WEBVTT - Batman Through the Years 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:14.200 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, 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:26.120 let alone live action movies, animated films and TV shows, 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.240 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 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.960 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 --> 0:01:36.479 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 0:01:39.000 --> 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 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.320 the character he came up with was really nothing like 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:06.480 the Batman that we all know. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.000 He looked more like a circus acrobat with. 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:13.200 A Domino mask, blonde hair, Leonardo da Vinci inspired black 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.160 batwing cape. He's possibly going to be a flying superhero. 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:23.079 But thankfully, Kane was in touch with a very talented, 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:31.200 very inventive writer named Bill Finger, and Bill Finger saw 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:35.040 the raw potential there. He took Kane's ideas, he refined it. 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:40.520 He gave Batman the cape and cow and outfit really 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.280 close to what we know to know and love today. Yeah, 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.320 he took Kane's concept and turned it into something that, 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:55.799 eighty years later still energizes and excites fans everywhere. Batman 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.160 made his debut in a publication called Detective Comics, and 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.679 Detective very much spun out of the pulp magazines that 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:09.680 have preceded it. So they were raw, edgy, dark stories. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.160 The good guys were very good, the bad guys were 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.560 very bad. Bad guys often met very gruesome fates. And 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:22.639 detective comics, as the title indicates, every month had detective stories, 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.960 and Batman the earliest stories, and actually, throughout his history, 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:29.960 you know, they have been detective stories. He's one of 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.840 the people who claims the title the world's greatest detective. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.240 So each story had to have at least some hint 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:43.160 of a mystery to justify Batman's inclusion. The early Batman 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.960 comics did have stories like that. They did have mysteries 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:52.320 involving poetical corruption and gangsters, and you know, the kind 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.640 of stories one would say were ripped from the headlines. 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:59.000 And prior to that it had been police officers, it 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.280 had been private investigators, a lot of square jawed guys 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:08.280 wearing suits punching gangsters on the cover. So obviously Batman 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.160 wearing his incredibly dark costumes, swooping out of the night 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:17.680 sky grabbing criminals energized audiences the same way that Superman 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:22.880 the year before really energized readers, and very soon Batman 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.839 became a staple. He appeared every month in that magazine, 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:32.640 and Detective Comics circulation went through the roof, and he 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.400 was awarded his own solo magazine. You know, in the 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:40.400 late thirties. This was very forward thinking on the part 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:45.440 of the publisher that's now known as DC Comics. So 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:50.120 Caine and Finger knew we need colorful villains, we need 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.920 eye catching covers, 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 --> 0:05:07.719 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 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.960 they could feel like, hey, I could do that, I 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.119 could take part in these adventures. 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.360 At partnership really pushed Batman. 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:48.440 Even farther into the superhero territory than he'd been before, 0:05:48.920 --> 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 --> 0:06:02.880 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 --> 0:06:12.280 They really tapped into something. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.599 They knew what would be popular, they knew what would sell, 0:06:15.640 --> 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 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 0:06:50.440 --> 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 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.360 a responsibility here to be a better example. So they 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.560 decided early on, Batman doesn't carry a gun. Batman doesn't 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.840 use lethal force. He tries to find a better way 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.960 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 --> 0:07:21.680 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 --> 0:07:32.000 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 0:07:42.720 --> 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 --> 0:07:51.760 you love what you hear, go to Auramericanstories dot com 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.680 and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. 0:07:55.000 --> 0:08:10.120 Go to Alamericanstories dot com and give and we're back 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.440 with our American Stories and the story of Batman. Andrew Farrago, 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.120 curator of the Cartoon Art Museum, was just telling us 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:22.000 how Bob Kane and Bill Finger not only created the character, 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.040 but paid close attention to what the audience wanted with 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.920 the idea that children were their primary audience. The publisher 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.000 as well as the creators made it clear early that 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.280 Batman didn't use lethal force, but rather his intellect to 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:38.400 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 --> 0:09:00.360 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 --> 0:09:12.880 adventures were becoming. 