A Geek History of Time - Episode 81 - Batman through the Ages Part III

Episode Date: November 14, 2020

This is a geek history of time. Where we connect to Nurtury to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I am a world history teacher and part-time remedial reading teacher. All of it at a distance here in Northern California. And I recently had one of, I think, several possible peak middle-aged dad moments, specifically middle-aged white dad moments. Earlier this evening, right after dinner, while my wife was washing the dishes, because I

did a cooking chicolines up after. I was in the living room with a cocktail in my hand, my son running around my feet, and we had the soundtrack from Guardians of the Galaxy playing, and I went into full-blown white man-over-bite mode. I was, yeah, so I don't know how much more middle-aged bourgeois white guy dad you can get than that, but if anybody had actually seen the Air quotes around dancing I was doing Pretty sure I pegged the needle on that So that's what I have going on and who sir are you?

Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a high school Latin teacher up here in Northern California, doing the distance thing. And I, I don't know, I mean, I haven't worn socks in three or four months. So it's pretty white guy dad thing. That's pretty white guy dad, but that's also pretty summertime in Northern California and pretty quarantine life. It really is. It really is. So I've saved a lot on detergent. Because yeah, it's pretty much the same. Yeah, the volume of each load of laundry would be notably different. Yeah, yeah. So we can have to get a full load of me and

the two kids as opposed to just a week. So yeah, all right. There you go. That's all I got. So the fact that I'm talking about laundry is pretty, you know, that's pretty middle-aged dad going on. So I think, you know, I think that's pretty middle-aged Gen X slash millennial dad though. Yeah. Gen X slash millennial dad though. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I I have a sink full adishes because I Don't have somebody to wash up after I cook and I cook every night

so yeah, so so Let's see last time we talked about the Batman We did and we didn't get all the way through I think we stopped what in the 40s Yeah, yeah, pretty early on. Yeah, during the war. Yeah, really where we left off. And of course, you know, my thesis was that, you know, from the character's inception up into basically through the war, he embodied kind of an idealized idea of what folks in the late 30s and into the 40s in New York wanted to see from their

gentry. Okay. Yeah. He was our millionaire fighting against evil millionaires who got where they were through corruption and who was working with the good authorities against the bad corrupt ones. And so he was this avatar simultaneously. He was an avatar of the wonders of the advancement of science with all of his high tech gadgets and his high tech vehicles and everything. And he was one of the good ones um he was very wasp and the people he was taking on were not quite the good whites were largely ethnic yeah and so they got date they were crooked because they were of that criminal class of ethnicity yeah yeah and and in in the 40s I think there would be debate about how white Italians really even were in terms

of their perception by wider society or dominant society, I should say. But he also simultaneously, he had multiple of his villains were, you know, renegade scientists or, or, you know, doctors, kind of stuff. So there's this definite kind of science angle, science fiction angle to the character that's there. And then so as the forties wore on, you know, we, of course, started out. We talked about how in the very early episodes, he, his actions range from watching dispassionately as bad guys are killed to doing things that maybe not directly, but indirectly lead to the deaths of bad guys. And in his very earliest incarnation, of course, he did, on occasion, carry and even use a handgun. And so, you know, for

the first few years of his existence, he very much was a character of the detective comic book, years of his existence, he very much was a character of the detective comic book, genre. He was kind of the bridge between crime comics and superhero comics. Now, and he's also a hero that gets his start before the CCA gets its start. Yeah. So, that's kind of an important distinction. It's a very important distinction that we're going to talk about here in a minute. Oh good. So over the course of the 40s, and especially after the war, the tone of the comics got

much lighter. First it was kind of gradual, and then after the war there was a conscious movement toward moving, moving already, kind of moving away from the noir kind of tone of the original comic to more, more like Superman, you know, more, more kind of costumes, hijinks. And the villains got more cartoonish. We see the man had had her crazy quilt, the gentleman ghost, and the killer moth. All of whom are very arch, very, you know, I don't want to say they weren't campy at the outset, but they're definitely very much cartoon-like kind of characters. And all of them show up between the end of the war and the institution of the CCA.

Okay, so these are, these can be characters that get grandfathered in if you sanitize and soften, because I'm quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. Like the killer moth can't be the killer moth, but it could be the moth. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, madhatter, you know, is taken straight out of,

you know, Alice in Wonderland, Louis Carroll. Right. Right. You know, and then, and then we look back at who his other other, other nemices had been, who his other opponents had been, you know, we have the penguin who started out being kind of cartoonish, but he was a mob boss. And then after the CA, he gets more cartoonish. You know, all of them, all of the, after the CCA, kind of what happens is, you know, CCA is, I wanna say, 54 off top of my head.

Cause I didn't actually put the day down in my notes, which I should have. But. It's our first episode. Yeah. I've been stuck with it. I've been stuck with it. I'm with a one team kid.

Yeah. So, you know, a little bit of slack here. So, CCA starts. And all of that cartoonification accelerates and it winds up kind of retconning going back to all of the characters that already existed. So you know catwoman gets gets What's word I'm looking for? De-glammed a little bit De-clawed if you will. Soften? Yeah, DeGlaude, very good.

Yeah. I kind of wonder if like, if all the characters that he ends up fighting, if they don't just dive in further to their theme because that will automatically cartoonify them. And then you can, you know, like penguins, a mob boss, but he really just wants the world to be ruled by penguins. You know, so it's like, okay, that kind of never cat woman. She's cute and she's sexy, but really she wants kitty litter.

