It's hard to imagine where the world of superheroes would be without the classic Batman TV series. Airing on ABC for three seasons between 1966 and 1968, the show starred Adam West and Burt Ward as the Dynamic Duo (adding Yvonne Craig to the line-up as Batgirl in its third season) and it had a meteoric rise to success during a time when superheroes weren't the heavy-hitters that they are now. It's also renowned for introducing the characters of Batman, Robin, and Batgirl to mainstream audiences, helping them transcend the genre of comic books and become pop-culture phenomenons.
West and Ward also exploded onto the big screen at the height of the show's popularity, with Batman: The Movie arriving in movie theaters between the first and second seasons. Although its popularity eventually declined, it kept the Batman franchise in the public eye for many years until its inevitable reinvention in the darker days of the equally-revolutionary Tim Burton movie.
With all of that in mind, let's take this opportunity to reflect on the show's run and figure out which of its three seasons produced the best, most memorable Bam! Smack! and Pow! adventures of them all.
Honorable mention: Batman: The Movie (1966)
The Dynamic Duo brought their crime-fighting adventures to the silver screen in Batman: The Movie between seasons 1 and 2. Batman and Robin were forced to battle not one, not two, not three but four of their most nefarious foes from the TV series, as The Penguin, The Riddler, The Joker, and Catwoman all teamed up to - quite literally - take over the entire world.
As the initial teaser trailer suggested it would, the film took its heroes on adventures across land, sea, and air as they attempted to stop the felonious foursome from doing irreversible harm to the planet. It was an ambitious feat for the 1960s but the film pulled it off, making full use of its larger budget and offering up an entertaining escapade worthy of the movies.
Seeing Cesar Romero's Joker, Burgess Meredith's Penguin, Frank Gorshin's Riddler, and Lee Meriwether stepping in as Catwoman truly felt like a crossover of epic proportions and all four actors did a remarkable job.
3. Season 2
After the success of Batman's first season, the show got a super-sized second season. And by 'super-sized, we mean super sized, as its sophomore run had a whopping 60 episodes (which makes up half of the show's whole 120-episode run). Let's just say that the series had a lot of fun with that.
The majority of season 2 featured strong episodes that proved themselves worthy successors to the installments in the first season. There were some that were even better ("Hot off the Griddle / "The Cat and the Fiddle" and "Green Ice" / "Deep Freeze" were particularly fantastic), ensuring that there were still plenty of excellent, thrilling ideas in the minds of the creative team.
That said, the longer that the season ran on, the standard began to decline, with villains randomly returning from prison for more capers a lot quicker than before and new, original villains that didn't quite land as well as those introduced in the first season.
All in all, Batman '66's second season mostly delivered as a strong follow-up to the first season. It just probably should have been a little bit shorter.
2. Season 3
With ratings declining, Batman introduced Batgirl in its third season in the hopes of appealing to a whole new audience. Yvonne Craig arrived on the scene as the new hero and very quickly livened things up, and this was necessary as the show lost so much in its final season - including an extensive portion of its budget, which resulted in no new indoor sets and the majority of production taking place on a sound stage. But what it lacked in visuals, it made up for in style and entertainment.
Season 3 is probably the most outlandish that the show ever got. With no more reliance on the two-part installments (another casualty of the format change for season 3), we got standalone escapades one week and three-parters the next. It made the final season pretty unpredictable and a whole lot crazier, with plots revolving around UFOs and a trip to London (or as it's known in this show: Londinium).
The final season of Batman was undoubtedly its silliest but it took more risks, throwing a lot against the wall to see if any of it would stick - and a lot of it did, freshening things up after that incredibly long second season. But it was Craig's arrival as Batgirl that made this one stand out for the right reasons. She shone as Gotham City's newest crimefighter and had a great rapport with West and Ward's established Dynamic Duo, ensuring that the show's only real dynamic change throughout its whole run was a positive one - allowing it to end on a real high.
1. Season 1
When Batman made its debut on screens, it did so with unforgettable two-part adventures that promised entertainment unlike anything else on television at the time. It delivered on that front, with its two part premiere "Hi Diddle Riddle" and "Smack In The Middle" seeing the Dynamic Duo go up against The Riddler in what can only be described as a comic book come to life.
The unique chemistry between Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, the eclectic band of villains they faced each and every week, the insidious capers that they always managed to escape from, and the funky action-packed fight scenes to close out each adventure; it was the perfect, insane, and absolutely thrilling combination that made every episode of Batman a must-see.
The term "comic-accurate" gets thrown around a lot these days but rarely has there been a more comic-accurate adaptation of the Caped Crusader's adventures than this one. He may not be the Dark Knight of the future that he could become here, but this ridiculously entertaining series adapted the colorful and bright capers that the Dynamic Duo faced in the comics and brought them to mainstream audiences for the first time. The result was nothing short of iconic.
West and Ward solidified themselves as the definitive versions of Batman and Robin for so many, while this legendary TV series opened on such a high that it rarely managed to reach those heights again. There was something so new, so thrilling about these early episodes that even now, almost 60 years after they aired on TV screens, they still offer up high quality entertainment.