[FIGHTING]
I'm vengeance.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Batman has been a presence in global culture
for over 80 years.
He's been everything, from a comedic children's show star
to an avenging ninja of the night to a literal vampire.
However, it seems like he's even more ubiquitous today than he
has ever been, which begs the question, how did we get here?
[THEME MUSIC]
For our new three-part series, we're
going to take a look at the entire history
of the iconic caped crusader.
Join us in an exploration through over 80 years
of Gotham City's lone defender.
The comic book character, The Batman,
first appeared in Detective Comics number 27,
published on March 10, 1939.
Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane,
the character was an avenging angel, a creature of the night,
and a distillation of all the pulp heroes of the 1920s.
He was a mix of The Shadow, Zorro, Robert the Bruce,
and Doc Savage.
And right from his first appearance,
he was a smash success.
When I started Batman, he was kind
of a vigilante, dark brooding, Dracula-like.
The character, who was created in an effort
by National Publications to clone the success of Siegel
and Shuster's Superman, captured a generation of readers
imaginations almost instantly.
Children and adults loved the somber tone, hard-boiled crime,
and gritty violence of the character.
It also didn't hurt that his costume was instantly iconic,
even if it did have purple gloves.
However, this version of Batman that we all know and love today
was almost very different.
Bob Kane, the man originally and widely credited
with Batman's creation, wanted him
to look a bit more like this.
His original idea was inspired by a museum visit
to see the works of Leonardo da Vinci.
Bill Finger, a writer who was a fan of the pulps
and sometimes worked for Kane as a ghostwriter,
developed him into the creature of the night we know today.
He also created Gotham City, the bat signal, the Batmobile,
Robin, and The Joker.
He didn't receive credit for these contributions
until the Batfleck era.
This initial version of Batman was much more a judge, jury,
and executioner-type pulp hero.
He took the law into his own hands,
killed criminals, and used guns.
He was a reflection at the time.
Crime in the 1930s was running rampant in America.
The population wanted someone with a sense of moral turpitude
to step in and do something about it.
Batman became a symbol of wish fulfillment
for the hungry masses.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(ON RECORDING) Deep in the cavernous chamber
is the strange hidden headquarters
of America's number one crime fighter, Batman.
Batman's first appearance on the silver screen
came in the form of the 1943 Columbia Pictures
serial simply titled Batman.
Chronicled over 15 parts and released
in the lead up to World War II, the film
is very much of its time.
(ON RECORDING) Since the wise government
rounded up the shifty-eyed Japs, it
has become virtually a ghost street.
Directed by Lambert Hillyer and starring Lewis Wilson
as Batman, it's a jingoistic and racist piece of propaganda
in which Batman goes toe to toe with the cartoonishly evil Dr.
Daka, an agent of the Japanese government hell-bent
on overthrowing America.
My country shall destroy the democratic forces of evil
in the United States to make way for the new order.
Ultimately, it's not hard to see exactly how this film was
a direct reflection of the fears and prejudices of its time.
It's just a bigoted screed against Japanese-Americans.
It is, without a doubt, the most shameful and regrettable aspect
of the long and storied legacy of the Dark Knight.
In 1949, a sequel series was produced also by Columbia,
titled New adventures of Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder.
It starred Robert Lowery as Batman, Johnny Duncan as Robin,
and follows the dynamic duo as they go up
against a villain named The Wizard who
can control cars with a hand-held piece
of futuristic technology.
This serial is far less racially divisive than its predecessor,
but also fails to have anything substantial or new
to say about the Dark Knight.
At least Batman's cowl looks much less
like a last-minute Halloween store purchase.
You better be careful.
I think she's beginning to get wise that Batman and Bruce
Wayne are the same.
As we moved into the 1950s, Batman
was being reinvented on the comic book page.
Gone was the dark, brooding, and murderous vigilante.
This new iteration was a trippy psychedelic adventure book,
four-color fantasy, and goofy villains
were the taste du Jour.
Dick Sprang took over the artwork
from the supposed original co-creator Bob Kane
who, in fact, never drew the book,
but used an army of ghost artists and writers.
Sprang's work was a direct reaction to the fact
that in the early 1950s, comic books
were being blamed for all the evils of the world.
A Senate subcommittee had been convened,
led by Senator Estes Keyfauver, to publicly try comic books
for all the juvenile delinquency the country was experiencing.
It is directly responsible for a substantial amount
of juvenile delinquency and child crime.
Batman essentially stopped being a book
about being a crime fighter.
He became a zany kid's comic that was equal parts science
fiction and comedy.
Bright colors and far-out ideas were the narrative grist
for the metaphorical mill.
