Been Watching the Adam West Batman show · 2:45am Mar 10th, 2019
Well, rather, I've been watching it for a while now. To be specific, I started back in the summer, when my dad and I discovered reruns of it on MeTV on Saturday nights, and came in around the middle of Season Two. Rapidly it became part of our weekend, watching the campy adventures of Adam West and Burt Ward's hysterically straight-laced Batman and Robin, and all the gloriously silly villains they would go up against. 
And of course, that theme song...
Then for Christmas I got a collection of the entire show as a present, and recently my dad and I started watching the series right from the very beginning.
And how does it compare to the episodes we'd watched previously?
It's a very surprising experience, to be sure. XD
- For one thing, while the show was never NOT silly, the first season's episodes do have something of an "edge" to them. Especially in the pilot episode with The Riddler. For one, Riddler's scheme involves some fairly sound (for a comic book) planning, namely in that he tricks Batman into arresting him so he can sue him for assault. (Also, the famous "Batusi" dance that this show made? The result of Riddler effectively slipping Batman a mickey, intending to damage his reputation by getting him drunk in public. Wow...)
- Also, I really have to say this too... Frank Gorshin as the Riddler is freaking intense. With his psychotically manic giggle and gleefully wicked mannerisms - there's a genuinely unsettling moment in the pilot where the Riddler picks up a scalpel and leers at a captive Robin - this is an iteration of the Prince of Puzzles who honestly comes off as a bigger psychopath than The Joker himself.
- In fact, funnily enough, compared to several of the other major Bat-villains, Mister J actually comes off as very much a lesser threat. One particularly humorous instance of this, especially in hindsight of later incarnations of the character, is when the Joker (believing his latest death trap to have worked) orders to shut off the flow of poisonous gas to it, because he doesn't want it to leak and hurt any nearby civilians. Very conscientious, Mister Joker!
- It was very interesting to watch the first Mr. Freeze episode for a lot of reasons. One of the major ones being that this version of the character, while still a humorous pun-spouting mad scientist, almost feels like something of a prelude to the tragic villain incarnation made famous by Batman the Animated Series. Mainly because his motivation here isn't just "make money off some wacky scheme" but is along the lines of "get revenge on the man who knocked me into the freezing chemicals"... which, here, is Batman himself surprisingly enough. Also, at one point in his episode Mr. Freeze makes a short speech about how he can never walk in the sun or hold another's hand again, which feels to me that Paul Dini was taking notes when he wrote "Heart of Ice" for the animated series.
- One thing that I really didn't expect when I saw Julie Newmar's Catwoman? I really didn't expect to see her set an honest-to-Christ tiger on Batman, or try to feed Robin to a pair of tigers either. Seriously, that was something else... a lot of this show is so often campy and low-budget, but let me tell you, the sight of Batman (well, okay, the stunt guy dressed as Batman) wrestling a goddamned tiger was pretty damn suspenseful. XD
- Another villain that really surprised me watching this show? The Mad Hatter. The episode with him is a lot less goofy in its humor compared to say, Joker or Penguin, and his villainous goal is really freaking disturbing. It's not some crazy get-rich scheme or robbery, it's... that he wants to make Batman and Robin into hats. 
As in, he literally wants to capture them, and flay them alive on a conveyor belt to make into hats as part of his revenge. That's pretty hardcore. Probably the major reason he only had two appearances across the entire series' run, now that I think about it...
Anyway, just wanted to share some of these loosely-connected thoughts, that I've had over the past few weeks of watching some of these episodes. Been having a ball with this show so far, and hope to continue enjoying it in the future...
Same bat-time, same bat-channel. 
Cool. I watched it on Sci-Fi channel back in the day. Honestly I enjoyed Green Hornet more. Probably had something to do with Kato and the Black Beauty. That said, this show is iconic for a number of reasons and yes, Frank Gorshin was my favorite actor in this show and he put all his energy into the role. And this cemented (or typecast) Adam West in the superhero genre. This show was definitely camp but it was hilarious to watch and had a lot of great actors including Burgess Meredith and Roddy McDowell (who went on to play Mad Hatter in BTAS)
My brothers and I have started watching the Gunsmoke series and I can see why the show ran for 20 years and almost 500 episodes.
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Wow...
Heh, that's interesting. Admittedly, I've only seen The Green Hornet when he and Kato guest-starred on Batman, and that didn't really do much for me, but hey, I'm sure that there's more to the actual series than in their guest appearance. XD Yes, there's a lot to recommend about this classic Batman, from West to Gorshin to Meredith (I wish I'd mentioned him in the post, he was a great performance)… and yeah, until you pointed that out I'd forgot that Roddy McDowell was in this show AND in BTAS
Ah yes, Gunsmoke! My dad's a HUGE fan of that series.
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Yeah, the Green Hornet didn't take off like Batman did in the 60's. The show had a serious atmosphere in contrast to Batman's more humorous antics so it didn't do well with kids who were the main audience of the show. The modern Seth Rogen film didn't do it any favors and is a hard pass but I'd say give the show a watch if you ever get the chance. It was Bruce Lee's first big tv role in the States and it's still a big hit in China.
The 60's show gets a lot of shout outs from Adam West playing an actor who was typecast as super hero character in BTAS, characters like King Tut, Bookworm and Louie the Lilac appearing in Brave and the Bold and even Ma Mayhem starring in an episode of Batman Beyond. If not for that series, we might not have had a Batman franchise to speak of.
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Ah, I see. Well then, I'll try and keep an eye out for it sometime.
Yep, I know a number of those references to the classic show. "Beware the Grey Ghost" is one of my all-time favorite BTAS episodes. And I remember the Ma Mayhem episode of Batman Beyond
To say nothing of the references on Brave and the Bold. Yeah, there's a LOT we owe to this show. As you say, without it we very well may not have had a Batman franchise as such 
So yeah, respect the West show, folks!