WEBVTT - Batman Through the Years 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:14.120 This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories, 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:18.640 the show where America is the star and the American people. Nowadays, 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.160 Batman is a household name his list of comic issues, 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.040 let alone live action movies, animated films and TV shows, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:30.160 video games, you name it, well, it's nothing short of astounding. 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.599 But this wasn't always the case today. Andrew Farrago, curator 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.800 at the Cartoon Art Museum, an author of Batman, The 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:43.240 Definitive History of the Dark Night in Comics, film, and beyond, 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.879 is here to tell us the story of the Dark Night. 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.640 I suppose it's appropriate for a character whose secret identity 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:59.560 is a millionaire and later a billionaire. But money was 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.160 kind of the driving force behind Batman at the beginning. 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:10.360 So as struggling and fairly undistinguished cartoonist named Bob Kane 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:16.120 was working for National periodical publications doing funny animal comics, 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:18.400 he was doing adventure comics. He was doing anything he 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.480 could to try to make a name for himself, try 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:28.000 to just make a living. And he heard that Jerry 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:32.520 Siegel and Joe Schuster, who were the co creators of Superman, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.399 were making a really nice living hundreds of dollars a week, 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:38.920 you know, just out of the Great Depression, tail into 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:43.880 the Great Depression from their creation. He talked to as editor, 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.440 and editor said, yeah, you bring bring me another Superman 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.760 and this will be lucrative for you. And he said, 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:56.240 you know, I'll do it Over a weekend. He basically 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.000 went home and tried to come up with his version 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:03.560 of Superman. And initially the character he came up with 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.520 was really nothing like the Batman that we all knew. 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.919 He looked more like a circus acrobat with a Domino mask, 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:14.720 blonde hair, Leonardo da Vinci inspired black batwing cape. He's 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.840 possibly going to be a flying superhero. But thankfully, Kane 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.960 was in touch with a very talented, very inventive writer 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:32.280 named Bill Finger, and Bill Finger saw the raw potential there. 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.040 He took Kane's ideas, he refined it. He gave Batman 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.000 the cape and cowl and outfit really close to what 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.440 we know and love today. Yeah, he took Kane's concept 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:49.320 and turned it into something that, eighty years later still 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:57.560 energizes and excites fans everywhere. Batman made his debut in 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:02.320 a publication called Detective Comics, and Detective very much spun 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.880 out of the pulp magazines that had preceded it, so 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.760 they were raw, edgy, dark stories. The good guys were 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.000 very good, the bad guys were very bad. Bad guys 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.880 often met very gruesome fates. And detective comics, as the 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:24.280 title indicates, every month had detective stories, and Batman the 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.000 earliest stories, and actually, throughout his history, you know, they 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.520 have been detective stories. He's one of the people who 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.880 claims the title of the world's greatest detective. So each 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.440 story had to have at least some hint of a 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:43.760 mystery to justify Batman's inclusion. The early Batman comics did 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.880 have stories like that. They did have mysteries involving political 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:52.640 corruption and gangsters, and you know, the kind of stories 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:55.680 one would say were ripped from the headlines. And prior 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.600 to that it had been police officers, it had been 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.120 private investigators, a lot of square jawd guys wearing suits 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.880 punching gangsters on the cover. So obviously Batman wearing his 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:13.680 incredibly dark costumes swooping out of the night sky grabbing 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:18.000 criminals energized audiences the same way that Superman the year 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:23.680 before really energized readers, and very soon Batman became a staple. 