Batman would more or less exist in this way
as a sanitized, squeaky-clean crime fighter in name
only throughout much of the '50s and '60s.
In fact, notorious DC editor Mort Weisinger,
who took over the bat titles around this time,
would generate story ideas by asking
young children what they would do if they have superpowers.
These non-sequitur and often exceedingly bizarre
suggestions would be transformed into cover images
at Weisinger's direction.
And then the artist and writer would have
to build stories around them.
That's how you get stories with titles like The Rainbow Batman,
and Sir Batman and Robin in King Arthur's Court.
[TV STATIC]
These smart--
[TV STATIC]
--snack on more Batman--
[TV STATIC]
--savings, stamps, and bonds--
[TV STATIC]
1966 saw the introduction of the widely popular Adam West
vehicle, Batman.
Despite only running from January 12, 1966
to March 14, 1968, the show was nothing short
of a cultural phenomenon.
It captured the collective imagination
by mimicking the tone and aesthetic
of the Sprang-era comic with shocking accuracy.
Positioning the Dark Knight as a comedic persona,
the show rode the wave of pop art and psychedelia
to a legacy that's still being felt almost 50 years later.
In many ways, this light and airy version of Batman
seems to be making fun of the idea
that an individual can affect serious change.
Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.
The '60s were a decade of massive upheaval
for the country with rapidly shifting cultural mores,
young people exploring their sexuality,
and the flower power movement questioning
every power structure and symbol of the status quo.
The TV version of Batman seemed to existentially mock every one
of those new ideas.
The notion that someone could work outside the system
and ostensibly will themselves into being greater
than their means is the subconscious punch
line of almost all the jokes within the show.
It happened at C. C?
C for Catwoman!
The core idea of Batman is that his superpower is his mind.
He is human will personified.
This idea was threatened by the growing power of the youth
movement of the 1960s, and so this became the humor mechanic
for every episode.
Batman's gadgets got so outlandish
they became ridiculous.
His detective capabilities were so unstoppable,
it was highly humorous.
It's the basic formula for escaping from a Siamese Human
Knot, and I just recalled it.
The global popularity of the Batman '66 TV show cannot be
overstated.
It was so beloved, it spawned bootleg films
all over the globe.
The Mexican Batwoman, Filipino Batman Fights Dracula,
and James Batman being some of the most infamous.
In some ways, this Batman would be the Batman
that all of the live action iterations
would contend with going forward.
The more serious and grounded they were,
the more tangibly they were a reaction to the '66 TV show,
the more they were directly not Adam West.
Also released in 1966 was Batman's
first theatrical feature film debuting two months
after the climax of season one.
This film is in some ways the apothesis of a four color pop
approach to Batman.
Despite its cultural dominance, the Batman '66 interpretation
of the character was over before it started,
and the rights to the character languished for close
to a decade.
[TV STATIC]
--new adventures--
[TV STATIC]
--bat copter--
[TV STATIC]
--equal pay --law
[TV STATIC]
--holy cow--
[TV STATIC]
In 1979, a young production assistant and comic book fan
named Michael Uslan--
who'd been keeping an eye on the rights-- came into the picture.
He was waiting for his moment.
And when the rights lapsed due to no one being
interested in them, he purchased them outright from Fox.
This would prove to be one of the smartest plays
in the history of Hollywood.
How does a kid in his 20s buy the rights to Batman?
Nobody else in the world showed up.
Meanwhile in the comics industry,
the 1970s saw Batman going through a Renaissance.
Artist Neal Adams and writer Denny O'Neil
were taking Bruce Wayne and pushing him back to his roots.
Gone was the biff, bang, pow.
And here was a brooding detective,
a creature of the night, a globe-trotting playboy
with a deep well of torment.
This version of Batman--
often referred to as the world's greatest detective--
was a grounded, gritty, and character-rich version
of Bruce Wayne.
Inspired by the deep mistrust of the government spinning out
of Watergate and the Nixon presidency,
Batman during this time period was constantly
involved in conspiracies.
He was pushed to the limit of his being
by a series of new villains, with Ra's Al
Ghul leading the pack.
Michael Uslan would spend nearly the next decade
of his life attempting to get a Batman feature
film off the ground with little to no success.
Hollywood just couldn't see past the towering figure
that was Adam West.
Sure the comics might be dark and serious,
but the cultural memory was Burt Ward shouting--
Holy mechanical armies!
Exactly, Robin.