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:14.160 Outrageous, more over the top. 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.960 He had another artist by the late forties early fifties 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.760 come on who really redefined Batman, an artist named Dick Sprang. 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.800 He had a more cartoony art style, and Batman was 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:33.000 this big, barrel chested, smiling adventurer. Robin started cracking puns 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:37.720 and wacky jokes. They would have crazy adventures that involved 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:44.680 things like giant oversized prop typewriters, or blimp chases, or 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.920 time travel bad guys that he's fighting during that time, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.680 include aliens, they include mad scientists. You may have a 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.440 criminal where Batman is trying to uncover his identity, and 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.520 they'll realize that the criminal is spelling out his name 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.120 one crime at a time. They went from being let's 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:03.360 be just a little bit different than the real world 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:08.480 to let's go totally nuts and have a crazy, fun 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:15.199 adventure story. I would imagine anybody who read the first 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.600 issues in nineteen thirty nine and then took a break 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.120 and came back around nineteen fifty two would not have 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:27.360 recognized the character. And actually this was totally fine with 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.520 the audiences, because up until that point there was constant 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.280 audience turnover in comic book readership. You did have some 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.559 diehard fans who started reading in the thirties and kept reading, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.640 but generally speaking, kids would read from about eight until 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.640 maybe twelve or so, drop out, and then a new 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:47.760 batch of eight to twelve year olds would come in. 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.520 So stories didn't have to be particularly sophisticated. They didn't 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.000 really need continuity that carried over from one. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:55.720 Month to the next. 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.480 Stories could repeat themselves every few years because they assumed 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.960 that the reader were new and hadn't seen them before. 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.120 Characters like Batman and Superman. They were seen as very safe, 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.240 very respectable books that any kid could read. You knew 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.520 you were getting a good, reliable, adventure. 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:14.040 Story every month. 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:23.000 By the early sixties, Batman was 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 --> 0:11:33.720 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 --> 0:11:48.160 had recently revitalized one of their comics, The Flash. They 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.800 took a character from World War Two era and came 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.920 up with a new version of him that really engaged readers. 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.520 It was exciting, it was more modern, it was more dynamic, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.880 where as Batman in the early sixties looked like a 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.840 throwback kind of a relic. So they had creators like 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.160 writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine and Fantina come along 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.000 and this is this is really what ultimately say Batman. 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.600 They did an era called the New Look. They modernized him. 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:18.160 He was not the barrel. 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.720 Chested, grinning kind of Superman knockoff character. 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:22.320 That he was. 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.479 They 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 --> 0:12:36.560 readers that hey, take a look, we're changing things. 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.160 We are aware that Marvel Comics exists and that that's the. 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.440 Comic of choice for young 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 --> 0:12:50.520 we can be with it. And right around that time, 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:56.840 executives at ABC were looking at bringing they wanted to 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.480 bring a comic strip to television. They want to take 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:04.280 advantage of things like technicolor, and they wanted to take 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.440 advantage of nostalgia that people had for popular characters. So 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.559 some producers, including a man named Bill Dozier, were determined 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.880 to bring comics to television. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.240 Somehow. That was going to be it. That was going 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:18.360 to be the kind of thing that. 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.760 They could put toe to toe with shows like The 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.120 Adams Family and The Munsters that were. 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:25.400 Winning over young audiences. 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:31.800 This really coveted young audiences and their families, and they 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.520 had all grown up raating 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 --> 0:13:42.920 can make this a fun television show. The TV show, 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.240 and it debuted in nineteen sixty six, was an immediate sensation. 