"Batman" (Adam West TV show) on DVD Update

I love this show. Always cheers me up.

 

Didn't want to start a new thread so I thought I'd ask here:

A friend of mine and I got into a discussion about the comedy aspects of this show. I was saying how I thought the show was lightyears ahead of its time considering it was spoofing itself in front of our noses. My buddy agreed that the show was indeed funny today but thought that it wasn't meant to be a comedy in the 60's during its original run.

Was the show's absurd comedy fully intentional or was the writing really that innocent and earnest that it only appears funny looking back at it now? I always thought it was completely intentional and all the actors were fully aware of themselves and were in on the joke. I may have not picked up on that when I was kid watching reruns but it was clear as a bell when I watched it in later years.

 

Intentional from the get go.

 

Thanks MYKE.

That's what I thought. Like I said, the show was lightyears ahead of its time. With that being said, I'm curious: Did all fans of the show at the time see the same things when they watched it? When I was a youngster watching old reruns I definitely did not pick up the absurdity of the show...it was just a cool action superhero show. So in the 60's, were there two different groups of fans watching the show: one were the young kids who took the show seriously and the other group of older folks (teenagers, adults) who saw right through the show and enjoyed its true comedic intent?

 

I was 7 turning 8, I had so many things going on in my head...the girls got me excited, but I didn't know why. The Batmobile got me excited, and that I did understand. I think I was likely aware of the more obvious corny stuff.

 

I was in 6th grade when it debuted. I did not see the first episode. The next day lots of my classmates were talking about it, how absurd the dialog was and how ridiculous it was. So I watched the conclusion that night.
That summer (the show debuted in January), at church camp we had a discussion about it (most guys thought it was bad) and our counselor (early 20s) described it as "so far out that it is in".

 

I can say even as a pre-teen I never took Batman serious...

 

They wanted to make the show as much "camp" as they could. The one thing I never did like was the musical "choices" of Batman...... Made him more square than he really should be.

 

I made my mind up! getting the one in Australia !

 

Waiting for this to get cheaper as it's pretty steep for a TV series, and I don't have an extra $150 laying around despite all these years of waiting. But the big thing is lossy DVD quality audio. I know it will be serviceable and light years ahead of all the old VHS tapings we've all made over the years, but in this day and age, why did we have to skimp on the HD audio???

 

I want lossless on Goodfellas a lot more than Batman.

 

That's why we have LD! That way you get the lossless original mix in Dolby Stereo.

 

What is LD ?

 

Laserdisc. Warner has this terrible habit of reusing old materials. On Goodfellas they simply ported the Laserdisc for the first DVD with lossy audio, and then used and old 2000's era master for the 2 disc DVD, before porting that to a lame Blu-ray that has lossy 5.1 audio.

 

If you don't need the trinkets, the German set can be ordered at the moment for under $100.

 

A Batman Complete Series Infomercial will start showing this week !

My viewing will be the 3am-3:30am ( CST ) Thursday, Oct. 23rd broadcast on WGN. This comes from posts over at the Blu-ray.com forum, and verified by me, after checking my Comcast on screen guide.

 

Early George Carlin and Ray Charles and a guy dancing on top of a pole !!

 

I've been wondering what they were going to do about the audio. Looks like Dolby Digital 1.0 is the answer. When the source was mono to film, what could be done? I have a rudimentary understanding of the capabilities available (magic computers!) but that's it. Can anyone explain the process that could be used to make mono film tracks into stereo, let alone 5.1?

 

You can't. The best you can do is achieve a manipulated fake stereo/synthesized 5.1 that could range from possibly tolerable to atrocious.

 

I don't recall where I read it, but I remember someone saying that Neil Hamilton, who played Commissioner Gordon, took his role and the show very seriously and would become angry when the other cast members would make fun of the scripts. It's from memory though, and I can't cite a source...

I was talking with a fellow fan of the show once who insisted to me that at least during the first season, the show was intended to be taken seriously and it was only later (particularly the third season) that it became a parody. I disagreed with him.

 

You're right, he was dead wrong.

 

https://www.batmanondvd.com/choose.aspx

 

That's interesting, because apparently the infomercial set will have exclusive items not found on the general retail release.

 

I went ahead and ordered one using the 5 payment option. Will hurt a lot less that way. Plus I will probably end up getting the regular release too because I have an illness.