Media References Part II: Tim Burton Movies

The Tim Burton movies forever changed the perception of Batman in mass media and to this day remains a golden classic and a milestone in Bathistory. Because of its stature and success, many TV shows, series' and movies featured homages, nods and spoofs of Batman and Batman Returns. The following list is by no means a full one of all the references and spoofs of the show as the list goes insanely long, but collects the most interesting and memorable ones from the late 1989 to date.

* In Full House "Divorce Court", Stephanie and DJ dress as Batman and Joker from the movie

* Batman appeared numerous times on Tiny Toons. In 1990's "Gang Busters" an obvious Batman lookalike character encounters Bugs and Duffy entering his cave by mistake. He says "First that blonde and now this. Ah cheesh Alfred, why dont you just tell the world we're down here!"

In 1990's "Hollywood Plucky", Batman visits a Hollywood restaurant. Hamton tries to valet park his Batmobile

Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman also made an appearance in one of the episodes (although in TV show's costume)

And so did an animal version of Joker

Tim Burton made a cameo too

* Batman, referred to as Mr. Keaton, appeared numerous times on Animaniacs. Noticeably in 1993's "Taming of the Screwy" when he appears at WB party. Some of the other guests included were other movie icons of the times like the T-1000 and the Lethal Weapon cast

Penguin also made an appearance as the guest at the party

In "Twas the Day Before Christmas", Keaton exits the WB studios greeted by the guard saying "Goodnight Mr. Keaton, that's a lovely sedan!"

* In the beginning of the Batman: The Animated Series episode called "Off Balance", Batman meets an informant named Twitch on the tower of the statue of Liberty. The informant has black hair, a long face, and has been confirmed by the producers to be "Tim Burton". The series itself made a great deal of references to the movies

*The Simpson also made numerous references to the movies. Here are the most interesting ones. In "Last Exit to Springfield" the scene with the surgeon is recreated with Lisa. Same scene was also reenacted with Krusty before in "Homie The Clown"

In "Marge vs Monorail" the Flugelheim Museum rescue scene is reenacted with Mr. Burns and Smithers

*There were also references in Family Guy as well

*Nicholson's Joker made an appearance in South Park's "Imaginationland"

* In 2007's Shaggy and Scooby Doo Get a Clue episode "Operation Dog and Hippie Boy", the villain - CatLady - is an obvious homage to Pfeiffer's Catwoman

*Keaton's Batman made several appearances in the MAD cartoon

Classic phrases like "I'm Batman" and "You Wanna Get Nuts? Lets Get Nuts" made it into many, many TV shows and movies, most notably Seinfeld and American Dad in which the character pickups up a sign, breaks the glass next to him and screams "You wanna get nuts?! C'mon! Let's get nutsss"

Any interesting and worthy additions welcomed

Media References Part I: The 1960's Show

The 1960's Batman TV series was so popular, and entrenched itself so much in American pop culture that even to this day TV shows, Animated series' and movies still make spoofs or references to this memorable show. The following list is by no means a full one of all the references and spoofs of the show as the list goes insanely long, but collects the most interesting and memorable ones from the late 1960's to date. 

* The Monkees show of the late 60's made several references and nods to the show, even guest starring Burgess Meredith as the Penguin in one of the episodes. One of the very first references in the show featured the Bat phone in the episode called "Dance, Monkee, Dance"

*The Simpsons series made several references to the show throughout the years. From the opening...

to the actual appearance of Adam West's and Burt Ward's Batman and Robin

In the episode called "I'm going to Praiseland", the Comic Book dreams of Julie Newmar's Catwoman

Dancing Adam West could be seen in the episode "My Mother the Carjacker"

The Simpsons featured plenty more quotes, nods and cameos

*Tiny Toons spoofed the series in "Inside Plucky Duck"

* In Friends episode "The One with the Halloween Party", Monica dresses up as Newmar's Catwoman

* That 70s Show also made several references. One of them can be seen in the episode "Halloween" in which Fez dresses up as Batman

