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Unlike the comics which had traded Alfred for Aunt Harriet, the Batman television series and associated 1966 movie featured both Alfred and Aunt Harriet as regular characters, although Harriet's participation reduced over time due to actress Madge Blake's health. During the show's third season (1967-1968), she appeared in only two episodes. Batman is a 1960s American television series, based on the DC comic book character Batman.It aired on the ABC network for two and a half seasons from 1966 to 1968. Even though it was on TV for such a short time, the series had two new episodes each week, giving the show a total of 120 episodes (the equivalent of roughly five regular seasons).
Contents HistoryHarriet Cooper had doted on her younger brother, John, and adored her nephew Dick. Tragically, however, Harriet's husband had been left an invalid after suffering a grave injury and Mrs. Cooper became the breadwinner for the household, working two jobs to make ends meet. Unable to care for Dick herself, the offer by to serve as the youngster's guardian seemed to be a godsend. Bruce, for his part, offered to provide Harriet with enough money to live a more comfortable life but the proud woman wouldn't hear of it. Fortunately, she never connected the generous checks related to Mr.
Cooper's injuries with a certain Gotham millionaire.The death of her husband left Harriet Cooper at loose ends. She was no longer obligated to work two jobs to pay for medical treatments but the unexpected time on her hands and the emotional void in her life were taking their toll. It was around that time that she received tragic news from Gotham City: The death of Bruce Wayne's butler, who heroically died while shoving Batman and Robin out of the path of a falling boulder. Arriving on the scene within days of Alfred's death was Dick's Aunt Harriet, who announced her intention to take care of the boys in the manner to which they'd been accustomed and to live at to oversee the household and help raise her nephew.
'You youngsters are so helpless you'll need someone to see to it that you take care of your health.' While Bruce stammered, Dick could only grin. When Aunt Harriet made up her mind, there was no changing it.Almost immediately, she began tumbling onto odd details in the Wayne household. Answering the phone at mealtime, Harriet heard nothing but 'a peculiar buzz,' a detail that alerted Dick to an incoming call on their 'hot-line' from Commissioner Gordon. As her nephew rushed off, a disgusted Harriet wondered 'why I bother cooking for you and Bruce.
Neither of you eats enough to keep a bird alive'.Paranoid that Aunt Harriet might suspect the truth, Bruce began to read double meanings in the woman's comments to him and Dick. 'I still can't shake the feeling that Aunt Harriet knows that we're secretly Batman and Robin.
She seemed to insinuate something in her remarks'.The continuing telephone buzz and flashing lamps only heightened Harriet's suspicions. In March of 1966, she seemed to get the answers she was seeking. While cleaning the wall in Bruce's study, she unwittingly triggered the hidden panel that revealed the elevator to the Batcave.
'But what's the Batcave doing under the Wayne Mansion - unless - unless Bruce and Dick are Batman and Robin! Oh, but that's ridic - I mean, they couldn't be - yet - it WOULD explain - 'Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the approaching. She rushed back to the study, then paused.
'Hold it, Hattie! You can't leave the car up here. Better send it down as it was originally - or they'll suspect what I've found out.' The sound of the elevator setting down, combined with the lingering scent of Harriet's perfume, was enough to alert Batman and Robin and they immediately went into spin control. 'She'll have to PROVE her suspicions first,' Bruce asserted. 'And we're going to make it tough on her by giving her plenty of room for DOUBT.'
When Aunt Harriet inquired about the secret elevator that night, Bruce asked her to show it to him. The door opened to reveal a closet. ('A newly installed electronic remote-control device will still let US work the elevator - but nobody else,' thought Dick.) Harriet was undeterred. 'The boys think they've fooled me, but I'll have the last laugh yet!' The next few days became a battle of wits between 'the boys' and Aunt Harriet. Outside the disguised Batcave entrance, Dick discovered that 'she's coated our exit road with wet pitch.
If we'd driven over it, she'd know which road we took and maybe find THIS entrance to the Batcave. I'll bet she's done the same thing to ALL the roads around the estate.'
Using a hydrofoil attachment, the Batmobile was slightly elevated off the ground by compressed air and glided right over the pitch. After they were a mile out, the Dynamic Duo dropped the car back onto the highway.Batman and Robin's evening patrol brought them into contact with the latest villain to menace Gotham - the. Secretly coating the Batmobile's tires with 'a special chemical,' the mastermind imagined he could trail the heroes back to the Batcave. He imagined without the tire tracks stopping abruptly in the middle of the highway. While the Cluemaster's gang wondered if the Dark Knight and his squire were 'aliens from another world and the Batmobile is really a spaceship that suddenly took off,' Batman and Robin took satisfaction in the fact that they'd outmaneuvered Aunt Harriet once again.
If they only knew.The battle of wits continued when Bruce and Dick found a hidden camera trained on the elevator. Dick found a second one by the highway exit but, curiously, its film was fogged 'by some radiation.'
