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Like many who grew up in the '60s and '70s (and perhaps even '80s and later), Tim and Paul had the course of their lives changed by the 1966 Batman TV show, from the types of play they did growing up to their present-day interests.

In this series, they discuss the show's allure and its failures, the arc of the show from satire to sitcom, its influences (the '40s serials and the comic books themselves) and the things it, in turn, influenced.

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Feb 1, 2024

Mr Terrific

This time we look at the other sitcom that tried to cash in on Batman, CBS’s Mr. Terrific. It’s goofier than Captain Nice and not as funny (although the laugh track clearly doesn’t think that!), but with a surprisingly good cast. We discuss the unaired pilot, and the first 8 episodes of the 17-episode series,...


Oct 12, 2023

Even after Batman made ABC’s “second season” schedule, to start in January 1966, there was still concern about how audiences would react. Will they get the joke? Should a laugh track be used? In a memo dated January 14, 1966 - the day after the second episode, Smack in the Middle, was first broadcast —...


Dec 6, 2018

Eartha Kitt is dressed to kill

With Julie Newmar off (reportedly) filming Mackenna's Gold, Eartha Kitt was recruited to play Catwoman in season three. In this episode, we dig into her first appearance, Catwoman's Dressed to Kill, an episode that seems to exhibit a lot of misogyny — but is that primarily on the part of writer Stanley Ralph Ross, or...


Sep 13, 2018

As we saw a few episodes back, in 1965 Peggy Shaw turned in a script called Fashions in Crime, based on the 1948 comics story of the same name, and beset by script elements that would work in a comic but would be tough to film.

Shaw's script was apparently handed to writer Stephen Kandel to rework. The resulting 1966...