JIM HENDRICKS: Adam West made Batman fun

They just don’t make Batman like they used to.

Ever since Frank Miller’s back-to-his-roots Dark Knight version of Batman took firm grip of the character as DC Comics tried to “out-grit” Marvel and make characters who fly, pick up mountains, shoot laser beams from their eyes and have unlimited wealth that they use to create armored suits and vehicles seem more down to earth and real, Batman hasn’t been a whole lot of fun.

That thought struck me this weekend when I found out Adam West, who played the Caped Crusader on TV when I was a kid, had died at age 88.

I understand now that Batman, as featured in the 1966-68 TV series, was campy. But for a kid, it was just a good time with a couple of superheroes who came out of the pages of the comic books I was reading to take on villains that popped out of those same stories.

I was as deep into Batman as you could get. I kept every Batman comic my older brother, Jesse, bought after he read them and passed them down. I had a Batman cowl (sort of like the old Mickey Mouse felt caps, but with a mask and bat ears instead of rat ears); a Batman cape (blue with the Bat Signal emblazoned on it and a straight bottom. I knew it was supposed to be plain with a ragged bottom, but you dealt with what you got); a wide selection of Batman T-shirts; a big yellow vinyl utility belt that you could put detective equipment, such as magnifying glasses and pocketknives, in, and two Batmobiles — a big plastic one and the classic metal Corgi miniature with the Batman and Robin figures, the Bat-ram and red plastic Bat Missiles that would fire.

And I don’t care what anyone thinks. Adam West had the all-time coolest Batmobile.

Twice a week, sometimes wearing my mask, I watched Batman and Robin fight crazy villains, portrayed, I later learned, by stars who got a kick out of playing characters they’d read about in the comic books. Even in my childhood naivety, however, I did have to question why The World’s Greatest Detective, the man who could constantly outwit the Joker, the Riddler and the Penguin, didn’t realize that there were three different Catwomans. Or maybe it should be Catwomen.

But no matter. Adam West, later dubbed the “Bright Knight” by his ol’ chum Burt Ward, who played Robin, made Batman something that Michael Keaton, Christian Bale and Ben Affleck couldn’t.

He made Batman fun.

That’s not to say I didn’t like the character as it was portrayed in the later films — I especially liked Bale’s trilogy — but I don’t feel a need to watch them again. There’s enough angst in the world without dealing with the issues of a fictional humorless billionaire driving an armored vehicle and fighting bad guys in a grimy facsimile of New York.

Over the years, however, when an old “Batman” with West has come on while I was channel-surfing, I’ve at least paused on it — until my wife comes into the room and gently suggests, “Turn that. Now.”

In fact, after I read about West passing away, I looked up some of the YouTube videos. There was the scene where Batman was trying to dispose of a sizzling bomb while nuns and ducks got in the way. Celebrities would pop their heads out of windows as the Dynamic Duo walked up the side of buildings using their Batarang and Bat Rope.

And, of course, there was the infamous shark scene.

Batman’s hanging from a ladder extended from the Bat Copter and a giant rubber shark has jumped out of the ocean and latched onto his leg. He gets the Boy Wonder, who put the copter on what I can only assume was Bat Auto Pilot, to come down the ladder with a can of … shark repellent.

People have questioned why Batman would have shark repellent in his Bat Copter, but he was always prepared. If you look closely, Robin grabbed the spray can from a selection of oceanic repellents, which included cans of scents that also turned back the likes of barracudas, whales and manta-rays that a superhero also might run up on while flying around in his helicopter. Oddly, there was no flying fish repellent.

The shark repellent, by the way, showed up again when Batman, sporting yellow trunks over his Bat Suit, was attacked by another shark while trying to out-surf the Joker (Cesar Romero dressed in his purple suit with green trunks that matched his verdant coif). Aquaman, it turns out, never shows up when you need him. Some Super Friend he is.

Frankly, we could use a fun Batman again. When the show came on, the world was a scary place for a second-grader. There was a Cold War, a president had been assassinated, there were nuclear fallout shelter signs all over the place, we were in a war nobody understood and there was a lot of social unrest.

“Batman” offered a kid some relief from all that, as did another show of the period, “Star Trek,” which showed a vision of a world — galaxy, really — in which we not only survived but learned how to get along.

I saw an interesting quote attributed to West that seems appropriate: “Anything that triggers good memories can’t be all bad.” Indeed. Adam West did that. His work created a wonderful childhood memory in a scary world. As Batman, he was one of a kind, which is too bad. We could use a fun Batman these days. Rest in peace, ol’ chum.

Email Jim Hendricks at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_JHendricks on Twitter.