Although it's been lampooned, criticised and mocked in the years following its original run, Adam West and Burt Ward's Batman TV show isn't nearly as aberrant as critics and fans have deemed it to be. It's actually an authentic adaptation of the character as he then existed, and while it's an easy target for ridicule, there isn't a more enjoyable Batman adaptation out there.
The late West in particularly embodied the warmth of the Silver Ages Caped Crusader wonderfully, but that's not all. He was Batman for an entire generation, and while actors come and go, few are arguably able to boast as big a legacy as West is.
Then there are the villains, with Cesar Romero's Joker, Frank Gorshin's Riddler and Julie Newmar's Catwoman all nailing their respective characters in their own way. All are equally as iconic as the dynamic Ward-West duo, and with the series now boasting a resurgent popularity, it's high time that people accepted it for what it was: a successful, hilarious and authentic Bat-adaptation that's just as important as any other.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