[TV STATIC]
--there's something new in Gotham city--
[TV STATIC]
----[INAUDIBLE] I know where we can hide--
[TV STATIC]
--Batman cartoon kit--
[TV STATIC]
As the '80s rolled around, the one-two punch
of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns
and Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke
took the character to new levels of maturity and sales.
These two books were massive successes,
catapulting the character to being read by people outside
of the comic world for the first time in decades.
Towards the end of the '80s, Warner Brothers--
who had recently bought DC Comics--
came calling on Michael Uslan.
They wanted to buy the rights to Batman from him
with the intention of making a new feature film franchise.
However, Uslan refused to sell.
This ultimately settled in a deal
where Uslan would license the character to WB for a fee
and an executive producer credit on every Batman project.
That's right.
He's been a producer on every version of Batman
that has been produced ever since.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
1987 saw the young, hot, director
Tim Burton handed the reins to Batman.
WB executives were initially hoping
that Burton would be interested in developing a script titled
The Batman, written by James Bond screenwriter, Tom
Mankiewicz.
Burton felt that Mankiewicz's draft
was too jokey and Bond-esque.
I never joke about my work double, 007.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
At one time, Ivan Reitman had been attached to the project
and had wanted Bill Murray to play Batman and Eddie
Murphy to play Robin.
Burton eventually works with comic book scribe Steve
Englehart to write a new draft of the script
based on Englehart's Batman - Strange Apparitions book.
WB felt the project lacked gravitas and let Engelhart
go in favor of hiring the young, up-and-coming screenwriter
Sam Hamm.
He proved to be the secret ingredient
to get the film to a place where Warners were seriously
considering giving it a green light.
Ultimately, it was the massive financial success
of Burton's Beetlejuice that convinced WB
to give the film the go-ahead.
I've been in show business, what, 35 years--
Since you were alive.
--40 years?
And this is the biggest thing [INAUDIBLE] do.
1989 saw the release of arguably the biggest
event in Batman's 80 year history,
the release of Tim Burton's Batman,
starring Michael Keaton as Batman
and Jack Nicholson is The Joker.
The film redefined Batman in the cultural consciousness
yet again.
Gone was Adam West's campy comedy romp.
And in its place was a neo-German expressionist Gothic
take on the character, equally as influenced
by Fritz Lang and Robert [? Wine. ?]
This version of Batman captured the imagination of a generation
unlike anything before.
The bat logo might as well have been a national insignia
in the summer of 1989.
Warner Brothers capitalized off the success of the film
with a publicity tour and merchandising tie-in
campaign the likes of which had not been seen before.
The film itself took a tone closer to the original comics
of the '30s, but swapped out much
of the gallivanting playboy Bruce Wayne
for a lonely outsider pretending to be a playboy.
The element that really captivated everyone and worked
to redefine Batman was the aesthetic
of the film, the production designed by Anton Furst
is jaw dropping.
Its use of matte paintings make it feel otherworldly
in a way a comic book film never had.
It's hard to overstate just what a success Batman was.
News broadcast declared it the summer of Batman.
[TV STATIC]
--they're bat fanatics-- [TV STATIC]
--the film they have been waiting for--
[TV STATIC]
--Batmania this summer--
[TV STATIC]
--so big it had to be held in two theaters--
It was nearly inescapable how pervasive the Dark Knight was.
The immense hunger for the character
couldn't be satiated by the film either,
with loads of merchandise, comics, and video games being
sold in its wake.
The film was critically praised, made over $400 million
worldwide, and made being a nerd cool for the first time.
The dark and Gothic aesthetic of the film
was pushed even further heights in 1992
with the release of Batman Returns,
the most bizarre and overtly fetish-driven
Batman film that will ever be produced.
Burton and Keaton returned to Gotham,
this time joined by actors Michelle Pfeiffer
as Catwoman and Danny DeVito as The Penguin.
Given free reign after having proved himself
with the original Batman and Edward Scissorhands,
Burton pushed every element of Returns
to its furthest possible capabilities.
There were more matte paintings, more characters, more sets,
and more outlandish ideas.
It's not every comic book movie where
one of the lead characters is dressed as a dominatrix
and says,
The thought of busting Batman makes me feel all dirty.
Unfortunately, audiences did not embrace Returns the way
they had with its predecessor.
It still made $266 million at the box office,
but the powers that be at Warner Brothers
thought the film underperformed due to its dark overtones
and sexual nature.
Despite attempting to develop a third Batman film,
Burton's relationship with WB fell apart.
And he left the franchise forever.
Warner's knew they had a cash cow on their hands, though.
They wanted to keep the franchise going,
just retool without Burton.
And as such, they wanted to keep the market warm and receptive
to Batman content.
