And Now, A Word From Our Sponsors...

Excuse us as we take a brief (well, one day isn't exactly brief, is it?) pause to plug something Bat-related — and rather 1966-ish, too.

Chip Kidd is a noted designer, with a slew of great book jackets — along with novels and all sorts of other nifty stuff — to prove it. But he's also a Batfan's Batfan, responsible for a number of great Bat-books that you should all own. Batman Collected, for one.

Back in October, his Bat-Manga! The Secret History Of Batman In Japan came out. It's a great thing, covering the nutty Batman comics that were created in Japan. Turns out, the Japanese were just as Bat-crazy as we were back in 1966, and their Batman duked it out with dinosaurs and all sorts of whacky stuff.

AIGA Raleigh is bringing him to town for a lecture — and he'll be signing copies of his book or anything else you wanna drag in.

Cheese Monkeys, Peanuts And The Occasional Batman —
An Evening With Chip Kidd.

Saturday, February 21, 2009
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Meredith College — Jones Auditorium & Rotunda
Raleigh, NC 27607

You can find out more, and sign up, here.

Activate the Bat-Enlarger on the image below and it gets really huge.

And now, we return to our usual daily Bat-nonsense.

Holy Toybox!

"Batman, like Robin and Superman were the first WGSH figures produced and never left the assortment. Batman also has the distinction of being one of the few figures to make it into every Mego Superhero line, no matter the format, Mego put a Batman into the mix.

One of the more fondly remembered features of the Mego Batman figure are the "oven mitt" style gloves that the early WGSH characters had. The "oven mitt' gloves had a relatively short tenure at Mego, by 1974 the Green Arrow had painted hands with a cloth cuff. In 1975, characters like Iron Man began appearing with a solid plastic glove. Despite the fact that the company kept improving the gloves, Mego never thought to go back and fix the oven mitts from previous releases. "If it ain't broke don't fix it", seems to be the motto here.

The character of Batman has always been appealing to toy manufacturers because of the many vehicles and gadgets the character uses. Mego was quick to exploit Batman with many Bat related playsets and vehicles.

The character, still made popular by afternoon reruns of it's 60's smash TV Series, was a standout seller for Mego. The early figures had a removable cowl that allowed children to go from Batman to his alter ego Bruce Wayne."

- From The Mego Museum

Holy Hi-Fi!

Of course, Batman's theme song has entered our collective pop culture lexicon thing — whatever that is. Let's just say that as many people know Batman for its theme as for the Batmobile.

So, the Hollywood money machine wasted no time in getting their slick mitts into the wallets of the Bat-crazed kids of America.


20th Century-Fox put out an album with tunes — and dialogue — pulled from the earliest episodes. Nelson Riddle handled the conducting. It contains the Batusi.


"The Batman Theme" was written by Neal Hefti, so the next time around, he got to handle the album himself. It also contains "The Batusi." This is a glorious mono copy we're looking at here.

There's a rumour that Sun Ra plays organ on this. It's not true, but we'll get to that on another post. Why hurry? We got a whole year.


By the time this LP came around, the Batcraze must've been at full swing, because it sounds like Hefti's got a bigger band to work with. The arrangements are much fuller. The LSP catalog number from RCA indicates a stereo copy. Of course, the big bold STEREO says a lot.

But the Dynamic Duo aren't done with our record players just yet.

Stay tuned. Same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel.

Bat Babes For Everyone!

Even Mr. Freeze had one...

Otto Preminger and Dee Hartford in either "Deep Freeze" or "Green Ice". The only couplet of episodes where Preminger played Mr. Freeze and memorable for his "Operation Hate Batman" ploy. Which, of course, only worked until about 10 minutes into "Green Ice."

He was followed by Eli Wallach and proceeded by George Saunders as the other Mr. Freezes, respectively.

Otto was, well he was Otto Preminger, for sweet baby jesus' sake.

Dee was once married to both Howard Hawks and later, to Groucho Marx. And she outlived them both.

You wouldn't want to fuck with her.

Even if you were one of the three Mr. Freezes...

Batman On Our Crumbling Highways.

In honor of the new infrastructure we're supposedly gonna get —

Batman: "Better put five cents in the meter."

Robin: "No policeman's going to give the Batmobile a ticket."

Batman: "This money goes to building better roads. We all must do our part."

Bat-Bicycle?

So, Robin is probably out with the kids, whooping and hollering in the Batmobile, leaving Batman home in the Bat Cave. Suddenly, the Bat Signal goes off - always the work of the trusty Commissioner Gordon - which means there's a Bat Emergency!

Forgetting about his myriad Bat Means of Transportation (and Batgirl's Batcycle), Batman grabs Batgirl (literally) and off they go on the Bat Banana Seat to save the day!!!

(Don't forget your cowl, Batman!!!)

Raleigh should have made one of these...or at least Schwinn.

In 1974, Kent Bicycles did. But of course, the Bat Craze was over by then...

While Gotham Sleeps.

For a campy TV show, this photo's pretty campless. Came across this one on a Batmobile site. There, you'll also find a contact sheet from the same shoot.

There's a lot to like here: the noir-ish lighting, the dust and dirt on the image, the glow from the Batmobile's interior, or the simple fact that youthful ward Dick Grayson was playing Yahtzee with Aunt Harriet while Batman patrolled the streets of Gotham City.

Click the image, citizens, to activate the Atomic Bat-Enlarger.