Batman quickly deduced that the radiation must have come from the painting/clue that the Cluemaster had left after his latest heist. 'That means the Cluemaster could use it to seek out the Batcave!' Moving quickly, the Dynamic Duo established a secondary cave 'some miles from Gotham City' and allowed the villain's gang to 'discover' it. Trailing the thugs back to their own hideout, Batman and Robin brought the entire group to justice.No less disgusted than the Cluemaster was Aunt Harriet, who developed her film the following morning to discover Batman and Robin stepping from the elevator to greet Bruce and Dick. Satisfied that he'd fooled her with the trick photography, Batman admitted that she'd averted disaster in the Cluemaster caper. 'I suppose someday we'll tell Aunt Harriet the truth,' predicted Robin, 'just as we did with Alfred'.After Alfred returns from the dead in Detective Comics #356, a heartbroken Aunt Harriet was prepared to pack her bags and leave but Bruce and Dick insisted she stay. Alfred himself added 'that I - need you most of all - since I'm not entirely well yet, and your cooking will speed my recovery.'
'Oh, bless you all!' Harriet exclaimed. 'I'll go and prepare a dinner to celebrate our reunion.' Indeed, when Alfred was stricken with fatigue in March of 1967, Aunt Harriet was delighted to take over ('We must make sure you stay well, you know.' ), even rejecting Dick's offer to help with the dishes.
It will give me something to do. Now you two just run along!' A recurring health problem (mentioned in late 1967's Detective Comics # 371) blossomed into a full-scale crisis and Harriet was rushed to Gotham General for emergency surgery in early 1968.Doctors used cryosurgery on Mrs. Cooper and, when the device failed, Batman and Robin made a desperate flight to retrieve Mister Freeze's cold gun and cannibalize it to save the woman's life.She recovered at Wayne Manor, with Alfred now playing caretaker for her (appearing for the last time in Jimmy Olsen # 111 and Detective Comics # 380.
Not wanting to be a burden and regarding herself as redundant alongside Alfred, Harriet moved out. She continued to stay in touch, though. Characteristic of her eclectic taste in art, she sent a unique housewarming gift when Bruce moved into his Wayne Foundation penthouse - an Oriental gong.Harriet had made her final appearance as an ongoing series character in Detective Comics #380 (1968). Harriet's last recorded visit with Dick, Bruce and Alfred was over the 1975 Christmas holidays in Batman Family #4.DevelopmentDespite the longstanding legend that the character was created for the television series to reduce the potential for homosexual interpretations of the Wayne/Grayson relationship, the character had actually been created two years earlier for the comic book.
Some details from the television series (her last name, her status as a widow) were added to the comic stories in Detective Comics #373.In other media Television See.
Adam West's Bruce Wayne said that he's 'taking Mrs. Which is the Frank Miller approach: Frank Miller explained, 'When I handle these superheroes, I like to step back and take a look at them and go, what kind of a person would really do this? What kind of a person would dress up like a bat and throw people through windows? And, I looked at what they'd done with the character and he's spent so much time being deputized and being this nice guy and, god forbid, a role-model for kids, and I realized, no, this would be a very, very strange man. And I don't think he'd be a particularly nice person to be around.
So he'd be the guy you'd want to have around when you're threatened by a criminal, but you probably wouldn't want to have dinner with him.' Michael Keaton explained, 'The choice was to play Batman honestly.
So I started thinking, ‘What kind of person would wear these clothes?’ The answer seemed pretty disturbing. This is a guy in pain.' 'I always imagined Bruce had a very active sex life,' Michael Keaton said. 'To venture into five-and-dime psychology, I'd say a guy with his manic personality would have an insatiable sex drive.
Plus a lot of things happen at night for him. Nighttime is the right time.' Playing Bruce Wayne tired was another notion. Michael Keaton explained, 'He's always out at night.'
And perhaps his finest stroke: After making love to Vicki one night, Bruce can't fall asleep — he's usually out thwarting scourges at that hour. So he climbs into gravity-inversion boots and hangs upside down like a bat, rocking gently, until dozing off.Michael Keaton explained, 'Tim Burton kept telling me, 'You look like a man who would put on a Batsuit and go out and do damage.' And I thought, 'Jeez, you son of a bitch, I never thought of myself like that.' I mean this Batman is not normal, he's a little twisted. Then I looked at myself again and saw what Tim was getting at.'
Michael Keaton Batman (1989) production designer Anton Furst explained, 'I'm interested in the fan reaction to the film and Keaton. I think he's great because he has these chilling, piercing eyes. I can't see how anyone can complain because our film is stylistically in keeping with the comics.' As Dann Gire explained about Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne, 'Keaton and his Machiavellian eyebrows provide millionaire Bruce Wayne with an obsessed, on-the-edge intensity. The moment you see Keaton's Bruce Wayne you know immediately he was the weird guy back in high school who never dated and sat around in physics class mulling over mathematical conundrums with knitted brows. Keaton approaches Wayne as an overgrown kid. Wayne's relationship with Alfred the butler achieves a subtle comedy as the millionaire playboy sails through his mansion during a charity party, jettisoning champagne glasses and other items to be immediately picked up by his prowling servant.
