TARZAN (1966) - Ron Ely TV series

TARZAN

(1966-68, TV, USA)

UPDATE March 8th, 2012 - TARZAN, Season 1 coming to Warner Archives.

Edgar Rice Burroughs invented several popular fictional characters. His John Carter of Mars will be a 2012 blockbuster as well as Pixar's first live-action production.

But next year is the centenary of Burroughs' far more famous creation, a great opportunity to release every Tarzan adaption from the archives. I'm thinking of the 1966 Ron Ely Tarzan TV series. That was the same year of another hit TV show that refuses to hit home video. I've talked about Adam West's Batman and could happily talk about every last one of the 120 episodes Tarzan appeared for two seasons of one hour adventures (57 in all). Unlike many of the early movies, it wasn't shot on a Hollywood studio backlot, but out in the actual jungle. Except, not in Africa.

Shot in Brazil, and later Mexico, the lush jungle locations, village-sized sets, waterfalls, mountains and rivers made this look a million dollars. With interesting, twisty adventure-laden stories and solid casts, the series was repeated for many years on British TV, eventually headlining the Saturday morning line-up into the 1970s. Like Batman, this was so popular and repeatable that it's now imprinted in many young memories, perfectly primed to revisit it on DVD. But this Tarzan is nowhere to be found, except for some double-episodes released as movies that eventually made it to VHS.

Despite a gap of thirty years or more, I can still remember Tarzan's battle against a big game hunter. Hand grenades are lobbed into a river where Tarzan is hiding underwater. He eventually hauls himself out of the water, bleeding from the ears, only to discover that he's wounded, defenceless and deaf (Tarzan's Deadly Silence)... As for his encounter with a dinosaur, I've yet to see the next episode of that two-parter and learn the secret of that shadowy cave. I recently unearthed a scrawled comic strip I drew as a kid, an extensive 'adaption' of that episode. I think I remember a few scenes from the episode, or maybe they're just from the nightmares I had...

The key to the show's success was Tarzan himself. Actor Ron Ely embodies Tarzan for a certain generation. Of the many previous Tarzans, the best Johnny Weissmuller films (Tarzan - The Ape Man, Tarzan and his Mate) were too violent to be shown on TV for many years, eventually surfacing on Channel Four late night in the 80s. I remember the later sequels getting played as seasons on BBC 2, together with the Gordon Scott movies. They're good, but weren't on nearly as often as TV Tarzan.

Ron Ely's incarnation is impressive in many ways. Imposingly well-built, wearing one of the briefest loincloths of any Tarzan, it's hard not to be distracted by his physique every time he's onscreen, which is most of the episode. He can also act, swim, and fight with both men and animals. He's reputed to have done his own stunts and racked up the injuries to prove it. Just running around everywhere barefoot without flinching is quite a feat (sorry).

Aiming at a family audience that kept adults engaged, the episodes often had a tough edge. Fistfights, gunfights, knife fights, constant peril and occasionally deaths! A young boy (Manuel Padilla Jr, later seen all grown up in American Graffiti) is the only other regular cast member (as well as Cheetah the cheeky chimp), but otherwise the stories don't pander to a young audience.

The main reason I think the series hasn't stayed in circulation is the portrayal of black Africans. While it's set 'in the now' with the latest vehicles, firearms and fashions, Africans are still portrayed as they were in the original stories, as tribal communities living in small villages of primitive huts, wearing animal skins and war paint. This may have been acceptable in the movies of the 1930s, but was entirely misleading by 1966, as if it had been researched from a travel brochure.

The approach is duly counterweighted by a few 'modern' black characters like the local game warden (Rockne Tarkington of Daktari and Danger Island), who regularly appeared in the early episodes, as well as guest appearances from other American actors like the formidable Woody Strode (Spartacus) and Bernie Hamilton (Starsky & Hutch).

The mid-sixties roster of ever-changing guest stars adds to the nostalgia, including James Earl Jones, Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek), Maurice Evans (Planet of the Apes), William Marshall (Blacula) and Julie Harris (The Haunting)... With high production values and the frankly awesome Ron Ely, the series is notably missing from circulation.