And then you can kind of come away from it more. Yeah, really she wants to be a crazy cat lady and Batman's girlfriend at the same time. You know, like, okay, at least they're both mammals, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, you know, yeah. There you go. So, but yeah, what you do see, and that's a meaningful point that you bring up,

what you do wind up seeing is the flanderization. Mm-hmm. And I'm stealing that term again, whole cloth from TV tropes. You're seeing the flanderization of basically the whole rogue's gallery. Now, for those of us that don't know flanderization is where you take a character from the Simpsons, and then he recites on flander's field. Nice. Nice. No. No. No. That's a much.

I, wow, I would be interested to see what Graning would do with that. But what you do is you take Ned Flanders, who started out as, you know, he's the next door neighbor and, you know, he and his family are the upright, you know, milk drinking, you know, moral majority brigade to, you know, to compare to the Simpsons who are dysfunctional in every fucking way imaginable. And then you take that idea that he is a no drinking tea toteler, kind of uptight Christian and you then make that the whole point of him and his entire family. Okay, so you basically reduced them down to a single facet

of what you'd previously seen. Yeah. Yeah. And that facet is northern France, the Netherlands. Yeah. Yeah, that reached one of the bloodiest parts of the western front, yes correct. Yeah, yes.

Fertil soil, yeah. Jackass. So his name is Ned. I mean, that's short for Netherlands. You know, now I'm wondering. That's landers. Yeah. Like a day on On Great Lake's Park. Son of a bitch. See, you think I'm just an idiot in an asshole, but I'm really just an idiot in an asshole. an asshole, but I'm really just an idiot and an asshole. No, I know. But everyone's a while, I'll have a point.

I have never thought of your idiot. Well done. Never thought you're going to get it. So, but when the CCA shows up, you know, because it's, you know, a sense of yourselves or we're going to do it for you. Right. That's the point at which we see Number one Batman never carries a gun again. Number two Batman now hates guns and And like has a stated policy it's that you know, he doesn't use them never will use them

Right. He has almost an anti fetish Yes, yeah, he does really and and and and it is He doesn't use him, never will use him. He has almost an anti-fetish. Yes, he does, really. And, and, and, it is after the introduction of the CCA that we see him suddenly draw the very clear moral line that to all of us who know the character after this is like one of his defining characteristics, is I will not kiss on the first date. Yeah, yeah. Well, that too. Yeah. Which, you know, kind of becomes more of a thing after the TV series in 66. But anyway, you know, he will

not, he will not kill. Oh, that too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, which, which, you know, he, he, which, which, which, you know, has to be there because of the CCA, right? Has to be no, no, he's a hero. So he's, he's trying to apprehend all of these guys and bring them to justice and, and, you know, like leave them for the cops, and leave them for the police. And if somebody he's fighting is going to fall off a ledge, whatever, he has to put himself at risk to save them. Now, dramatic change from the very first issue of the comic, which he literally says a fitting end for one of his kind. Sure. Sure. I will say, though, that like that like you, there's a couple of things that happen there. Number one, he's also been flanderized by virtue of the fact that like, you know, I don't kill people and I don't use guns. Covered pieces. Yeah.

And then on top of that, you also have this, how to put this, like part of the CCA said, you can't have cops looking competent, you can't have authorities looking competent. So now he's helping them, although he's helping them on things that are above their ability, but it's not because they're incompetent, and also they're not crooked anymore.

He's not going after crooked cops or a cop on a take or anything like that. So he's helping them apprehend things that he has the power to stop and they don't. That's what I'm seeing. Yes. Yes. And so we start seeing, because of that, we start seeing the how to put it, the metaphictional separation of him and the criminals he deals with from what can be handled by normal in quotes authorities. And so he becomes super heroic by virtue of the fact that if he wasn't super heroic, he'd be dealing with stuff that the police would be dealing with. And if he did that, that would cast doubt on their capabilities.

So that would make them look like the keystone cops and we would have that happening. And so what this leads to is a whole lot of, you know, a three-color comic book kind of silliness. So Ace the Bad Hound shows up in 1955. Okay, is this, although at the same time though, doesn't Superman have a dog at this point too? Yes, he does. Okay, so everybody had a dog at some point.

Yeah, everybody gets a dog. All right. Like, you know, everybody has a ward which Batman was the first one. Robin, Robin, the choice. As I mentioned in our last episode, say, everybody has a word to, to, in Batman's case, there's a narrative reason for it. I honestly don't know why Cap had a teenager following him around the front

in World War II. And an American one at that. He's not a detective. Right. So you don't narratively need him to have, need to have him recite to somebody. Let me explain to you how I came to this conclusion. So you can see how fucking brilliant I am. Right. You know, so there's like, okay, why, why did we do this?

I kinda wanna know. Yeah. But, and part of it could very well be to make this adult character more approachable to a younger audience. You have somebody's younger audience to identify with. I understand that from a marketing perspective, but like, manufacturingally, why?

Yeah, well, and he was, was um what he called Bucky was originally there um as the boy companion to cap like all the way back in Captain America comics number one oh yeah like he was there from the jump and so it's just kind of he was part of a group called the uh the young allies it was this all-kid team which later on Rick Jones is part of like a crime fighting squad that helps the Avengers. Oh, it's really dumb. Yeah.

