Adam West

Batman is camp as a style guide: West’s deadpan virtue, Ward’s Robin, guest villains, fight-bubble graphics, twice-weekly cliffhangers. He plays the Caped Crusader as sincere nonsense — the joke is the frame, the virtue is not a wink you can pause. Watch it as 1960s prime time that taught comics how to be television. Pow is punctuation. Bruce is the millionaire as a straight face.

Cue Batman on ABC (1966–1968) if you want Bruce Wayne and Batman in 1960s light — West already in the frame. s01e01 is the door — Hi Diddle Riddle opens the twice-weekly contract: West's deadpan virtue, Ward's earnest Robin, and camp as a national look. s01e05 keeps the climate: The Joker is Wild — celebrity-villain casting as sport, freeze-frame fight bubbles as the color-TV grammar. Keep the tab. Batman remains the room.

Pick a later, darker cape after you finish this one, not instead. On TV Flash West is the original living-room Batman, not a punchline the later films needed. Stay for the deadpan. The villains are the photocall. The cliffhanger is the form. He made a national language out of a costume that should have collapsed, and the costume still has his cadence in it.

On Batman, West's Bruce Wayne and Batman are ABC inventory from 1966–1968 — a 1960s filing, not a cameo vacation. File s01e01 as ignition: Hi Diddle Riddle opens the twice-weekly contract: West's deadpan virtue, Ward's earnest Robin, and camp as a national look. s02e57 is later weather: Pop Goes the Joker keeps the onomatopoeic house style at mid-run boil, still hop-friendly and cliff-hungry. West photographs as a person, which is how a 1960s hour still works.