Afterwards, Ron Ely's most famous role was that of Doc Savage - Man of Bronze (1975), the only movie incarnation of that pulp detective action hero.

Cinema Retro has also bemoaned the serious lack of DVD...


Here's the series title sequence...

DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND (1964) - a monochrome BLADE RUNNER

I can't stay away from The Outer Limits for very long and return to them more often than The Twilight Zone. The stories are more detailed, less predictable, less fanciful, usually scary and often cosmically mind-expanding. The original 1963-1965 run is easily in my top ten TV series. Beautifully directed and photographed in black and white, with familiar and surprising faces in the cast (Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Bruce Dern, Donald Pleasence...). The stand-alone stories sometimes pack enough ideas into a TV hour to blow away most sci-fi B-movies and many A-list productions as well. Sometimes, not all.

I first watched them on late night TV at the end of the 1970s (Friday nights on BBC2), primed by monster magazines that there'd be weekly creatures and aliens - outlandish man-in-a-mask creations, but also shapeless entities, things made only of energy, beings from different dimensions... each with their own very different story, challenging the scientific status quo.

The Control Voice alone, setting up and summing up each episode, through a broken TV transmission, authoritatively prepared us for the wonders and dangers of the future, and to appreciate better the size of the Universe and the potential variety within. Even the worst monsters and outlandish stories get high marks for at least taking themselves seriously, an approach which could still easily convince me, watching on my own, slightly wasted, sometime way after midnight.

Many years ago, my initial response to Demon With A Glass Hand was muted, the scary 'bear' of the week was disappointing - a guy with a transparent hand and some cheap-looking aliens. I wish they hadn't worn those rubber caps, but the 'ghoul' make-up is effective enough. A lone human (Culp) is trying to evade the murderous aliens and complete his mission. His hand has been replaced by fingerless glass, missing a few fingers but full of electronics issuing him instructions. In a classic script ploy, he has no memory before the story started, putting him in the same position as the audience as to what the bloody hell is going on.

Why are they all trying to kill him? What is his mission? While working his way up the building, getting closer to the truth, he encounters a young woman who's horrified by his transparent hand. Her reaction partially explains the episode title, but it's a cheat.

It's a gripping episode, the hero using tough tactics from the very start to get to the truth. It's exciting because he's outnumbered, it's fascinating because of the mysteries piling up from the clues from his talking hand... Unlike much sci-fi, the seemingly bizarre story elements converge and conclude logically, while still leaving the viewer a few implications to mull over.

There are two editions of the appreciative and informative series companion, introducing the many creative minds behind the series, script decisions, special effects and a critical analysis of each episode - not the kind of scrutiny most TV series can justify in such detail. The more recent publication (on the right) has been revised, expanded and printed on less pulpy paper. I didn't initially appreciate the cult status of this particular episode, compared to my many other favourites. But watching through the second series again, I relaxed and really enjoyed it, particularly it's premonitions of Blade Runner...

I'm not just talking about the main location for the episode - most of it takes place inside the Bradbury Building, the scene of Rick Deckard's main confrontation in the film. Demon also has the protagonists working their way up the Bradbury, and even chasing out the window... An astonishing piece of parallel action with the film.

This time around I was also struck by the naked shoproom dummies in the dressmaking shop. Female dummies also appear in Blade Runner, stood outside J.F. Sebastian's apartment, also filmed in the Bradbury Building. The location, the symbolism, the themes of both stories overlapping, possibly intentionally, making this the closest you can get to Blade Runner if it was shot in black-and-white and twenty years earlier.

The story is packed with so many ideas, the episode could easily have expanded to feature-length. The fact that they're crammed into a TV hour makes it rich enough for fans of serious science fiction. Some elements of the story prefigure Blade Runner as well as The Terminator - Harlan Ellison wrote this and the episode Soldier, later suing James Cameron for lifting too many ideas from these scripts. Spoilerage prevents me from elaborating on which particular elements of the plot.