But yeah, it's really, really weird. Like, there's no real explanation for him being in there until much later when people start to go, you know, it's a little weird to lead a teenager without arm. Why are you doing that? Yeah. So anyway, you know, and again, there's no, this doesn't really apply to cap, but when we're talking about this kind of stuff, you know, him having a dog and all this stuff, it's the fifties. I mean, in a lot of the Facebook groups that I follow, for those of you who don't actually personally know Damien and me, you know,

but our listeners, so for like all three of you, I frequently wear a Kilt as, you know, as just part of my wardrobe. And so I am part of a number of Kilt groups on Facebook. And there is an excerpt from a Batman comic from the 50s that shows up regularly in which, for whatever reason, Batman and Robin are visiting Scotland in the course of some investigation or adventure of theirs. And Batman and Robin donk kilt to attend a dinner party as Batman and Robin rather than Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. Are they killed as part of some sort of dress code or other people dressed in kilts? Presumably, it's never explicitly stated that you know it's required

attire but they do have there is a conversation between the two of them explaining to the comic book audience about you know, Kills being the traditional garb of the Highlands and and you know the tradition which of course those of us in Kiltkrubs knows of a you know late 18th century early 19th century invention of you know each clan having their own tartan. And explaining that in tones that literally sound like dialogue from the 60s TV series before the 60s series, as they're heading off to this function.

And so yeah, this is the kind of stuff that you saw happening in the comics in the 50s. It had been turned into kitty entertainment by the CCA because the assumption was the only people reading it were kids. And young ones at that. And young ones at that, not 15, 16 year olds, but like eight and nine year old. And so the stories that get told reflect that. They are they are they are costumed hijinks. They are ciphere there's ciphile elements, you know, that they begin to predominate really.

And of course the ciphile elements begin to predominate because this is also the dawning of the jet age, the very beginnings of the space age. Sure. You know, and so that's all in the zitgeist. And so this is the same time period that you know, we're seeing drive-in movies about radio active bugs. And, you know, all of that kind of stuff going on. You're also seeing coming into, now we're talking 50s or 60s here. You said 60s, right? At this point, I'm talking mostly 50s.

We're gonna get into the 60s. Just gonna say, you're starting to see eccentric millionaires kind of creeping into the zeitgeist as well. How are you? With the spruce goose. Yeah. You know, and you're seeing people with a lot, and usually by munitions, by the way way like that's usually how they made their bones

but Yeah, mm-hmm across over to Marvel for a second. Yep but So you're starting to see eccentric millionaires and you're also starting to see the idea of a playboy showing up and a playboy being an American playboy, not some Italian import playboy, like Valentino was. There was a swarliness to playboys prior,

and it was like, well, that's that Southern European passion. And now, you can be a wasp and be a playboy. They still can't put their hips independently at all, but at least they can. I waited tight into my intro. No problem. But yeah, yeah, and it's also worth noting that it's, I wanna say it's 55,

is the founding of Playboy magazine. So yes, that term, millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne right is is now now now has something attached to it that is that is you know, a another phenomenon yes kind of separately and entirely and for anybody after that that's going to be attached to that term. You know, and the 30s millionaire versus a 50s millionaire is a very different kind of millionaire as well. A 30s millionaire is going to be top-handed out, still wearing like the tux and the gloves and the cane and the monocle and maybe a sash.

The 50s millionaire will be a little less dressed. He'll look less like a New Yorker comic, and he'll look more like Dagwood. George Hamilton. Yes. He'll look like George Hamilton. Yeah. He'll have, he'll have, you know,

a white shirt with some kind of an mascot inside the collar. Yes. Kind of puffed up. He'll have a sport coat, probably white pants, deck shoes. Yes. Kind of kind of puffed up. It has a sport code, probably white pants, deck shoes. Yep. Possibly without socks depending on season. You know, and despite not being Southern European, he's going to have a cultivated tan. Well, because this is when a mass culture starts really going all in on movie stars Super movie stars now because yeah, exactly rock Hudson Carrie Grant is a bit earlier, but but a little bit a little bit there

Tony Curtis. Yes. Wow. You just named two queer guys Yeah, well. Who had the cultivated image of masculinity. Yeah, I wonder. But also like Charlton Heston, Steve Reeves, you're starting to see muscle bound fellas. In wrestling, by the way, you see guys like Jim Laundice, who if you ever want to see a handsome look and fella who looked like a million dollars couldn't wrestle for beans as Jim Laundice.

Yeah, he was, and he was a huge draw, by the way, and an enormous draw. Oh yeah, like he's one of the top four draws ever. Historic, like a adjusting for inflation. Yeah. Nobody ever hears about it. Wow. Yeah. It's remarkable that he could be that big and be lost. Entirely. Okay. Wrestling is a very self cannibalizing world. Okay, I can see that. Yeah.

All right. So, so we're seeing, so again, in the 50s, we have, we have this, you know, big time cartoonifying of everything in the bat verse. You know, the plethora of bat gadgets expands dramatically during this time. You know, and the tone of all of the comics again, and comic books in general, this is part of what happened in the 50s was all of them got kiddified. Right. And by necessity. Yeah.

And so then, as time went on, you know, readers, readership kind of fell off. And then in 1966, I have to mention the TV show because if we're going to talk about Batman in any kind of cultural context in the US over time, get away from talking about the TV show. You are welcome to talk about the TV show, but I'm covering him later in movies. So it's fine if we have overlap, because the movie absolutely overlaps. But yeah.