*Naturally there were also several references made in Family Guy

* Robot Chicken also had its share of spoofs and parodies. "That Hurts Me" shows a Monkey version of the show

In "Christmas Special" Batman and Robin punish a bunch of kids who were singing "Batman smells" 

*Howard Stern's 52nd Birthday Special premiered a BatStern cartoon

*Cartoon Network's MAD cartoon made several references, most notable the inclusion of Romero's Joker visiting Superman's remodeled fortress

Spongebob Squarepants features two superhero characters, MermaidMan and the BarnacleBoy which are an obvious spoof of Batman and Robin from the series

* Adam West is the mayor of Quahog in Family Guy, voiced by the actor himself

Adam West appeared as himself before in Johnny Bravo cartoon, acting the same way as Batman. The entire episode was constructed like a Batman episode

*Burt Ward guest starred on WCW

 * The Kim Possible cartoon also featured a 60s Batman parody, The Fearless Ferret, in an episode of the same name. The character, who was voiced by Adam West, was the alias of "Timothy North", a cranky superhero from the 60s

The iconic phrases like "Holy..." and ""To the Batmobile" made it into many, many TV shows and movies

Any interesting and worthy additions welcomed

Batman in 1960's: Adam West

THE 1960's SERIES

 

Adam West is arguably the most recognizable Batman face to date. He is perhaps as associated with Batman as Christopher Reeve is with Superman, Boris Karloff with Frankenstein's monster and Douglas Fairbanks with Zorro. His portrayal represents the late 1940's/50's and the story ideas more so on the early to mid 1960's comic books. The series itself was enormously faithful to the Silver Age comics while also adding its new ideas to the mix which were later copied or absorbed to the comic books. At the time it was still close to a decade before the darkness fell again on the caped crusader in the comics.

The first episode of the series is based on 1965's Batman #171, but it was more so the plot that was inspirational for that episode, while the Batman character was more faithful to the earlier portrayal of the 50's. The character at the time was a deputized honorary member of the police force, and very much a Sherlock Holmes in a costume, closely working with the police, solving clues with Robin/Watson and bringing criminals behind bars.

William Dozier (producer): When you're working on something you begin to visualize these characters coming to life. (...)  I was impressed by [Adam West's] looks. (...) He had an immediate and a very intelligent insight in the what we were trying to do, he grasped the duality of this thing immediately, he would have to play it very straight and very square in order to have it come through as humor. (...) he turned out to be exactly right (CBS 1966)


Adam West: To me it was so enormously fresh and funny I couldn't resist it (Holy Batmania doc)
I felt I had such an opportunity to create a character that would become a part of pop culture (Batman: The Complete History) 

The show was supposed to be played very seriously in order to be 'unintentionally' funny with it's over the top translation of comic book stories of the 50s and early 60s to the screen. Some examples of where the comic books stood with their approach and storylines in the 50s/60s:

William Dozier: [The Batman comic books I've read] were all so juvenile, and so then a very simple idea struck me, and that was to overdo it. And if you overdid it I thought, it would be funny to adults, and yet it would be stimulating the kids, the daring, doing, but you had to appeal on both levels (Holy Batmania doc.)

Charles Fitzsimmons (Associate Producer): It was a tough search [to find the lead actor] because you've got to find an actor who was prepared to play Alice in Wonderland as if though it was Hamlet (Holy Batmania doc)

The yellow oval emblem appeared in comic books in June 1964 when a big revolution hit the mythology. The new look symbolized the beginning of a new, more serious era, getting rid of the camp, aliens and bringing back more serious stories, old villains and a new, more sophisticated artwork. Ironically less than two years later the TV show reversed the process and it wasn't until 1968 that Batman once again tried to get back to the darkness and stayed this way. The TV show however, used Carmine Infantino's new emblem

In the beginning though, they were about to go with the old emblem (screencap below from the screentest)

West's Batman, like his comic book counterpart, was both a great detective, being able to solve Riddler's crimes and find solutions of the problems when the Police didn't have any, and also a great chemist and technician

Worth noting is Batman's posture when he's standing still. He crosses his arms like a bat while listening to the conversation or waiting.