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.360 He appeared every month in that magazine, and Detective Comics 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:33.200 circulation went through the roof, and he was awarded his 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.360 own solo magazine. You know, in the late thirties. This 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.640 was this was very forward thinking on the part of 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:45.800 the publisher that's now known as DC Comics. So Cane 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:50.920 and Finger knew we need colorful villains, we need eye 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:56.120 catching covers, we need dynamic storytelling. They really were going 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.760 that direction very early. So within about a year of 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.240 Batman's debut, we had the introduction of Robin the Boy 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:10.000 Wonder again, bright red, yellow green costume. They called him 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.560 the laughing young Daredevil. I would say, that's why we're 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.400 still talking about Batman today in the present tense, instead 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.880 of some interesting pulp inspired character whose time came and 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.200 went immediately. I think for the better. Changed the tone 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.960 of the stories. It made Batman a father figure, gave 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.039 him someone to talk to when he was his way 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.280 through a case, and that gave the readers a Sarah 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:38.279 get a stand in where they could feel like, hey, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:39.760 I could do that, I could take part in these 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:45.320 adventures at partnership really pushed Batman even farther into the 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.080 superhero territory than he'd been before. And you know that 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.760 pushed the villains that much farther into extremes, because right 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.320 after Robin's debut, you had a Joker who was evil 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:02.839 and dangerous a villains as there was. We had Catwoman, 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.240 two Face and the Penguin and the Riddler, who are 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.680 just as iconic as any heroes from that era. They 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.479 really tapped into something. They knew what would be popular, 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:16.680 they knew what would sell, they knew what the kids liked. 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:22.080 They did pay incredibly close attention to their competition, so 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.799 they paid attention to what kind of numbers is Superman doing, 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.479 what's going on in Captain Marvel this month, who's the 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.360 big new character on the stands, And if there was 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.360 a way for them to tap into an audience, even 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.839 if it was taking away readers from other books that 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:39.760 were coming out from the same publisher, then they had 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:44.440 tapped into that. And the first year before Robin was introduced, 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:48.799 the stories were very grim, they were very dark, and 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:54.000 very quickly the publisher realized, you know, we're reaching hundreds 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.000 of thousands, maybe millions of kids with these comics. Maybe 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.880 we have a responsibility here to be a better example 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.560 so they decided early on. Batman doesn't carry a gun. 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.240 Batman doesn't use lethal force. He tries to find a 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.480 better way to solve his problems. If he can solve 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.160 a problem without violence by using his intellect and using 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:19.600 his detective skills, that's even better. And you've been listening 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.560 to Andrew Farrago tell the remarkable story of Batman's history. 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.280 When we come back Batman through the years here on 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:32.440 our American Story Leh Habibi here the host of our 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.400 American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.760 stories from across this great country, stories from our big 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.160 cities and small towns. But we truly can't do the 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.920 show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.560 but they're not free to make. If you love what 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.760 you here, go to our American Stories dot com and 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.640 click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. 0:07:54.920 --> 0:08:09.440 Go to our American Stories dot com and give and 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.120 we're back with our American Stories and the story of Batman. 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.480 Andrew Farrago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum, was just 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.800 telling us how Bob Kane and Bill Finger not only 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.400 created the character but paid close attention to what the 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.640 audience wanted with the idea that children were their primary audience. 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.000 The publisher as well as the creators, made it clear 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:36.040 early that Batman didn't use lethal force, but rather his 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:44.160 intellect to defeat his foes. Back to Andrew, So Batman 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.439 was fighting murderers, he was fighting killers. He was fighting 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:49.360 really the lowest of the low as far as the 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.640 villains went. And as more children were reading these books, 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:58.080 as DC Comics was increasingly concerned about setting a good example, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.280 they realized, why don't we tone him down a little bit, 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.680 why don't we have him do funny crimes and zany crimes? 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:10.239 And by World War Two, especially when kids wanted lighthearted entertainment, 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.280 these adventures were becoming outrageous, more over the top. He 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.079 had another artist by the late forties early fifties come 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.640 on who really redefined Batman, an artist named Dick Sprang. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.720 He had a more cartoony art style, and Batman was 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:32.880 this big, barrel chested, smiling adventurer. Robin started cracking puns 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:37.640 and wacky jokes. They would have crazy adventures that involved 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:44.640 things like giant oversized prop typewriters, or blimp chases or 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.920 time travel bad guys that he's fighting during that time, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.600 include aliens, they include mad scientists. You may have a 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.520 criminal where Batman is trying to uncover his identity, and 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.480 they'll realize that the criminal is spelling out his name 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.120 one crime at a time. They went from being let's 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.280 be just a little bit different than the real world 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:08.400 to let's go totally nuts and have a crazy, fun 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:15.160 adventure story. I would imagine anybody who read the first 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.520 issues in nineteen thirty nine and then took a break 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.040 and came back around nineteen fifty two would not have 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:27.320 recognized the character. And actually this was totally fine with 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.439 the audiences, because up until that point there was constant 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.200 audience turnover in comic book readership. You did have some 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.480 diehard fans who started reading in the thirties and kept reading, 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.520 but generally speaking, kids would read from about eight until 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.560 maybe twelve or so, drop out, and then a new 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:47.720 batch of eight to twelve year olds would come in. 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.440 So stories didn't have to be particularly sophisticated. They didn't 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.080 really need continuity that carried over from one month to 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.840 the next. Stories could repeat themselves every few years because 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.280 they assumed that the reader were new and hadn't seen 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.560 them before. Characters like Batman and Superman. They were seen 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:09.160 as very safe, very respectable books that any kid could read. 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.280 You knew you were getting a good, reliable, adventure story 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:21.000 every month. By the early sixties, Batman was actually in 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.160 danger of cancelation. You know. It may have been that 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.360 they weren't challenging their audiences. They had competition from publishers 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.400 like Marvel, who were really winning the hearts and minds 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:35.520 of younger readers. They were seen as more dynamic, more fun, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.080 more challenging stories. At this point, they actually turned to 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:45.280 some creators who had recently revitalized one of their comics, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:50.000 The Flash. They took a character from World War Two 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.440 era and came up with a new version of him 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.520 that really engaged readers. It was exciting, it was more modern, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.600 it was more dynamic, where as Batman in the early 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.840 sixties look like a throwback kind of a relic. So 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.840 they had creators like writer Gardner Fox and artists Carmine 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.520 and Fantina come along, and this is this is really 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.400 what ultimately saved Batman. They did an era called the 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.280 New Look. They modernized him. He was not the barrel chested, 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.679 grinning kind of Superman. Knockoff character that he was. They 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.400 made him more streamlined, they made him a modern detective. 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:30.319 They gave him computer equipment and modernized everything about the character. 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:32.880 And that was, you know, that was a signal to 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.640 readers that hey, take a look, we're changing things. We 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.880 are aware that Marvel Comics exists and that that's the 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.079 comic of choice for young readers and teens right now. 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.280 But you know, we can be cool, we can be hip, 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.480 we can be with it. And right around that time, 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:56.800 executives at ABC, we're looking at bringing They wanted to 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.400 bring a comic strip to television. They wanted to take 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:04.200 advantage of things like technicolor, and they wanted to take 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.319 advantage of nostalgia that people had for popular characters. So 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.480 some producers, including a man named Bill Dozier, were determined 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.400 to bring comics to television. Somehow. That was going to 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:17.800 be it. That was going to be the kind of 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.480 thing that they could put toe to toe with shows 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.120 like The Adams Family and The Munsters that were winning 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:29.920 over young audiences. This really coveted young audiences and their families, 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.760 and they had all grown up reading Batman. They had 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.520 fond memories of him, and they thought, we can do this, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:42.480 we can make this a fun television show. The TV 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.240 show and A debuted in nineteen sixty six, was an 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.760 immediate sensation that it was a huge hit in the 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.040 ratings and really nothing would be the same for the 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.640 character after that. It was just a smash in every sense. 