No, I'm going to, no, I just, I have to kind of touch on it and bounce off of it like a trampoline and move on. Sure, sure. So the TV show debuted on ABC on January 12th, 1966. Ran for three seasons until 1968. And we could, I mean, if we wanted to, we could spend like multiple episodes talking about the influence of the show

and just what it did is a pop cultural phenomenon. Oh absolutely. Like the ways in which it affected everything in the comic book space. Oh yeah, well, and not just the comic book space, but like kids cartoons, even though this wasn't a cartoon, like you don't have this, you don't have Scooby Doo.

This is true, This is very... Who by the way had Batman and Robin the cartoons on. Like it's just this nice little bounce back. But yeah. Justice League. Yep. So, what I think the most important points to bring up for my study here is everything that had happened in the comic book since 54. The TV series took and went, you know what, we're going, by doing that, it was very counter-cultural.

Yes. Because Batman is the ultimate, or up to that point, Batman was the embodiment of, you know, somebody who was outside the establishment but working to uphold the values of the establishment. As I mentioned, he was this idealized idea of what we'd all like a millionaire to be doing with their money rather than what they did. This is why you should give them tax breaks. Yeah, I don't like if they were all gonna do this like Jeff Bezos and I'm fucking disappointed in the man like you You could totally be Batman by now, yeah, you you could but what are you doing? Yeah, not that you're not Batman So like get it together

Anybody wants to send a message to Jeff Bezos, please do. I'm sure he'll care. So if you look at the way he is portrayed, what I think is really interesting about his portrayal in the series is number one, we're making fun of how square he is. Like as the audience we're in on the joke of of oh my god, he is such a fucking square. Right. And he keeps inhabiting these not square places. Like there's of course the gif of him doing the dance. The battoos.

The battoosie, you know. And there was one where he talked with Robin about how Robin tried to smoke a cigarette to blend in with a street gang, and it gave him way, and Batman's like, well, your lugs aren't used to that, because you do the right, you know, is a don't smoke kids moment.

Oh yeah, and super-struck. And they're talking about drinking your milk, eating your vegetables, doing your homework, I mean, there was all that kind of stuff. Oh, that's so good. And oh yeah, no, it's amazing. And the thing is, it's really clearly way over the top and like you know We're making fun of how square this all is

But at the same time there's actually a certain level on which it's actually earnest and and there is There's there's this this part of the 60's it guys that was that really was actually kind of that naive Mm-hmm, you know and really wanted to have this, this, you know, Dudley do right of the Mounties kind of figure to, to believe in. And, you know, my, what I, what I got to say here, you know, from a personal standpoint is my exposure to the 1966 TV series happened in the 80s when I was six and seven years old in reruns and syndication. Yes.

And as a six and seven year old, I didn't get the joke. Of course not. I mean, I just look at like deadly seriously and that's the dude I wanted to be right there. Well, and we'll add to that the fact that you very likely in your Batman diet at the time, there may have been a comic or two. I don't know, but there definitely was the JLA. There were the cartoons and the Batman live action and the Batman cartoon had the same outfit and that same outfit I think really that blue gray and yellow was such a softer palette of

The menace that batman presented previously his ears were really tiny his cowl was just you know like it was you know Is the cartoon had more pronounced ears than the TV series, but you're right. Yes. I think there was just a lot less menace and it, I don't want to say sanitized him, but it certainly made him palatable for children to think that's a really cool hero. Yeah. So of course, everything would have been lost on you. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. everything would have been lost on you. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Big time. Now now compare that my my take on the character TV series to my father's take on the character in the series in 1966. My father was a I want to say by that time he had made Luke tenant. He might have still been all the tenant GG. In the United States Navy, he was a naval aviator. And in 66, I'm trying to remember, he wouldn't have been on Midway Island anymore, but he was somewhere in the States, in the Navy. And he, let's see, in 66, means he would have been 22 years old. Okay.

And he and every other 22-year-old, Ensign Lieutenant JG, in his squadron, had, they didn't call them this, but they essentially had a standing watch party in the ready room to watch bad man oh really because it was it was just such a fucking hoot uh... that's great said that you know they were all there and and you know they all

apparently every time you know meanwhile that's stately Wayne manner, and it was always stately Wayne manner, that's one of the red gags, and they would always, like everybody in the room would say, at stately Wayne manner, along with, it was the closest thing a bunch of crew cut wearing naval officers could get having their own rocky horror picture show. You know,

like, like, yeah, and they were, they were all there. Now, it didn't hurt. And of course, the TV show was on, you know, midweek. Right. In the evenings rather than Friday or Saturday night when they were all out, you know, chasing skirts and getting drunk. But, you know, that was... Hey, well, that's happening. There's kids getting high in the rec room at their parents' house in the basement, watching it too, and probably all saying at stately Wayne manner between tokes.

Yes. It's a hugely connective tissue. Yeah, because it was this huge cultural event. And everybody, and by this time, everybody knew who Batman was. He was a big enough character in the Zid Guys, even though almost nobody was reading the comics anymore. Everybody knew who the character was. Everybody as a kid had read one or two Batman comic books. And so here is this character getting turned into this kind of different character on TV. And the whole thing was ramped up to 11

and it was all, it was the closest you can get in live action to truly doing three color comics. Yeah. Complete with the flashcards of POW, BAM. live action to truly doing three color comics. Yeah. Yeah. Complete with the flashcards of POW BAM and shit like that. Yeah, you beat me to it. Yeah, sorry. You know, well, no, no, it's brilliant that you did.

