For the three years it ran in the late '60s Batman was my favorite show. I was between 8 and 10 when it ran, so I was young enough to think it exciting, but old enough to get the jokes and know the whole thing was pretty silly, but in a cool, knowing way.
Now, after 37 years, Adam West and Burt Ward are back together in a new TV movie:
- West and Ward play off each other as well as they did during the swinging '60s in the CBS movie "Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt" airing Sunday at 9 p.m. EST.
"It's dramatized to an extent, but most of it really did happen. All good comedy is based on truth," West said. "Now they're saying we're a wonderful comedy team. What were we before?"
In the two-hour movie, West, 74, and a rotund Ward, 57, are forced to relive their past to find clues to recovering the Batmobile after it's stolen from a Hollywood charity event.
When a bystander suggests calling the police, West in his best deadpan says, "This is a job for actors. We'll find the Batmobile."
"Us?" Ward replies. "We wouldn't even know where to start."
The movie was done by the same team behind the 2001 CBS hit movie "Surviving Gilligan's Island." Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, is co-executive producer, Duane Poole wrote the script and Paul Kaufman is director and executive producer.
- West saw the movie as a chance to reward fans who clamor for additions to the "Batman" franchise when they meet him at conventions.
"They always greet me with warmth and humor," he said. "People do lines from the show, do entire scenes, they ask me to say lines. People are very funny about the show. I've got three generations who come up to me."
....After the show was canceled in '68, both actors had the same reaction: Holy typecasting! West and Ward were virtually unemployable and got stuck making personal appearances for several years.
Article comments