Sunday, September 21, 2014

BATMAN and the Mean Streets of Kennington - blog entry by Ian Baker

[Updated Jan 13th 2023]

In May 1967,  during the hiatus between season 2 and season 3 of the Batman TV show, Adam West flew to England and shot a road-safety film, some photos of which are captured here. Batmania was still at its height in Britain. 

According to the Ealing edition of the Middlesex County Times , (Friday May 12th edition),  shooting commenced on Sunday May 7th with scenes on the Embankment, near the Houses of Parliament. One of the children was five-year old Patrick Cooney.

Subsequent scenes were filmed later that week on May 12th 1967, in Denny St in Kennington (according to notes on the photos)

Adam West as Batman in Denny St, Kennington

The incongruity of Batman juxtaposed with an Austin 1100 car, or surrounded by onlookers in a grey London jumps out of the photos.

According to a blogger pcarroll3 on Amazon.co.uk , Batman's dialog in the film was: 

"I'm taking a break from crime-fighting in Gotham and I'm here to tell you about a daily deadly danger.... TRAFFIC!.. and it finished
REMEMBER, Always do your..(pause for effect, look stern into the camera) KERB DRILL! "



© People Disc HM0458 (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)


...and now...the actual advert itself...




HOLY BROKEN BONES, BATMAN! - memories of B&W Batman 1966 by Ian Baker

Ask any Batman fan who grew up in Britain in the 1960s what Robin's most famous "Holy..." aphorism was, and he'd say "Holy Broken Bones!". Yet this quip of Robin's is never found in the 120 episode series. Why is this?

For those of us entranced by the series in Southsea, UK (myself aged 6), every episode of Batman was prefaced by a short film of Batman and Robin standing in front of some curtains, talking directly to camera about the perils of thinking Batman could fly, and not jumping off of roofs in an effort to emulate Batman.

The only photos of that safety film shoot are captured in card 27 of the Bat Laffs set of photo cards of the Batman TV series, and card 41 from the Belgium Monty Gum set, both shown below.

What happened to that intro film? Does it still exist?

[Update] As far as I can recall, the short announcement started to appear around the time that the children's education programme HOW debuted on Southern Television on 10th November 1966, some four months after the Batman show premiered on our local ITV region in July 1966.




The blog http://tothebatpoles.blogspot.com/2011/10/second-season.html contains the following explanation to the short intro being made.


With the release of the feature film and the series now airing overseas, a new problem besides sagging ratings arose, as Executive Producer William Dozier recalled, 'In England, kids started jumping out of windows; they thought Batman could fly. They thought the cape was wings. We had to do a special lead-in to the show, with an interview with Batman saying, "Boys and girls, I do not fly. I can't fly any better than you can. Don't think I can and don't think you can. And don't take chances by trying to jump off the roof." They were doing it, but never in this country. Thank heaven it never started in this country.'
Found among William Dozier's files, was the following note from the executive in charge of Fox's overseas operations. It included the actual intro aired in England:

TIGHT TWO SHOT

Into camera, seriously

BATMAN Robin and I want all you youngsters to understand we have no wings, and no superhuman powers, and we can not fly.

ROBIN And listen, kids, if either of us tried to fly, or jump off a high place, we would be badly hurt. So would you so for gosh sakes, don?t ever try it. Holy broken bones!

And then Robin punched one fist into the other gloved hand, in time-honored fashion.


Does anyone else remember this?