I had thought of cherrypicking my top ten episodes of the original Outer Limits as must-see, but it's too good a show to divide up. Watch them all. Pick your own favourites. They're all available on DVD in the US and UK.

A thorough (though spoilery) guide to the series, with plenty of screengrabs and some rare stills, plus a review of every single episode, all on this blog in collaboration with the David J. Schow, the author of The Outer Limits Companion, We Are Controlling Transmission...

Finally on DVD: DOUGAL AND THE BLUE CAT (1967) - the original Magic Roundabout movie

DOUGAL AND THE BLUE CAT
(1970, France)

The original Magic Roundabout movie is finally on DVD

(Updated article from 2006)

The story so far... The Magic Roundabout started off in 1963 as a French TV series for children, created by stop-motion animator Serge Danot. A little girl called Florence and her friends meet Zebedee, a boxless jack-in-a-box, and a bevy of talking animals, notably Dougal, a sarcastic low-slung dog, and Brian, a chirpy snail. Their friends included Dylan, a dopey rabbit, Ermintrude, an enthusiastic bossy cow, a rather aloof train that didn't need tracks, Mr MacHenry the gardener and Mr Rusty who runs the magic roundabout itself. For years they had surreal, low octane adventures together in the magic garden, with Florence in no hurry to leave and go home. It was all made using stop-motion animated figures moving around a sparsely decorated white limbo that represented the garden.


The BBC bought the series in 1965, but Play School regular Eric Thompson (Emma's dad) threw away the translations of the French stories and wrote all-new dialogue, before revoicing every episode. Each 5 minute story was transmitted at the end of the late afternoon Children's Hour and for years lead into the evening news, the start of BBC 1's evening programmes for adults. Thompson's scripts catered to this unique TV slot by appealing to all age groups, with in-jokes and references to current affairs for the grown-ups.

The show became so popular that a feature film, Dougal and the Blue Cat, was released in the UK in 1972 (after it premiered in France in 1970). In the story, the magic garden gets an unwelcome new visitor, a snarky blue cat called Buxton. While the animals try to welcome him, the ever-suspicious Dougal is watching his every move...

With some weird French songs and genuinely frightening moments (at least for six-year olds) the film has lodged in many minds, and would have been the first chance for some to see The Magic Roundabout characters in colour. Following the format of the TV series, Eric Thompson dubbed all the dialogue into English using his trademark voices for each character, with one surprise exception...


In all there were a whopping 441 episodes (according to Toonhound.com) that ran until 1975, inspiring a ton of spin-off games, annuals, toys...

Much later, in 1992, Channel Four discovered that the last 39 episodes of the original French series hadn't been seen in Britain. But with Eric Thompson no longer around, comedian Nigel Planer was drafted in to rewrite and revoice them, though I didn't feel that they were nearly as much fun without Thompson.


Presently, none of The Magic Roundabout series are available on DVD. Several volumes of the original colour episodes were released on VHS, easily confused with the video releases of the Nigel Planer series. I'm surprised and sad that this hugely popular and nostalgic children's favourite has still not emerged on DVD, even when there was a 2005 CGI feature film incarnation, voiced by a mixture of actors and pop stars.

The only good thing about the recent movie was that a single black-and-white episode of the original series was included in the 2-DVD set, in both English and the original French versions.


The good news is that the 1970 movie, Dougal and the Blue Cat is now being released on DVD in the UK in November. This was last seen on home video as a VHS release (below), sourced from a badly damaged and very scratchy print. Now digitally remastered, this new special edition set (pictured at top) includes both the English and French audio tracks as well as several featurettes.


Hopefully this could spark off interest for some of the original TV series to finally hit DVD. At the moment, the only Magic Roundabout DVDs are some CGI spin-offs from the 2005 movie.

Time for bed, I think. Yes, time for bed.

Farewell, Frank Sidebottom - the death of a clown

Monday evening, I was shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Chris Sievey, a man whose face I'd never seen.