You know, and Caesar Romero in an iconic but totally not out of the comic book, or at least not out of the beginning of the comic book, take on the Joker, portraying the character with his mustache painted over, with clown makeup, because it refused to shave for the role, and they were like, all right, fine, we'll just paint it over. And like, you can tell he's got a mustache. He's got a mustache, yeah.

Makeup, You know, and the guy that I want to say storage, I'm trying to remember the after's last name. He also did a one time role on Star Trek. Oh, Frank Gorshin. Frank Gorshin, thank you. If you tell me the villain that he plays, it's easier. Yeah, yeah. That's how we are. He are like we grew up with this redler yeah yeah yeah Frank Gorshin you know Frank Gorshin you know where we're you know who who was a

stand-up comic yes you know you know and and Adam West who playing you know Bruce Wayne and Batman who who got the role because one of the executives behind the show saw him in a quick ad. Okay. He was playing a secret agent, Agent Q, in an ad for chocolate milk. They were like, no, no, no that guy. We got to give that guy an audition because that's the level of, no, no, no that guy. We got to give that guy an audition because that's the level of, no, no,

I'm taking this deadly seriously that we need for this character. Apparently, apparently he was the only guy who could read his lines with a straight face. Really? In the audition, yeah, that's right. What got him, one rumor is that that was what got him the role.

He also played Harry Anderson's dad on Nightcourt, his erstwhile dad. And I think he was like crazy or something. And he'd, you know, that's what they called it back then at least. And then he'd say, you know, oh, I got out. And I'm feeling much better now. Much better now. Yeah. Well, okay, wait, hold on. Yeah. Was that was that him or was that, um, oh, damn it. And now I can't remember, uh, from the Adam's family, that that wasn't Adam Adam. Adam was your right.

He's air his dad. It was no, it was Frank. That's no this Frank does it addams no no you're right you're right who am I thinking of god and i love i love him and i can't remember his name right now uh... hold on yeah yeah now i got that you you continue because you're running this right yeah no you you look it up so So, yeah, Frank Gorshin. And then, you know, Catwoman got played by multiple actresses, you know, most notably John Aston, that's who I was thinking. John Aston, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, probably most famous to everybody is, Earth a kid. Yep. You know know playing playing the character with the with the you know uh...

trialed ours and the in the completely over the top over here presentation uh... you know uh... and and just you know all of it being so ridiculous and they and they had they had the the standing bit in the show Where bad men and Robin had to climb the side of a building nice that you called it a standing bit

Yeah, thank you Where where they were they were climbing climbing the side of a building and And as they were climbing, you know people in the building would open their windows and say things to them. Right. And have, you know, brief conversation or something, and it would be, you know, goodnight citizen at the end of it, you know, it's right. And so clearly coming from the same brain space as Rowan and Martin's laugh in, they have the bit where, you know, the wall would open up and they'd tell a bad vaudeville joke and then stick their head in the hide. Well, and that always had the same flavor to me

as you can't do that on television when they're in the lockers. They move. Yes, Alistair. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. Oh yeah, that's the same thing. We might need to do a you can't do that

on television episode. We probably do same thing. We might need to do a, you can't do that on television episode. We probably do. Yeah. We probably do. We'll need to think on that. So okay, so, so the thing is, a kind of wall. It was a huge, yeah.

And because of these bits, because of, you know, it's, it's particular tone, it was taken, it was literally taking the 50s, ear comics and ramping them up to like beyond 11. It was all the way up to 11. Yeah. Like not even like beyond that. Is that little push over the cliff?

If it's a little push right over the cliff. Yeah. Right when you need it, you can go up to 11. Why don't you just make 10 louder? These go to 11 to 11. Producer George happy now. Yeah. So, good. I'm glad he is.

So, so, but let's take a look at what was happening in the world. Uh-huh. Uh, in, in 65 and 66. Oh, it was a really peaceful time. Like there were no tensions. It was, uh, yeah, like the whole peaceful time like there were no tensions. It was Yeah, like the whole world just kind of took a breath. It was good. Yeah, it was good time was a pause. Nothing happened Not at all. No, no not at all

LBJ took office in his own right in 65 after beating goldwater in 64 right which which you know Let's let's just talk about that presidential race four right which which you know let's let's just talk about that presidential race uh... the reason lbj one was because everybody was literally afraid gold water was going to cause the end of the fucking world well there's that um... also because he wrapped himself in the cloak of can't it is martyrdom well yeah he did put on can it is bloody shirt yeah is no arguing that but also he he he was America's first Hispanic president.

Johnson. Yeah. Yeah. His name is LBJ, which is Spanish for the BJ. Okay. Yeah. I'm walking away from that rapidly. Okay. He also named his penis Jumbo. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah, he did. I knew that. I did unfortunately already. He also had a secret service guy stand in front of him so he could piss on him while continuing a conversation. He literally just stand over here. I got a pee and like he peed on the guy. And the guy was like, like afterward, Mr. Prime,

he's like, what did he say, prerogative of office? You're fucking kill me nope if ever there was a president who most resembled mark and tonight it would be linden bane shonson like he shit yeah he don't see her service agent because he didn't want to stop talking to a guy to go pee. Wow. Okay.