They used their burgeoning animation studio
to push forward with one of the most successful incarnations
of Batman to ever be produced.
[TV STATIC]
(ON RECORDING) --tomorrow on Batman--
(ON RECORDING) --combat built Batman--
[TV STATIC]
(ON RECORDING) --Batman happy meal--
[TV STATIC]
(ON RECORDING) --high-powered Batcycle--
[TV STATIC]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The project that spun out of this effort
was Batman, The Animated Series, developed
by iconic animation talents Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski.
The series premiered on September 5, 1992
and ran until September of 1995.
The show totaled 85 episodes, with
a 20-episode spin-off reboot series titled The Adventures
of Batman & Robin.
Tim and Radomski would take some of the ideas from Burton's
rendition, some from Neal Adams visuals,
and some from the original concepts
of the character that redefined what children's animation could
be.
Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski developed
a visual palette commonly referred to
as "Dark Deco," which has been an influence on almost
every version of the Batman since.
The show's backgrounds were animated on black paper,
causing everything to have a murky atmosphere to it.
It took the best of the previous incarnations of the Dark Knight
from the comics, films, and TV show,
and repackaged them for arguably the best and most
impactful iteration of the character.
1993 saw the release of Batman's first theatrical animated film
produced by the team behind the animated series, titled
Mask of the Fantasma.
The film failed at the box office,
but would go on to be commonly considered
one of the best Batman pieces of media ever created.
I don't want to let you down, honest.
But it just doesn't hurt so bad anymore.
As 1993 rolled on, Batman had lost his way in the comics.
Attempting to keep up with the trend of extreme things
being popular, Batman had shifted
to being depicted like an almost literal monster.
The beloved horror Illustrator Kelley Jones
was the primary visual stylist behind this incarnation
of Bruce.
In fact, he was made into a literal vampire in the aptly
named Batman Vampire.
And then, of course, you have the whole Batman
getting his back broken thing.
It was against the backdrop to this explicitly horror-fueled
take on Batman that saw The Lost Boys and St.
Elmo's Fire director Joel Schumacher being brought in
for what would eventually be titled Batman Forever.
[GUNFIRE]
Your entrance was good, his was better.
After Returns pulled in significantly less money
than its predecessor, Warner's decided to take pitches
from multiple directors.
They met with Sam Raimi, John McTiernan.
Ultimately, it was Schumacher that won the job.
From there, screenwriting duo Lee Batchler and Janet
Scott-Batchler were brought in to pen the script.
The creative collective wanted the duality
of Bruce Wayne and Batman to be at the center of the story.
This was initially very intriguing
to Michael Keaton who wanted to do an origin picture,
pushing the darker, emotional roots of Batman.
Schumacher and company didn't want to pursue this direction,
and Keaton walked away from the project.
Schumacher's incarnation of Batman
starred a recast Val Kilmer as the lead in the picture.
And seemed like it would be a course correction from Returns.
The film has a distinctly lighter tone to it,
aiming to be a more camp-fueled adventure romp.
Regrettably, Forever doesn't hold a candle
to the Burton films.
Between the bizarre shifts in tone, slapstick comedy, and Jim
Carrey playing The Joker in a Riddler suit,
the film lacks the identity and personality
that either of the Burton films have.
Despite its shift in tone, the film
was embraced by fans and audiences
alike, pulling in close to $340 million worldwide.
Thanks to this undeniable success,
Warner Brothers rushed a sequel into production.
Schumacher returned to shepherd the project.
He wanted to do the big budget version of the 1966 TV
show this go around.
Chicks dig the car.
This is why Superman works alone.
Batman and Robin, released in 1997,
pulled in George Clooney as Batman and Arnold
Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze.
It was a critical and box office disaster.
It completely failed to connect with audiences, fans,
or even fellow creatives.
The film is commonly considered the worst piece
of Batman media ever produced.
And its failure sent the film franchise
in a tailspin for close to a decade.
Both Burton and Schumacher struggled
with studio interference as they were
producing their first films.
And then, after financial windfall,
were allowed more freedom.
Burton's latex-driven, sexually preoccupied story
holds together much better than Schumacher's campy throwback.
Unequivocally, things looked bleak for Batman
on the big screen.
The franchise was in shambles, the character was a punch line,
and Warner's had no idea what to do with him.
But thankfully, a new beginning was just around the corner.
It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.
Please come back next time to see just what the dynamic duo
will get into as we continue our series, Batman,
How Did We Get Here?
(ON RECORDING) Same bat time, same bat channel.
And as always, please subscribe to the Nerdstalgic Channel
in order to keep up with all our videos.
[CREDITS THEME]