To the world he was mainly known as an alter-ego, his true identity as successfully shielded as Batman, for many years. Frank Sidebottom was his comedy creation, first on radio, then stage then TV. The characters he created for Manchester's Piccadilly Radio were as inventive and funny as those Kenny Everett created for London's Capital Radio. But Frank was even more anarchic, never pretending that his sidekick, the demented Little Frank, was anything more than a puppet made of cardboard.

Their adventures in space, football, pop music (Little Frank released records as well) and Sherwood Forest were little more than sound effects and library music, with Chris and a few friends ("Lard!") doing the voices, but they were as evocative as any radio play, and side-splittingly funny.

Having fronted bands before, notably The Freshies ('I Can't Get Bouncing Babies by The Teardrop Explodes'), it was easy for Chris to take Frank on stage to sing his songs, play his banjo or cheap synthesizer, and argue with Little Frank. The best joke was that Sidebottom's skills at ventriloquism were completely hidden by his mask. The huge proportion of Frank's head was due to the character originally being a schoolboy, broadcasting Timperley Radio from his mum's garden shed.

Frank's crap puppetry was all part of the fun. But if he invented a new character, the audience expected to see them up on stage too. Even Breville Toaster Puppet could make a grand entrance, riding in an Action Man jeep.

Frank's escalating popularity seemed to peak when he hit National Children's TV, like as a regular part of Saturday Morning's TX, presented by Tony Slattery. I thought this was the start of the big time for Frank, but no.

He continued touring, (supporting John Cooper Clarke earlier this year) but his music is only represented as a couple of belated compilation CDs, of his best songs and unforgettable medleys (A Tribute to Queen). Apparently, he had fans in the US and I'm pleased to hear his appeal travelled so far. Now that he's gone, I expect to fill in the gaps of just what he got upto through the years.

My fondest memory isn't of seeing Frank in concert, but when he recreating the madness of his radio sketches in one of his Christmas Pantomimes at a packed Timperley Labour Club. Effortlessly funny, he could create a whole evening's entertainment out of cardboard. If anything went wrong, he could improvise his way out, or simply blame Little Frank.

I was hoping one day to see an interview with the man behind the mask, and see Chris actually doing 'that voice', finally linking up the man to the character. But perhaps it's better this way.

Sadder news came later in the week, in that Chris was flat broke at the end. But his many fans are making sure he'll get a fitting send-off. Here's a fuller career obituary from The Independent. A picture gallery from The Guardian. Frank's blog is brimfull of all his recent works and remains online.

One of my favourite records was this medley of Frank's favourite sci-fi shows, bashed together into a medley.

There's still plenty of Frank Sidebottom on YouTube - clips of his TV shows, pop videos, live performances and even an animated visualisation of Frank's world, entirely made of cardboard.

Chris, Frank, I thank you.

STREET HAWK (1985) - finally on DVD

STREET HAWK

(1985, TV, USA)

The man... the machine... Street Hawk (rrrm rrrm)

I never missed an episode when this went out, and have been waiting years to get this on DVD. But a warning to newcomers - it's soooo 1980s...

A top secret government experiment involves a souped-up attack-motorbike to fight crime. Jesse Mach (Rex Smith) can't tell a soul that he's secretly the rider of the mysterious Street Hawk. He has a 'co-pilot', who co-ordinates Street Hawk's missions back at their hidden base, inventor Norman Tuttle (Joe Regalbuto). The secret street exit was hidden behind a sliding billboard in an alleyway, which always reminded me of Batgirl's similar Batbike exit. Can't have been much of a secret location because Mach's flashy bright yellow Mustang was always parked outside, next to Tuttle's station wagon...

The short-lived TV show had storylines and dialogue that a five-year old could follow, which didn't really sit comfortably with its atrocious lessons in road safety in road safety. Yes kids, try and jump your bike over police cars, through windows, and ride as fast as you can - you'll never hit anything, honestly you won't...


