You have to hand it to Adam West. He was severely typecast when his popular TV show was cancelled and found it difficult to find other work. While many other actors from that era threw in the towel, West kept at it and became a pop-culture icon. Like William Shatner, he’s now involved in many new projects and is busier at age 80 than he ever has been before.
Though many fans would love to purchase an official release of the 1966 Batman series, it doesn’t seem like one is going to be available any time soon. The rights to issue the episodes on DVD are tied up in a myriad of financial red tape. In short, 20th Century Fox owns the TV series while the Batman characters are owned by DC Comics (a sister company to the Warner Bros. studio in the vast Time Life conglomerate). Before a DVD release can happen, those two companies must first come to a financial agreement.
On top of that, some of the on-screen and behind-the-scenes talent may or may not be entitled to money for a DVD release. If you remember the show, you know that there were an awful lot of guest stars, cameos, and custom designs and they all come with different contracts. It’s an unfortunate and tangled mess.
Having West’s involvement in an official Batman series release would be a great draw for fans but, considering all the obstacles, it’s hard to say when or if that will happen. As a result, West has decided to do his own project.
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He’s put together a two-disc DVD set of his memories from the Batman TV show. In Adam West Naked, the star goes episode by episode and recounts his personal memories of the iconic show. West shares, in his own offbeat style, three hours of never-before-revealed stories about what it was like to film the 120 colorful episodes.
While the DVDs don’t contain the actual TV show footage, they will make a great companion for watching the officially released episodes or if reruns are being shown in your area.
Right now, the DVDs are available only via West’s site. You can purchase a regular set for $30 or, for $50, the actor will autograph and personalize the case for you.
West continues to play a parody of himself on FOX’s Family Guy series and has been lending his voice to a number of other animated projects.
He can also be heard on a new series of commercials for Lending Tree, sounding an awful lot like his masked alter ego. You can check them out below.
Why don’t they re-run the series on TV Land? There is money to be made.
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Um…it’s Adam West and Burt Ward. DC Comics and 20th Century Fox should be happy to earn a single penny from DVD sales of this turkey. Oh the greed. Oh the shame.