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:51.040 It was a huge hit in the ratings and really 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.360 nothing would be the same for the character after that. 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.199 It was just a smash in every sense. You had 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:58.559 Adam West as Batman. 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:03.240 On the cover of Time magazinefe magazine, TV Guide. You 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.880 had fashions inspired by Batman, you had catchphrases, you had 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.480 every possible kind of merchandise under the sun coming out. 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.760 It put the comic books back toward the top of 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.440 the sales charts. You know, even though the show was campy, 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.640 it was comedy, it was humor, but it really wasn't 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.520 far off from the source material. Adam West was perfect 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:33.160 as a stoic, square job, very sincere hero and crime fighter, 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:38.479 and you had Burt Ward as his plucky, inquisitive, excitable sidekick. 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:40.320 You know, if you look at the if you look 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.440 at the roster, if you look at the cast list 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.920 in the second and third season, you'll see that Hollywood 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.800 A listers were fighting. They were begging to be on 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.200 this show because they wanted to be a Batman villain 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.160 or make a cameo appearance. It was the cool hip 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:04.560 thing to do at the time. You know, all good 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.240 things must come to an end, and the ratings came 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:08.480 tumbling back down. 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.160 To earth very quickly in the third season. 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:17.560 But the damage had been undone, and Batman would have 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.560 his ups and downs in the years since, but there 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.920 was never any danger of him going away once the 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:28.480 television show hit. The Batman TV show came to define 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:33.640 the character for a long time, for a good twenty 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:38.320 years as far as the public was concerned, and in 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:42.200 a way it came to define comics. So you could 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:46.720 not see a newspaper headline from nineteen sixty six through 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.200 maybe even the early two thousands that didn't have Biff, 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:56.320 Bam Pau superheroes in the headline. And not too long 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.960 after that final episode aired, the show started up again 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.359 and syndication. So much like Star Trek had this incredible 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.080 shelf life after its cancelation, so to Batman, because almost 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.520 the minute the new episode stopped, UHF stations picked it 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:16.000 up and kids could still watch Batman every day after school. 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:20.640 So as a as a kid in the eighties, that's 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:22.960 how I was introduced to Batman. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.200 So this really loomed large. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.520 This was as far as the public is concerned, this 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:33.240 was Batman. But that actually didn't sit well with some 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.239 of the comic book creators. They looked at this campiness, 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.680 they looked at the silliness, and they realized, you know, 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:41.360 if we try to do this, if we try to 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.640 translate this exactly how it is on the screen to 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.000 the comics, you know, we're gon we're gonna look like dinosaurs. 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:50.760 The TV show 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 --> 0:16:54.720 We want to do things. 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.200 That again can go toe to toe with Marvel comics 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:00.440 and with the other comics that are in 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 --> 0:17:17.879 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 0:17:20.080 --> 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 --> 0:17:37.480 every a lister wanted to. 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:38.040 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 --> 0:18:17.040 praise of the nineteen sixties live action Batman's Show during 0:18:17.080 --> 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 0:18:23.840 --> 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. 0:18:38.520 --> 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, 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.760 you know, they had stories that were more geared toward 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.000 the older audience. They were geared toward teenagers. They had 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.720 storylines that continued from one month to the next, and 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:11.280 they encourage readers to come back. With creators like Jack 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.639 Kirby and Steve Ditko and stan Lee, Marvel felt like 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:19.640 a clubhouse, and stan wrote columns and he answered letters 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.199 in the books that encouraged a dialogue between him and 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:27.880 the readers. So the Marvel Comics creators, instead of being faceless, 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.040 uncredited people behind the scenes, they were up front. They 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.359 had stan Lee's name, they had Jack Kirby's name, they 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.480 had Steve Dicko's name prominently displayed in the books. 