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.960 You had Adam West as Batman on the cover of 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:04.920 Time magazine, Life Magazine, TV Guide. You had fashions inspired 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:10.280 by Batman, you had catchphrases, you had every possible kind 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.640 of merchandise under the sun coming out. It put the 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.560 comic books back toward the top of the sales charts. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.200 You know, even though the show was campy, it was comedy, 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.880 it was humor, but really wasn't far off from the 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:30.040 source material. Adam West was perfect as a stoic, square jod, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.040 very sincere hero and crime fighter, and you had Burnt 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:38.960 Ward as his plucky, inquisitive, excitable sidekick. You know, if 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.360 you look at the if you look at the roster, 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.920 if you look at the cast list in the second 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.600 and third season, you'll see that Hollywood A listers were fighting, 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.680 they were begging to be on this show because they 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.920 wanted to be a Batman villain. Or make a cameo appearance. 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.080 It was the cool hip thing to do at the time. 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.640 You know, all good things must come to an end, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.240 and the ratings came tumbling back down to earth very 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:14.760 quickly in the third season, but the damage had been undone, 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:19.160 and Batman would have his ups and downs in the 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.720 years since, but there was never any danger of him 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:27.200 going away once the television show hit. The Batman TV 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:32.240 show came to define the character for a long time, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:34.600 for a good a good twenty years as far as 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:39.120 the public was concerned, and in a way, it came 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:43.320 to define comics. So you could not see a newspaper 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:48.280 headline from nineteen sixty six through maybe even the early 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.920 two thousands that didn't have Biff Bampow superheroes in the 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.280 in the headline. And not too long after that final 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:01.000 episode aired, the show started up again and syndication. So 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:05.240 much like Star Trek had this incredible shelf life after 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.520 its cancelation, so to Batman, because almost the minute the 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:13.240 new episode stopped, UHF stations picked it up and kids 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:19.160 could still watch Batman every day after school. So as 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:20.920 a as a kid in the eighties, that's how I 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.000 was introduced to Batman. So this really loomed large. This 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.880 was as far as the public is concerned, this was Batman. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.400 But that actually didn't sit well with some of the 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.320 comic book creators. They they looked at this campiness, They 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.920 looked at the silliness, and they realized, you know, if 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.840 we try to do this, if we try to translate 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.440 this exactly how it is on the screen to the comics, 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.080 you know, we're gonna we're gonna look like dinosaurs. The 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.520 TV show had had its chance. It came. It went, 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:53.920 we want to do modern comics. We want to do 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.520 things that again can go toe to toe with Marvel 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.360 comics and with the other comics that are on the rack. 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.120 And we've been listening to a remarkable story about Batman. 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.080 And it all started with money as the driving force. 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.400 Bob Kane had found out that the people making Superman 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.560 were making a couple of hundred bucks a week in 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:17.840 the Great Depression, and he thought, oh, I can come 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.280 up with my own character. He and his partner Bill Finger. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.840 It's just that by the end of the nineteen thirties 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.040 they had their own book. World War two came, people 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.879 were looking for an escape, and a different version of 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:33.080 Batman formed, and then came the early sixties. Batman's popularity 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.960 was waning, and in came the TV show, and soon 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:37.960 every a lister wanted to be a part of it. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.200 Burgess Meredith, Frank Goorsh and Eartha Kit, Jerry Lewis, Auto Premenger, 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.240 Sammy Davis Junior, and the list goes on. When we 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.480 come back, more of the story of Batman through the years, 0:17:48.640 --> 0:18:09.159 here on our American stories, and we're back with our 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.000 American stories and the story of Batman. Despite the widespread 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.960 praise of the nineteen sixties live action Batman show during 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.240 Adam West, the comic book writers felt the show was 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.639 too campy. They didn't want that reflected in the print 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.160 version because they would rather compete with what was going 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.760 on over at Marvel and other competitors. Andrew Farrago tells 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.760 us how instead the writers sought to pursue a darker tone. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:43.679 Prior to the sixties, comic books were, whether stereotypically or 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.600 just traditionally, they were there was something that a reader outgrew. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.760 The cliche is it's something that boys are into until 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.600 they discover girls. But with Marvel comics in the early sixties, 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.679 you know they had stories that were more geared toward 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.840 that's older audience. They were cured toward teenagers. They had 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.800 storylines that continued from one month to the next, and 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.200 they encourage readers to come back. With creators like Jack 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.560 Kirby and Steve Ditko and stan Lee, Marvel felt like 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:19.560 a clubhouse. And stan wrote columns and he answered letters 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.119 in the books that encouraged a dialogue between him and 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:27.960 the readers. So the Marvel Comics creators, instead of being faceless, 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.160 uncredited people behind the scenes, they were upfront. They had 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.680 Stanley's name, they had Jack Kirby's name, they had Steve 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.960 Dicko's name prominently displayed in the books, and readers responded 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:43.080 to that in a huge way. DC As they lost 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:44.960 more and more of their market share of Marvel, they 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.240 realized that they needed to catch up. They realized, and 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.360 if the audiences are sticking around, if we want them 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.520 to stick around, this is how we have to tail 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:55.639 our storetelling. This is what we have to do to 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:00.040 keep these readers here, keep them coming back. So I 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.359 give a lot of credit to Denny O'Neill. He was 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.560 very smart, he was very well read. His formal training 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.480 had actually been in journalism before getting into comic books. 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.639 He actually got into them kind of by accident because 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.000 he was interviewing Roy Thomas, who was a writer and 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.720 editor at Marvel Comics, and Roy suggested, Hey, we need 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.480 we need more, We need smart guys like you writing 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.320 comic books, and Denny went that direction. He was a hippie, 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.400 so you know, he brought kind of a more adult, 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.879 mature sensibility to the comics compared especially compared to what 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.080 had gone before, and they brought that sensibility over to Batman. 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:46.200 Their signature villain was a shadowy ancient criminal mastermind named 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:52.080 roz al Gul who planned to actually exterminate up to 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:56.200 ninety percent of the Earth's population because he felt that 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.639 eco terrorism was necessary to kind of restored balance to 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.320 the Earth. So this was this was very heavy stuff 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:09.800 compared to two Face robbing the Second National Bank at 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:15.560 two pm on Tuesday. They also had Robin grow up 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.400 and start going to college, so he had solo adventures, 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.240 So he had Batman throughout almost the whole decade of 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:26.160 the seventies. He had Batman as this solo adventurer and 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:32.280 Robin so after about ten years of solo Adventures. There 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.600 was kind of a half hearted attempt to bring him 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.919 back into the Batman stories. The problem was he was 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.840 now an older teenager. So the solution was to have 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:44.880 Dick Grayson, the original Robin, grow up a little bit 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.160 and take on a new superhero identity. So he did 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:52.640 that and became a character called Nightwing, and they introduced 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:56.320 a new sidekick for Batman named Jason Todd. And then 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.639 in the mid eighties, DC, to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary publishing, 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.480 decided to kind of start everything from scratch. They were 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:10.280 worried that new readers may have been put off by 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:12.840 having fifty years of history to all these characters, so 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.000 they wanted to do a fresh start with their comics. 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.679 And with this fresh start, they decided that Jason Todd, 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.280 instead of having an origin that was directly cribbed from 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:25.720 Dick Grayson's, they decided he should have a new origin. 