Like so many other family-friendly action shows, the characters are two-dimensional (grumpy police chief, geeky engineer), and the comedy relief is goofy rather than funny. I only ever saw Rex Smith (Jesse Mach) in TV bit parts after this, which was a real waste of a leading man - his half-naked turn in the foam-filled, suit-moulding tube (glimpsed in the theme tune) made me an instant fan. Joe Regalbuto (Norman) had previously been in the bonkers Conan knock-off The Sword and the Sorceror (1982) - he was good, funny, but looked rather out of place amongst all the barbarian mullets.


The technology is fantasy, rather than reality-based. A bike with jet thrusters, a laser, missiles! It's a comic strip, but at least it's an original custom-made concept, rather than an adaption. Despite the high-tech dressing, (when technology meant flashing lights and dry ice, and animation poses as computer displays) the thrills are not from the visual effects (like the 'particle beam') but from car chases and explosions, placing this in similar territory to Airwolf and Knight Rider.


BUT. For all its faults, where else can you get so many car and bike (and boat and helicopter) stunts in a weekly TV show today? In every episode, there's never a shortage of genuinely exciting stuntwork. Street Hawk actually deserved slow-motion for its leaps and crashes. From the high jump through a (closed) window, to chasing a helicopter at high speed.

The fake sped-up 'hyperthrust' mode wasn't as dangerous, but fired-up every episode - as Street Hawk was cleared to travel at 200 mph through Los Angeles at all times of the day. How traffic could be stopped for a stretch of twenty miles, with a guarantee of zero jaywalkers, was beside the point. The effect took a visual cue from Koyaanisqatsi - headlights and neon at night, flashing past as streaks.

Guest stars included Christopher Lloyd playing almost too nasty a villain to square up to such cartoony heroes. There's also Bianca Jagger, Sybil Danning (Battle Beyond the Stars) and Marjoe Gortner (Earthquake, Food of the Gods), but famously this was George Clooney's second-ever featured role. Rex Smith was making much of that episode, on his recent UK publicity tour for the DVD launch, saying that Clooney owed him a return favour for Smith giving Clooney his big break in Hollywood...


Another aspect that helps me rank this over Knight Rider, is the synthesizer soundtrack. Tangerine Dream's track Le Parc was used as the theme tune and the band provided the background score throughout. This is the same year they were brought in to score Ridley Scott's Legend for the re-edited US version, replacing Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack.

The movie-length pilot episode (well, barely 75 minutes long) appeared on laserdisc, but this UK region 2 set is Street Hawk's world debut on DVD - the entire series runs only 13 episodes. It's coming to the US in July.

For absolutely everything else about Street Hawk, there's an extensive fansite here.

The theme tune is here on YouTube...

ULTRAMAN (1966) - perfect for Godzilla addicts

ULTRAMAN
(1966, Japan, TV)

Godzilla meets Thunderbirds...

A giant superhero who fights a different giant monster every week is the basis for this slightly futuristic live-action Japanese series made in 1966. It gave birth to an entire genre of Japanese TV.

Special effects supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya wanted to translate the success of Toho's sci-fi spectaculars, headed by the Godzilla films, into a TV series. Ultra Q was the result, a team of paranormal investigators who often meet giant monsters. The format was improved on in Ultraman, by having a giant hero better able to fight the gigantic problems.

They also introduced the Science Patrol, a better equipped squad than the Ultra Q team. They've a huge base, special cars, the latest weapons and a VTOL aircraft. One of the patrol members secretly has the ability to transform into visiting alien, Ultraman.
Despite the rigid format - Ultraman must fight a monster every episode - the stories are very varied, as are the locations. The continuing draw of these two dozen series, for me, is the wide variety of monsters.



Yes, it's two men in suits throwing each other around, but for anyone who's run out of Godzilla movies to watch, Ultraman is the next best thing. Modified Godzilla suits even appear in the series, with added frills and paint jobs. The colourful, often fanciful, monster designs naturally lent themselves to extensive ranges of toys and merchandise. The most popular monsters re-appear in later series, a few becoming familiar icons in Japanese pop culture.

The first series of Ultraman is aimed at children, with hammy crew member Ide as a childish comedy relief, and a young boy in the regular cast. Ultraman sometimes even plays around with the monsters during fights, like riding on their backs (which just looks wrong to my fertile mind).