Also, in the comic books Batman was virtually inseparable from Robin since 1940, and the comic book relationship between Batman and his young and enthusiastic sidekick is also present in the show.

As far as visuals, the series' Batman is a mirror image of the comic book incarnation of the time, perhaps too perfect, since West's mask even retained the black front which was simply a shadow in the comics.

While intentionally fun and light hearted, the series seems to take a lot of heat from various Batman related personalities, notable in the 'Legends of the Dark Knight' and 'Shadows of the Bat' documentaries

Paul Dini (BTAS) I think Batman had been haunted by the 60's show. For years after that show had ended. And i don't think there was anyway to shake that in the public's mind. 
 
Frank Miller- The campy old tv show Batman was essentially mocking the source material.(...)It was much campier than the comic had ever been.

Michael Uslan: There's more to Batman than Pow, Zap, and Wham. And for about 20 years whenever anyone mentioned the word Batman. Or wrote about it in print Pow, Zap, and wham were always attached to the name.

However it seems like all of the Batman directors are, or at least were fond of the show, and Christian Bale cites Adam West as his favorite actor portraying Batman (along with Michael Keaton)

Christian Bale:  I think what Adam West did was great. I just didn’t realize when I was watching it as a kid that it was a spoof, you know? It was a very campy kind of thing, performance that he was doing. (movies.about.com 2005) 

Tim Burton: I grew up with the TV series (Washington Post 1989)

[Joel] Schumacher wanted Batman & Robin to be more of homage to the TV show of the 60s than any of the more recent, darker looks of the aptly named Dark Knight. (denofgeek.com 2010)

Rather reassuringly, leaning against another wall [in Christopher Nolan's office] is a framed poster of a 1966 Batman movie (Empire Magazine 2011)

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Batman's voice

Batman is widely known as a character that has many faces and many different portrayals, but he also has many voices as well. While it's obviously impossible to hear the voice while reading the comic books, the voice did have some pretty consistent descriptions within the stories and was also changing in time along with the character

At first the voice was referenced but not described. Since it was referenced in specific manners ("Then a voice...Batman's voice!") it most likely meant it's something distinctive 

The voice wasn't really described or specified until the Silver Age.

The 60's Batman voice was described multiple times as calm, and sometimes as masterful (skillfull, controlling). This is exactly the voice Adam West used in his portrayal of Batman in the 1960s TV series, reflecting the comic books of the time. It's somewhat important to note that the idea of changing of the voice from regular Wayne's to Batman's wasn't really referenced at that point, therefore not really existing yet and not utilized in the series.

One of the first references of the voice changing was in Detective Comics #532 in which Batman changes/hardens his voice so Vicky won't recognize him

When usually described as calm, Batman's voice in the comics was often referred to as 'cold' in the 80's starting with 1980's Untold Legends of Batman. He was also described as softly muttering, or in other words - whispering

More examples. Panels below from 1985's Detective Comics #550 and 1989's Secret Origins Special #1 where it's also described specifically as whisper

The cold whisper is the voice used in Tim Burton's Batman movies by Michael Keaton, which of course reflected the 80's portrayal of the Bat-voice. The movie also marked the first time in any sort of mass media where Batman had a different voice than Bruce Wayne

In Joel Schumacher movies neither of the actors changed their voices when in costumes, however note that in the 1950's portrayal that the Schumacher's movies were harking back to Batman wasn't changing his voice yet

In 1990's the Batman voice changed. It was now more rough and growling. Here we have an example of the bat-voice being likened to frosted razors

That roughness of the voice stayed in the comics and was later described multiple times as being as hard as steel

In later issues it was further described as deep and rough (panel from Batman #530)

The more recent issues likened his voice to Clint Eastwood's

This is the voice used by Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, reflecting the most modern and recent depiction of Batman's voice

After the movies the bat-voice was specifically referred to as 'growl' in some issues

An almost sole credit for research goes to SilverNemesis

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