Babs Cleaned Up

And she wasn't halfway bad looking to start with...

Why haven't we named a bridge or something after this guy?

Barbra Streisand gets that Kennedy Center thing and george waGGner gets nothing? What the hell?

george waGGner -- yes, that's spelled right -- was one of the main Batman directors. He also directed, and in some cases wrote, the following:

Man Made Monster (1941)
The Wolf Man (1941)
The Ghost Of Frankenstein (1942)
Invisible Agent (1942)
The Phantom Of The Opera (1943)
The Climax (1944)
The Fighting Kentuckian (1949)
Operation Pacific (1951)
Red Nightmare aka The Commies Are Coming, The Commies Are Coming (1957)

It's all good stuff. As for the photo, that's not waGGner. It's Vincent Price as Egghead in one of waGGner's episodes. (And yes, Price deserves his own bridge, too.)

This Is What It Sounds Like...

...when Batman punches you in the fucking face.

"To The Bat-Truck!"

Now you can patrol Gotham, or hit the McDonald's drive-through, in the jet-black splendor of a 1999 Dodge Ram once owned by our beloved Adam West!

You'll find it on eBay Motors. V-8. Automatic. Four wheel drive. Lift kit. Only the best for the Caped Crusader. After all, he's accustomed to some pretty bitchin' wheels.

But where's the Bat-Ram? Where's the Emergency Bat-Turn Lever? And where's the 2F-3567 license plate?

Only One Way Into The Bat-Cave

Unless of course, you are driving the Batmobile and you drive through that moss covered boulder thing (wonder if there was any religious symbolism there? Nahh, probably not...) or if you were one of the countless villains who "somehow" got in through "somewhere else."

OK, let's just say that there's only one way into the Bat-Cave IF you are in the parlour of Wayne Manor.

And it goes like this:


You have to decapitate Shakespeare and push down on what, I guess, would be his esophagus, forcing what oxygen that was left in his dying throat to force open the library entrance to the Bat-Poles, where then, one would slide down into the Bat-Cave somehow suiting one's self up perfectly in costume, belt buckles buckled and all.

Yep. That's the way it happens.

For real.

Come to Jeer -- Stay to Cheer!

In 1965, Columbia Pictures re-released its Batman (1943) and Batman And Robin (1949) serials to surprising approval. Only thing was, audiences weren't thrilled, they were laughing. There were two-part matinees and straight-through marathons (15 episodes totaled about four bladder-busting hours).

They were even shown at the Playboy Mansion. An ABC executive attended one of those bunny-fied screenings, the story goes, and it had a huge influence on the flavor of the Batman TV show.


Columbia's Batman serials are pretty cheap affairs. Pretty much anything producer Sam Katzman every touched was really low-rent, from Batman And Robin to Harum Scarum with Elvis. In the first serial, Batman drives a Cadillac. In the second, he and Robin fight crime in a Mercury. But however threadbare they are, the serials did add to the whole Batman mythos: the Batcave was introduced here (a desk in front of a fake rock wall), as was its secret entrance through the Wayne Manor study. Both innovations would make it into the comics, the TV show and everything that came after.

In Batman And Robin, Commissioner Gordon is played by Lyle Talbot. He also played Lex Luthor in the Atom Man Vs. Superman serial. Over the course of his long Hollywood career, Talbot would work with everyone from Roy Rogers and Mae West to Ed Wood. He's in Wood's Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait and Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The Batman serials were also available in 8mm for home use. (This was long before home video, citizens.) I had the first one, Batman, that way. I ran it a million times.

Topps

In 1966, Topps produced three different series of Batman bubblegum trading cards. The cards were based on original pencil drawings by Golden Age comics artist Bob Powell, and painted by several artists, including pulp cover art painter Norm Saunders, who had done the "Mars Attacks" set for Topps in 1962.

The first series had 55 cards, the second 44 and the third 44, totaling 143 cards. They came wrapped in the famous Topps wax wrappers and sold for a nickel each. On the backs of the cards were storyline synopsi and "collect 'em all" puzzles.

The above card is #10a from series 2. Looks like they're going for about $250.00 per set on eBay.

Topps was right outside the Holland Tunnel in New Jersey. Hell, maybe it still is...