Like early Doctor Who, which influenced the series, there are a few quite frightening monsters (glowing eyes in the dark always work for me) and many incidental characters even die. Ultraman also disfigures, blinds or tears limbs off his monster opponents before killing them! These occasionally bloody displays seem at odds with the otherwise childish tone. The creatures sometimes die slowly, twitching in their death throes before finding peace. Later series would be far kinder to monsters (except the really bad ones), even relocating them back home, and very few human characters died.


Ultraman has beautiful miniature sets for the monsters to roam around in, but the aircraft models are far less intricate than Thunderbirds, shot in the UK the same year. I guess that having to keep the aircraft in scale with Ultraman meant that the model couldn't be as large as the Thunderbird models.

The budgets are quite large compared to many later series, with lots of extras running around, varied locations, and widescale action scenes.

A huge success, it lead to many more Ultraman TV series, which are still being produced, and some span off into movies, like Ultraman Next. It also inspired a boom in similar superhero shows from other studios, like Spectreman. Toei Studios' biggest hit scaled down the monster fights to human-size, pitching a roster of alien creatures against the beetleman biker hero, Kamen Rider.


Ultraman was dubbed into English and transmitted in the US. So the region 1 DVD set offers the English dub as well as an option for Japanese with subtitles. The picture looks extremely good, digitally remastered and restored, not looking its age at all. The set of 40 episodes was first released on six DVDs as two boxsets, but has already been re-released at a lower price on four DVDs.


It's a rare example of Ultraman on US DVD (Ultraman Tiga is the only other). I'd love to see the early follow-up, Ultraseven, with its tougher tone.

We never saw any Ultraman in the UK. So I first started watching it after discovering dozens of episodes on VCDs in Chinatown. While the earlier series have their charms, I prefer the revitalisation of the format that began with Ultraman Tiga, with it's better special FX and sleeker designs for the greatly expanded Earth defence fleet. With a variety of bases and launch procedures, the influence of Thunderbirds is still very evident.


Since Tiga, there's been a regular Ultraman series almost yearly, with year-round episodes. Last year there was another movie spin-off that brought back every previous incarnation of Ultraman for a Mega Monster Battle! It's just been released on DVD and Blu-Ray in Japan and Hong Kong.

BATMAN (1966-1968) - TV still not on DVD

BATMAN
(1966-1968, TV, USA)

120 TV Episodes? Wholly absent, Batman!

At a time when almost every TV show is now on DVD, it's amazing that Batman isn't. One of the funniest, most imaginative and influential shows of the 1960s. This is priceless, must-have TV, with outrageous plots, impossible detective work, Bat-villains, Bat-gadgets, Bat-bloody-everything and knockdown Bat-fights guaranteed in every episode.

I love all aspects of Batman - the newer darker, brooding visions of Batman, the animated adventures, the under-rated Batman Beyond of the future... but that doesn't diminish my love for this much less serious incarnation. The three Batman seasons are top of my DVD wishlist, TV or film. This classic series was more carefully made than many movies of the time, with wittier scripts, more way-out design and better cast lists! Many movies have unsuccessfully tried to copy it's tongue-in-cheek style, when spoofing comic characters, but I don't even think Flash Gordon (1980) is nearly as good, despite using the same scriptwriter, Lorenzo Semple Jr.

Like the best Pixar movies, the series appealed to all ages. The straight-faced heroics and fast pace was exciting for children, the tongue-in-cheek humour and pop culture style amused the adults and all important teens. Thankfully, Batman avoided being laden with a laugh-track. As a child, I thought I was getting a serious comic-book adaptation! Batman's hardware and Batcave certainly looked good enough.


The Batmobile with flames firing out the back, together with the huge Batcave still look highly desirable. I've sat in both... well possibly it was a replica car. And all that's left of the Batcave is the outside entrance, filmed in Bronson Canyon, L.A. Inside the Batcave, every piece of equipment had a large sign, no matter how long-winded - a straight-faced gag that pre-empted the comedy likes of Airplane.