Alfred's expressed concern for his master's mental health, not to mention life, are the key. Alfred leads Vicki into the Batcave to be the salvation of Master Bruce, who has delved so deeply into the obsession with his parents murder. Bruce and Vicki consummate their affections on the first date. The relationship between Wayne and Vale is never satisfactorily established.' Anton Furst explained, 'Batman, is in fact, a tragic case.
This is traditional in the story-line: he inherits a fortune and the Wayne Foundation, Wayne Enterprises, because his parents were shot to death in front of him. Because the whole city is based on crime and corruption.
I know that Tim's interest is, you've got a psychology of somebody who has been severely disrupted by the most appalling thing of watching your parents being shot in front of you when you were a kid, inheriting this fortune - it's real nervous breakdown material, that could produce a psychotic sort of mind.' Batman (1989) scriptwriter Sam Hamm explained, 'Bruce Wayne is a guy who has been psychologically deformed.
He's a guy who is obsessed with what he's doing. He Tim Burton was really aware of Michael Keaton's range of energy. With Jack Nicholson poised to come aboard, he Tim Burton didn't want a stiff as Bruce Wayne, because Nicholson would eat him alive. He wanted an actor who had the same sort of energy range and could bring the same kind of dark humor to the part that Nicholson would absolutely bring to his. I understand that the two of them balance each other off very well. Plus, Burton was anxious to play up the dual personality of Batman. He wanted an actor who could be straight and serious but could have the same manic intensity as Nicholson.
I understand Keaton does a really nice job.' Tim Burton explained, 'The most interesting aspects I perceived in the story - what it was really about - have now been underscored. Michael's personality tuned into these differences, making him a perfect match for the character. He has a lot going on inside him, there's an explosive side, he has a temper and a great amount of anger - that was exactly the Bruce Wayne/Batman character, not some known handsome strong hunk. Don't forget that whoever I cast was going up against Jack Nicholson, too. I kept imagining the reviews and hearing the response in my head, 'Well, Jack's great but the unknown so-and-so is nothing special!' Michael's more straightforward here than he's ever been in any movie.
The idea was to humanize Batman. He's dresses like this for psychological effect.' Tim Burton explained, 'I see a lot going on in his eyes. He's very subtle and intense. And he's one of the few comedic actors who can make the leap to drama. Another reason I wanted Michael Keaton for the film is that he has the same kind of intensity as Jack Nicholson. In a way their two screen characters are related, one flip side of the other - they even have the same eyebrows!
We've had to take a broad-strokes approach portraying him Bruce Wayne as a complex person in an shorthand way. Putting on the costume is his form of release: it gives him a sense of focus when there's too much going on in his mind.' Tim Burton explained, 'He's concocted a very weird way of dealing with trauma.
There's something sad and noble. To me, Batman symbolizes the way life is.' Tim Burton explained, ' The only thing that keeps me going through a movie is that these characters mean something to me. My process is such that I look at all these characters and get a feeling out of them that I find very meaningful. And thematic. That’s the only way for me to approach it. I could never approach it like it’s just a 'funny movie' or it’s a 'weird-looking movie.'
I’m interested in the personal, because I take everything personally. I take Pee-wee Herman and Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands and Batman personally — I feel very close to those characters.
I feel like they are mutated children. It’s personal. The movie is my baby, and I’m putting it out there into the cruel world. If Batman got integrative therapy, he probably wouldn’t be doing this, he wouldn’t be putting on this Batsuit, and we wouldn’t have this weird guy running around in a cape. It’s about depression, and it’s about lack of psychological integration harmonious.
It’s about a character. I always see it being about those things, not about some kind of 'hero' who is saving the city from the 'bad guys' blah-blah-blah. It’s about duality, it’s about flip sides, it’s about a person who’s completely fucked up.
He’s got good impulses, but he’s not psychologically integrated harmonious. And it’s about depression. It’s about going through life, thinking you’re doing something, trying very hard. And the Joker represented somebody who got to act however he wants. The ones that are fucked up and they’re still trying to muddle strive through life, and then the ones that are fucked up and get to be completely free and scary.
And they’re basically two fantasies. There are two sides. Well, I’m probably closer to the Bruce Wayne character, but I much prefer the fantasy of the other the free and scary villains acting however they want. That’s much more the liberating side of it. I get the most gravity out of him Bruce Wayne as a human being.
That’s why I like Michael Keaton in it. He’s got that. All you got to do is look at him, and he looks fucked up. So for me, the context is immediately there. He’s psychologically an unintegrated unharmonious , kind of goofy silly, sad, passionate, strong, misguided inappropriate, in some ways quite clear and in some ways completely out-to-lunch type character. I found that the deeper you went, the more of an intrusion it was.
Maybe there’s a way to do it I haven’t figured out yet. I always felt trying to figure him out more would be too demystifying intrusive.
Yeah, there’s something mysterious about not knowing, which I like. That was always the impulse.
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New characters. I like them very much. Catwoman, Penguin and the Christopher Walken Max Shreck character, I like him, too. It’s a smaller cast. And I find these other characters very compelling.
I think that my impulse is to hide in a cave. Again, it’s the split, it’s Batman.
It’s classic, really, it’s classic.'