Yep. But anyway, so... I see we stepped out of the old office to do it, right? Like you didn't like piss on the guy on the rug. No, I don't think it was in the old office. I want to say it was like, it was in a hallway somewhere, which is worse. Oh, yeah.

That's great. Have you ever heard the presidential tape of him calling the tailors to ask them for? Oh my god, it's so good. He burps midword. But he basically is like, you know, I really like your pants. And I was hoping that you could take about two and two or three inches out of the inseam, where my nut sack hangs, and then take another inch away from a bunghole. This is a presidential, it's in the presidential library. Oh my God.

Oh, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. So what we're saying here is, Lyndon Bates Johnson was the first trailer part president of the United States. Oh no, that would be William Henry Harrison. He literally dragged a log cabin with him the whole way. He's like, I are smart. I are just like you. Okay. I actually, I was gonna correct myself and say, no, it

would actually be Jackson. Yeah, but Jackson pretended at it. Big, big wheelie little cheese day. Yeah, but he pretended at it. He was rich as fuck. He had a castle in Tennessee. Rich can't hide you class. A good point, good point. I'm just saying. That's true. But anyway, and that's me coming from a place of immense, you know, bougie privilege right

there, saying that. Of course, grandmother would be proud of me. I was about to say my grandmother would be proud of you too. Yeah. So, but what was what was what was going on there, you know, beyond LBJ, Malcolm X was fascinated in 65. The Watts riots and the Voting Rights Act both happened in 65. Vietnam basically rolled into high tide with Operation Rolling Thunder starting in 1965. Oh shit, that's where my dad was. He was on a carrier, which was part of the reason that they could all be in the ready room all at the same time. There you go. They didn't have the opportunity to be any place else. So yeah, Operation Rolling Thunder started in 1965.

And basically, I mean, the real height of the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement, I mean, we're talking about all of this stuff happening. And for us living through the times we're living through right now, I really think if there was any time period we could go back to and be like, yeah, okay. Okay, I can see this, I get this vibe. It would be 65, 66. Well, let's see, 66, you also have Arlo Guthrie's

Alice's Restaurant come out. This is true. So you have this focus in 66 of this energy of common sense versus the authority. Yes. And that's absolutely counter-cultural. And in many ways Batman is answering Dragnet.

Oh shit, that's brilliant. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, he really, yeah, it really is. Yeah, yeah, he really yeah, it really is yeah Because I know I know just the last couple of years more than once There's a clip that's gone around of you know Friday and Colonel Potter I can't remember his character's name But a much younger Colonel Potter, you know have having a conversation with a couple

of kids who were trying to start some alternative community or something that got busted for drugs or whatever it was. And the two kids dressed like a couple of rejects from the cover of... Like a heart-trust family. Heart-trust family. Or from the cover of the Sergeant Pepper's album, with the brightly colored Nae-Roo jackets and the strike pants or whatever, and Friday kind of goes off on them about,

you're trying to change the world, you're trying to make the world a better place, you don't understand how lucky you are. You don't see people in regeneration, nobody has mastoid scar, there's any more, none of you have died of polio, you know, and just goes down this long list of, you know, from the boomers. Yeah.

Or from, I was gonna say, this is silence. Silence from the silence. Yeah, and at young boomers. Yeah. Yeah. About, you know, looking at all this shit we did for you, you owe a grateful little shit. Right.

But, but manages to do it in a way that's like, no, no, you want to change the world and that's awesome, but understand the world isn't as bad as you think it is. And then Batman comes along and is like, no, And, you know, it's this mass response kind of to that. And to the, as you pointed out in a prior episode, to the absurdity of the Cold War, you know, it was the far side kind of of its time. You know, I mean, operating on a different level, but it was, it was the same kind of visceral, subconscious mass reaction that led to the show being this huge hit. And it wound up having a profound impact on the development of the character from there. And now I'm going to leave it behind and move on to talk

about what happened after that. So in 68, so that the comic, all of a sudden, the comic books started flying off the shelves because of the TV series. And the TV series made Bob Cain a millionaire. And Bill F finger got fucked Because you know can can had screwed him But anyway, that's beside the point of my thesis right now

So so the comics flew off the shelves for a while and then because of the show yeah because of the show And then teeth series died out and then comic book sales basically immediately plummeted. And so in late 1968, DC decided, okay, no, look, we've got to do something about that. And they wound up taking the character back to a darker tone, made him more of a detective again and consciously moved away from the silliness that had dominated the fifties and into the sixties. And so in sixty-eight, Batmite and Ace the Bat Hound disappear, and Bat bat might doesn't show up again for 40 years. shows up again in the 2000s.

Somebody with more in-depth knowledge or more recent or more detailed research than mine might be able to tell me the time when he showed up again, but the next time the bat might shows up is actually as a hallucination of a psychotic bat man. Wait, the bat, what? At might. Might, you did say might. Yeah, you're not familiar with bat might. I am completely familiar with bat might. Oh, okay, you're going to learn a thing. Okay. So, I'm a little worried. So Superman had Mr. Mixelplick. Yes. And Mr. Mixelplick is an alien from the fifth dimension, right, you know, who doesn't actually use magic, uses, you know, ultra of high tech from from the fifth dimension to stuff, right. And Mixelplick is a bad guy. Right. And Mixelplick is up and up and he's objectively here to cause trouble. He wants to get in super mix way.