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:30.280 They reinvented him as a street kid, a tough kid 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:35.160 who actually met Batman because he stole the Batmobile's tires. 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:44.320 Readers didn't really like this new version of him. They 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:46.760 thought he was kind of a he was kind of 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:51.000 a punk, you know. He was not properly deferential to Batman. 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.200 He was written especially by the next writer of the 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:56.960 Batman comics, Jim Starlin. He was written as kind of 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:02.439 a hothead. Yeah. Starwin actually did not like Jason Todd 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.520 or sidekicks and principle, so he kind of wrote a 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:09.280 version that he knew would be unlikable, that he knew 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:13.240 readers wouldn't warm too, and kind of brought everything to 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:17.320 a head with a storyline called a death in the Family. 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:24.760 They wanted to do a big publicity stunt draw attention 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:28.879 to their comics, and they wanted to take advantage of 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.960 then modern telephone technology, and they wanted to do a 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:36.280 call in poll. This was in part inspired by a 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:40.320 Saturday Night live call in poll where you determined whether 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:44.560 a lobster named Larry the Lobster would be boiled on 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:46.880 air or set free at the end of the night. 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:49.440 So they wanted to apply the same thing to a 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.679 DC Comics publication, and they said, we need to make 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:54.359 it big. We need to make it life or death 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.400 for readers to care enough to spend fifty cents to 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:00.520 call in and make this phone call. They decided we've 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.320 got this Jason Todd character let's put it to a vote. 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:06.320 Does he live or does he died? By a narrow, 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:11.560 very narrow margin, by about seventy two votes, readers said, yeah, 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:18.200 the Joker should kill Jason Todd. So they killed him 0:24:18.200 --> 0:24:22.400 off in this violent storyline. It got in national headlines. Yeah. 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:25.199 Denny O'Neill, who's the editor of those books, I was 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:27.040 able to talk to him about this, and he said 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:29.240 they had the fortune or misfortune of it hitting on 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:33.000 a slow newsday, so the comics sold out nationwide. They 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:39.840 rushed them. He caught grief from friends, neighbors, the local deli. 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.440 Everybody was upset at him for allowing this to happen. 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:47.760 It really indicated that the public was ready for a 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:52.520 much darker take on Batman, and that's really what we got. 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:58.800 But those darker comics paved the way for Tim Burton 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:02.600 Batman movies. It really was tapping into what this older 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:07.200 readership was seeking. We're now into at least the second generation, 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:11.400 maybe third generation of creators who grew up on Batman 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:16.879 comics and Batman movies and Batman television shows, who have 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:19.600 their own vision for the character. They know what kind 0:25:19.640 --> 0:25:21.520 of stories they want to tell, they know the best 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:25.640 way to tell them, and whether that's in comics or 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:28.760 movies or television or video games, we're getting some truly 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:36.240 incredible stories. It's a testament to the original core concept 0:25:36.240 --> 0:25:41.639 of Batman that he's more widely known than ever. You 0:25:41.680 --> 0:25:44.800 can barely say that about any other character from the 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:48.560 nineteen thirties. You can maybe say that about Superman. Mickey 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:53.920 Mouse doesn't have the cultural relevancy today, Popeye doesn't. Batman 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:58.920 is such an ageless, timeless concept. It's, you know, child 0:25:58.960 --> 0:26:04.560 suffers an unspeakable tragedy and then transforms himself into a protector, 0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:08.400 someone who whose mission is to make sure no one, 0:26:09.240 --> 0:26:13.359 no kid anywhere, has to go through what he did. 0:26:13.760 --> 0:26:17.640 And that's a story that you can tell today. It's 0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:19.400 a story you can tell one hundred years from now. 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:24.880 Batman is a wonderful vehicle for telling all manner of stories. 0:26:25.240 --> 0:26:29.800 You can tell Batman stories about street level crime, fighting 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:34.960 Nazis during World War Two, fighting fifth colonists, fighting communists 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:38.520 in the nineteen fifties. And I think that's going to 0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:40.920 be true ten years from now. I think it'll be 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:45.000 true one hundred years from now, and it is so true, 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:48.439 Batman will be around for a very long time. A 0:26:48.600 --> 0:26:51.680 terrific job by our own Monty Montgomery and Robbie Davis 0:26:51.720 --> 0:26:54.800 going his special thanks to Andrew Farrago, curator at the 0:26:54.840 --> 0:26:59.119 Cartoon Art Museum, an author of Batman, The Definitive History 0:26:59.359 --> 0:27:03.160 of the Dark Night in Comics, film and beyond. Get 0:27:03.200 --> 0:27:06.720 the book at the Usual Suspects online, and my Goodness. 0:27:06.800 --> 0:27:10.040 The major decision made was to stop catering just two 0:27:10.119 --> 0:27:13.080