As we've said over and over again, with as much wonderful pop goodness as was going on in 1966, it is impossible to overstate the overall prevalence of...BATMAN. Love it or hate it, the US went "batty" in '66 over the Adam West /Burt Ward series that brought the homosexual word "camp" into a mainstream context.
I had been 7 years old for only a few days and I had anxiously awaited the first episode after seeing the commercials, even though I wasn't even yet collecting comic books. The night it aired, I was playing at my friend Jeff's house and had completely forgotten about it... but someone there remembered and turned on the TV in their living room just in time for us to lie on the floor enraptured for a full half hour.
And best of all, Jeff's family had COLOR TV! My family was black and what only for another 2 and a half years which means I never once saw an episode of BATMAN in color until the reruns popped up on the new UHF station that began operation in the Fall of '68.
Colorful, funny and exciting, the show had its impact in me all over again! When I got the chance to meet Adam West at a car show in the 1980s, I jumped at it, even though he was just handing out these "pre-signed" photos. By that point I was in my mid-20's!
Accompanying this post are 3 images of Batman, Robin and the Penguin that I drew myself in 1966, obviously after I had started collecting comics since I knew the right colors.
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