:29.040 to their comics, and they wanted to take advantage of 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:33.159 then modern telephone technology, and they wanted to do a 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:36.439 call in poll. This was in part inspired by a 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:40.440 Saturday Night live call in poll where you determined whether 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:44.719 a lobster named Larry the Lobster would be boiled on 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:46.600 air or set free at the end. 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:46.960 Of the night. 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:49.560 So they wanted to apply the same thing to a 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.520 DC Comics publication, and they said. 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:53.160 We need to make it big. 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:55.199 We need to make it life or death for readers 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:58.000 to care enough to spend fifty cents to call in 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:00.280 and make this phone call. I did. 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:03.040 We've got this Jason Todd character. Let's put it to 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:04.760 a vote. Does he live or does he die? 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:09.000 By a narrow, very narrow margin by about seventy two votes. 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:17.359 Readers said, yeah, the Joker should kill Jason Todd, So 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:20.080 they killed him off in this violent storyline. 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:22.560 It got national headlines. Yeah. 0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:25.320 Danny O'Neil, who's the editor of those books, I was 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:27.200 able to talk to him about this, and he said 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:29.399 they had the fortune or misfortune of it hitting on 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:32.760 a slow news day, so the comics sold out nationwide. 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:38.479 They rushed them. He caught grief from friends, neighbors. 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:42.960 The local deli, everybody was upset at him for allowing 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:46.760 this to happen. It really indicated that the public was 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:51.760 ready for a much darker take on Batman, and that's 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:57.359 really what we got. But those darker comics paved the 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:01.200 way for Tim Burton Batman movies. It really was tapping 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:05.480 into what this older readership was seeking. We're now into 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:09.760 at least the second generation, maybe third generation of creators 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:14.000 who grew up on Batman comics and Batman movies and 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:17.439 Batman television shows, who. 0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:18.359 Have their own vision for the character. 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:20.840 They know what kind of stories they want to tell, 0:25:20.960 --> 0:25:23.440 they know the best way to tell them, and whether 0:25:23.520 --> 0:25:27.840