Adam West as Batman nailed the fine line between Bat-heroics and bellylaughs in the classic first story, when he battled The Riddler. Striding alone into a nightclub (Robin isn't allowed in, being underage), Batman discreetly orders a glass of milk at the bar, not wanting to "attract attention". The success of his character is the reason Adam West is now a regular character in Family Guy.

The accuracy of the expert casting extends to all the regular characters. Burt Ward as Robin is just a fantastic foil for West. With Madge Blake (Singing In The Rain) as Aunt Harriet installed in the Wayne Mansion to make the household look less suspiciously men-only, which paradoxically wasn't a problem in a boys comic. Neil Hamilton started off playing Commissioner Gordon completely straight, despite all the hijinks. Stafford Repp is gracelessly slow as Chief O'Hara - one of the many Irish policemen in this very sunny Gotham City. Alan Napier (Isle of the Dead) sets a high standard as an intelligent, resourceful and impeccably-mannered Alfred the butler. Season three introduced Yvonne Craig (In Like Flint) as the perky Bat-girl, riding around on a purple frilly Bat-Bike. All three Bat-stars have subsequently written biographies.


The casting of Batman's guest villains defined many of their characterisations for decades to come - for instance Jim Carrey owes much to Frank Gorshin's original Riddler. Besides the weekly guest Bat-villains were many celebrity cameos like Sammy Davis Jr as well as from other TV shows. Special mentions to Burgess Meredith (Rocky) as The Penguin, David Wayne (The Andromeda Strain) as The Mad Hatter, George Sanders as the first Mr Freeze, Eartha Kitt as Catwoman (above), Liberace (!) in a convincing dual role as Chandell (an example of villainy created just for the TV show), and especially Victor Buono (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane) as King Tut.

I read a story recently that the series was inspired by Hugh Hefner re-running an old Batman serial at the Playboy Mansion where a Fox executive was sufficiently inspired by how well it went down. The cliffhanger format from the serials was then used to close the first episode in every two-part story. Robin dangling helplessly over a pit of tigers or crocodiles, Batman being squeezed by two walls of spikes, Bruce Wayne helplessly strapped to a gurney as it speeds down a hill road towards a cliff edge... These became famously and inventively ridiculous, built up by William Dozier's unique voice-overs - "Tune in next week, Bat-fans. Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!"). For more about the 1940s Batman serials, look here.


This is all a world away from the modern presentation of Batman. Tim Burton's 1989 reboot had to work hard to distance itself from the show's long-running comedy reputation. But it was a logical approach in the 1960s. Comics were just for kids and heavily policed for violence, forcing Batman into space with the harmlessly weird Batmite, friendly pet Bathound and surreal (rather than scary) villains like Mr Mxyzptlk. Superheroes were taken less seriously in sixties mainstream, always presented as comedies or self-aware spoofs, rarely as successfully as Batman. Modesty Blaise was treated like pulp, Barbarella spoofed itself... Later The Hulk and Spiderman TV shows aimed for something more serious, but without a movie budget. Batman's production team tried to spin-off with The Green Hornet, but the heroics didn't work without the humour. However it produced a famous crossover story, where Green Hornet and Kato meet Batman and Robin. Sounds greater when you know that Bruce Lee played Kato.

Presumably there's been a problem preventing this series from ever hitting home video - it was absent from VHS and now DVD. The primary-coloured sets and costumes, carefully shot on 35mm, make it a fantasy wish of mine as a Blu-Ray set, even with 120 half-hour episodes. But surely there's a stack of money to be made if the problems are sorted out. This DC Comic character's TV debut was produced by 20th Century Fox Television, the current movie franchise is Warner Bros. Batman must be caught in legal limbo somewhere in the middle.


The show span off a movie, confusingly called Batman, made in 1966 during the show's first season. The film is proof of the popularity of Adam West's Batman and has always been available on every video format, up to and including Blu-Ray. No one's going to confuse West's tights with black kevlar, but the same name doesn't help it standout in listings or shelves.