He wants to, yeah. He is an agent of chaos. Bat Might is Batman's answer to Mr. Mixleplik because it's DC Comics and they exist in the same continuity. Right. And the difference is Bat Might shows up as a little childlike looking man in an ill-fitting Batman costume. And he is Batman's biggest fan.

Okay. And he wants to help. Jesus Christ, there's a character like that in Marvel in the 90s called Hindsight Lad, who basically blackmailes the new warriors into letting him be a part of them. And then when Civil War happens, he releases all their names to the public. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

That might doesn't ever actually wind up becoming a snitch, but he's, he is, no, no, let me help and imagine a really well-meaning four-year-old with just dimensional technology. He doesn't really know how shit works trying to help. Oh, Jesus, this is like, oh, God, Zazu, Kazoo, the guy who was bothering both George Shetzon and Threadflinstein. Yeah,etzen and Fred Flintstone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Zazoo? I think it was. I think it was. I think it was. I think it was Kazoo because Zazoo is the name of the bird in Lion King. Oh yeah. No you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Kazoo. Kazoo. Great. Kazoo or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So that was kind of a thing at that time. Oddly. Yes. Yeah.

I do. Okay. I do remember because there was a serious, like, serious ish one where bat might showed up and they like, it was kind of in around the world and 80 days thing. And he ended up in a coma when they like passed over the outback. And he was left there there and then the next time you saw him, he was on bread, he was vegemite. Nice. Thank you. Well done. Well done. No, he wanted to showing up again in a run sometime back. Got him trying to remember when in the 2000s it was when Bruce Wayne has a psychotic break. Well, I could tell you that's probably the mid 2000s

because from probably 05 to 09 somewhere in there, largely because dissociative disorder is huge in video games, like during that four-year span. It's enormous. Yeah, I'd have to look it up again because it wasn't part of the scope of my study, but I remember seeing a few of the comics at the time. And through, because of, and through because of extensive rapid rapid fire revelations of betrayal one after the other and a bunch of other stuff and overt manipulation by the Black Mask Society, Bruce Wayne winds up having a psychotic break and becomes the Batman of the Zuer and R some alternate dimension alternate world. Okay. And and bat might shows up as the embodiment of the part of him that is still

sane. Oh wow. Okay. It's a weird. I get it. Inner child stuff. It's just there's all kinds of yeah. You know, okay, just speaking as a fan. I hate it. The series. Okay, look, if Batman is the one guy in the DC universe, you don't want to a lantern core ring too, because he's too fucking powerful. Right. Because of the lantern core ring, we talked about this in earlier. I've said a lantern core ring is powered by Will Power. Right.

And you give one to Bruce Wayne. And like he just decides, no, no, the green lantern core is inherently corrupt. And I'm going to do what I'm going gonna fucking do and you can't stop me. Yeah. And then they can't. Well, you take that character and then you give him a psychotic break and I'm like, okay, which is it, man? Like one.

Right, right, well, I mean, you kind of run out of places to explore with him unless you go into the mind. Well, yeah, no, I get that. I mean, I understand, I understand from a, oh my god, we, we've got to write another issue this month with a fart. We're going to do, I mean, I get that. But as a fan, I was just really disappointed.

I was just speaking in terms of cumulative head trauma. Yeah. It's just how many times is again, punch in the face? Yeah, I mean, it's going to break. Think about the site against Bane. Bane's got away. What? 500 pounds of solid, fucking muscles. Yeah. Yeah, he, he in the face. Yeah, I mean, it's gonna break think about the fight against Bayon man's got away what 500 pounds of solid fucking muscles. Yeah, yeah, he he fought the

mountain like yeah, yeah. So all right. So then several fist fights with Superman too. Like, you know, so okay, so it's the 60s Batman gets dark in 68 or so. Yeah, 60, 68, 69. And then we see a racial ghoul show up for the first time in the 70s. Oh, okay. And they made a conscious effort in the 70s and into the early 80s to take the character back to No, no, he is a detective. We're going to do darker themed stories. You know, the whole introduction

archiviracelle ghoul is remarkably grim. Well, and it's Eastern mysticism. And in the early 70s, you see a lot of that as we spoke about in your Jedi episode, Lucas got the Jedi right. But also, and if you look at any Marvel comics, you see a lot of psychedelia and you see a lot of Eastern mysticism where you find the only white person in all of Asia, it turns out he's the best mystic. So... Yes, well, yeah, Yes, well, yeah, you know, mighty whitey syndrome.

Right. Is it? So, so then we, we see this, this, the return of the character kind of to his roots in that way. And in the 70s, the end of the 80s, and we see, Dick Grayson leaves, goes off to college, starts his career as night wing. Jason Todd shows up. Jason Todd is angry. He's you know, abandoned ex-foster kid. You know, who Batman catches when he's trying to, you know, steal tires off the bat mobile. Basically short-round, but for Batman. Kind of, yeah. We call that

shoe-horning, right? Like when you shoe horn a character in, yeah. Although with someone Jason Todd's size, I guess you crowbar them in. Or you crowbar them out. Too soon. Too soon. Sorry. Like, wow, man. So, but, yeah, I mean, it's important that you do bring that up, you know, because here,

you know, when Dick Grayson showed up and he was an acrobat, and you know, a member of this family, very talented people who were victims of crime and all this, Jason Todd shows up, and now they've introduced a sidekick for Batman who is literally a street level, you know, criminal. He's like desperate, you know, off of the streets, he's now being, being, you know, brought in by Bruce Wayne and there's all this tension about that. And, you know, and they really delve into, you know, what the, what the, kind of, kind of anger that drives a character like Jason Todd is. Right. The anger of the youth. Yeah. And so it's a very different evolution of that relationship.