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.359 And readers responded 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 --> 0:20:21.840 editor at Marvel Comics, and Roy suggested, hey, we need 0:20:21.880 --> 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 --> 0:20:39.240 had gone before, and they brought that sensibility over to Batman. 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:41.400 Their signature villain. 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:47.080 Was a shadowy ancient criminal mastermind named ros al Gul 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:53.400 who planned to actually exterminate up to ninety percent of 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:58.399 the Earth's population because he felt that eco terrorism was 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.840 necessary to restore balance to the Earth. So this was 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:09.000 very heady stuff compared to two Face robbing the Second 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:14.440 National Bank at two pm on Tuesday. They also had 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.480 Robin grow up and start going to college, so he 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.680 had solo adventures, so he had Batman throughout almost the 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.960 whole decade of the seventies. He had Batman as this 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:30.439 solo adventurer and Robin so after about ten years of 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:35.240 solo adventures, there was kind of a half hearted attempt 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.360 to bring him back into the Batman stories. The problem 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.359 was he was now an older teenager. So the solution 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.439 was to have Dick Grayson, the original Robin, grow up 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.320 a little bit and take on a new superhero identity. 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:51.000 So he did that and became a character called Nightwing, 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.840 and they introduced a new sidekick for Batman named Jason Todd. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.960 And then in the mid eighties, DC, to celebrate their 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:05.520 fiftieth anniversary publishing decided to kind of start everything from scratch. 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.720 They were worried that new readers may have been put 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.880 off by having fifty years of history to all these characters, 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.160 so they wanted to do a fresh start with their comics. 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.920 And with this fresh start, they decided that Jason Todd, 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.359 instead of having an origin that was directly cribbed from 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.880 Dick Grayson's, they decided he should have a new origin. 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.440 They reinvented him as a street kid, a tough kid 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:36.800 who actually met Batman because he stole the batmobiles tires. 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:44.439 Readers didn't really like this new version of him. They 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.280 thought he was kind, he was kind of a punk, 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.399 you know. He was not properly deferential to Batman. He 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.760 was written, especially by the next writer of the Batman 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.159 Comics Jim Starlin. He was written as kind of a 0:22:57.200 --> 0:22:57.680 hot head. 0:22:58.359 --> 0:22:58.600 Yeah. 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:04.560 Starlin actually did not like Jason Todd or sidekicks and principle, 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.840 so he kind of wrote a version that he knew 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.040 would be unlikable, that he knew readers wouldn't warm too, 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.320 and kind of brought everything to a head with a 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:21.639 storyline called it Death in the Family. They wanted to 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:26.600 do a big publicity stunt draw attention to their comics, 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:32.280 and they wanted to take advantage of then modern telephone technology, 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:34.520 and they wanted to do a call in poll. This 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:38.399 was in part inspired by a Saturday Night live call 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:41.520 in poll where you determined whether a lobster named Larry 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:45.879 the Lobster would be boiled on air or set free 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:48.080 at the end of the night. So they wanted to 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:51.960 apply the same thing to a DC comics publication, and 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:52.520 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 --> 0:23:59.200 and make this phone call. 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:00.280 I did. 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:03.040 We've got this Jason Todd character. Let's put it to 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:05.840 a vote. Does he live or does he die? By 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:09.000 a narrow very narrow margin by about seventy two votes. 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:17.320 Readers said, yeah, the Joker should kill Jason Todd, So 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:20.119 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 --> 0:24:25.359 Dannie 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 --> 0:24:34.159 They rushed them. 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:40.600 He caught grief from friends, neighbors, the local deli, everybody 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:43.959 was upset at him for allowing this to happen. It 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:49.520 really indicated that the public was ready for a much darker. 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:53.280 Take on Batman, and that's really what we got. 0:24:55.280 --> 0:24:58.879 But those darker comics paved the way for Tim Burton 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:02.720 Batman movies. It really was tapping into what this older 0:25:02.760 --> 0:25:07.280 readership was seeking. We're now into at least the second generation, 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:11.520 maybe third generation of creators who grew up on Batman 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:17.439 comics and Batman movies and 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 that's in comics or movies or television or video games, 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:33.159 we're getting some truly incredible stories. It's a testament to 0:25:33.720 --> 0:25:39.960