In the movie, Batman faced off against Joker, Riddler, Penguin and Catwoman. It introduced the Batcopter, Batbike and Batboat, as well as Batman's legendary encounters with a shark and a bomb. But there's now a generation under the impression that this is all that Adam West's Batman ever did. If you like the movie, there's a lot more where that came from.


The series can now only be seen on TV, if you're lucky, at the mercy of modern scheduling, which now cuts down programmes of this vintage - ad breaks are much longer than they were in the 1960s. Besides running time cuts, there are sometimes jumpy film splices between scenes (TV stations used to broadcast off film, cutting the prints to suit their own ad breaks). Through the years some scenes can go missing because of seasonal references (like Santa Claus turning up) or censorship (Robin being eaten by a giant clam). Not to mention the end voiceover being butchered because the next episode is rarely coming up "next week" any more.


All in all, trying to enjoy a full-length, unblemished episode on TV has been difficult for decades. In the last three complete showings on British TV, each one has been cut around in different ways. I'd like to see it uncut again please. It should also look as good as Paramount's beautiful classic Star Trek Blu-Ray sets, made in the same era.

We want Bat-DVDs! 60 hours of the most fondly remembered, vividly colourful, tongue-in-cheekily written TV shows ever. In the meantime, it's the bootleggers that are making the money...

More about the awesome 1966 Batmobile...

Not On DVD: PROJECT U.F.O. (1978) - TV's weekly close encounters

PROJECT U.F.O.
(1978, USA, TV)

In 1978, the double-whammy of box office hits, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, had sparked a sci-fi explosion on TV. But while Star Wars directly inspired the galactic dogfights of Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, what could TV do with Close Encounters?

The answers lie in Project Blue Book, the USAF official catalogue of the investigation of UFO sightings in the USA, also the inspiration for many events in Close Encounters. In the first episode of Project U.F.O. ('The Washington DC Incident'), UFOs descend near a woman alone in a remote country house, buzz a guy stranded in his pick-up truck late at night, and get tracked by a roomful of air traffic controllers - all mirroring major scenes from Spielberg's film.


After a jumble of sightings, two officers from the Air Force investigate and question all the witnesses. Sergeant Fisk and Major Gatlin are very limited characters, often sounding like they're spouting official USAF documents. Having said that, fair-haired Caskey Swaim is still easy on the eye. The hook to the series was a weekly dose of UFO sightings and alien visitations. These are imaginatively done, albeit on a TV budget (the models look far too small to be anything else than plastic kits). The parade of different extra-terrestrials, usually a new race every week, are more interestingly realised.

The twist is that some of the sightings can be explained away, others cannot. Though if you rewind to the footage of the reported sightings and compare them with the explanations, they don't always match up. When The X Files began, I thought that, like Project U.F.O., at least a few of the cases Mulder and Scully investigated would turn out to be hoaxes or natural phenomenon, rather than them striking paranormal gold every single week.


For the time, Project U.F.O. was a visual effects-heavy TV show, and still provides plenty of retro eye-candy. Looking past the special effects to the original cases that are described could prove to be a little spooky, if you get into it. Nowadays, it's hard to enjoy because of the lack of engaging characters. The level of logic and science is partly aimed at children, or at least anyone who's never heard of electrical storms and the planet Venus. The show is also remarkably low on interesting or even recognisable guest stars, Leif Erickson (of the original Invaders From Mars) and Pamela Franklin (The Legend of Hell House) being rare exceptions.


It's a stretch to call Project U.F.O. a forerunner to The X Files as it's too light in tone, with such slim storylines, (The Night Stalker was much more of an influence). It was also a steep contrast from the aggressive aliens, imaginative action and tight special effects of Gerry Anderson's UFO of almost ten years earlier.

Both seasons of Project U.F.O. reappeared on UK's Sci-Fi Channel a few years ago, so the series is still out there, but has never appeared on DVD anywhere. 26 episodes in all, has anyone spotted them recently? Keep watching the airwaves!

Here's the opening of the first episode on YouTube...