And they spent a lot of time in the 70s and the 80s with Dick Grayson showing up as Nightwing and the tension between him and Jason Todd, the tension between Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne with the, well, you know, now I'm an adult, I gotta go out and I gotta do my own thing and I'm gonna have my own life and I'm my own man, I'm not Batman, kind of thing. And of course Nightwing went on to be, you know, medically dated, like every female superhero in the DC universe is a metixx god, you know, like it's, it's a thing which, you know, more power to him and, you know, whatever. If it's based on a board's character, apparently that's, you know, I'll get into that one, talk

about the movies. Not entirely wrong. So, so yeah. But, and who knows it might be in a very meta kind of move by the writers, but so they, they, they, they, they darken these things down, they bring in these kind of gritty kind of real world elements. But it's still, you know, I mean, at the same time, they're doing that. I want to say it's Warner Brothers was doing the cartoon series for the Justice League for super friends for Saturday And so we kind of have these two different visions of the character going on at once in the comics

He's turning he's going back to his roots and becoming this this darker, ritty or more detective character on this darker, prettier, more detective character on television, the one incarnation of the character now, at that point, is either the, well, the two are the reruns from the 66 series, right? And the cartoon, which you mentioned before, right? You know, and that's a much, much fluffier, much kind of campier version of the character. And so we have these two kind of images fighting for dominance in the public view. Are they really aimed at the same audience though? I mean, it sounds like in many ways comics grew up with their audience members and then

couldn't figure out how to get kids. And that was the problem because adults stopped spending money on those. Whereas the TV, you could tell by the commercials who they're advertising to. And those are still aimed at the kids. So I'm wondering if there's two different audiences going on there. I think there are definitely two different audiences. I think that's a meaningful point,

but the character of Batman in the public consciousness is now kind of fracturing along these lines. This is kind of the point I'm trying to make. And I'm pointing this out because it's going to lead I'm teeing you up when you talk about the movies. Oh, yeah. But the identity of the character

is now starting to diverge. You have one version of the character, one mythos of the character. That is very much directly descended from the TV series. And you have another one that is responding to the TV series by going, not only back to the character's roots, but doubling down on some of those issues. And, and then thinking like, like beginning in the 80s to kind of start looking into what does this actually mean for this guy's psyche? Well, also you have a relaxing of the CCA as well.

Oh, yeah. So, I mean, it's, yeah. That's how it's along, eventually. So then in 1986, Frank Miller comes on board with DC. Now Frank Miller first became well-known to comic book readers for Daredevil, which is a marvel, which of course is Marvel. You've read that meme, right? So help me, God, if somebody were to tell me 20 years ago that there's one guy who's really, really rich and goes around doing whatever he wants acrobatically. And there's another guy whose power is sonar and attacks people at night.

And you told me the rich guy was named Batman and the other guy was called Daredevil. Daredevil. I would have punched you. Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah, I needed to hear the setup before I remembered it, but yeah, no, it's true. Yeah, like wait. You can think Bob Kane, ladies and gentlemen, so.

Right. So we have, you know, Frank Miller shows up writing in 1986. And I think at this point, we're looking at, we're going to have to spend some time talking about him, and I know we're getting up toward our end of episode kind of time. But what I think is important is because we're going to go from me talking about the comics to you talking about the films. And it's going to be really important, I think, for the context of the movies, which start out in the 90s, that we hear in some more detail about what exactly it is that Frank Miller

means to the continuity and the evolution of the character Oh absolutely. I think he's a watershed and I think we need to do a Frank Miller episode um, would you agree? Um, I, I, I think at some point we do. No, I mean as like the next chapter of the comic book discussion is Frank Miller and beyond almost like, but like starting it with him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, start it definitely starting with him.

I know that we could certainly do if I had had enough time to do true justice to the research, we could spend an entire episode just talking about Frank Miller's work and then go into everything after that. Sure. But I think definitely it's worth starting with the next episode with him for sure. Okay. Well, yeah, let's do that. I mean, we're still broad-brushing. What? 70 plus? Yeah. How, what, 38 till now, right? Yeah. Okay. So 38 till 18 is 70 years?

80. 80 years. Yeah. We are further from Batman than Batman was from the Eiffel Tower Yes, I was point brought up. Yeah, oh wow. Yeah, yeah, I did getty. Oh, man. Yeah, no, it's nuts. Yeah, that is nuts All right, well, okay, so do you do you have anything Other than that chronological time bomb or brain bomb, what do you take away from what we're talking about so far? I wish we'd gotten a little bit more into the counter-culture aspects of it, quite honestly, because there was so much happening on TV for the first time, number one, it was in color.

Number two, you've got the monkeys on TV, you've got the British pop invasion, you've got the British pop invasion, you've got so much counter. It's like a hell of a, yeah. You know, psychedelia is certainly there in the late 60s. But there's so much counter culture going on there and I would have loved to have nestled more into that with the Batman stuff.

I genuinely think there's a whole episode in that at some point in the future. Almost. But genuinely think we could do that. Yeah, I think so. I would need to watch the series again, because that's the kind of research I like to do. But in terms of what I pulled out of it,

I really, it's so interesting how this just lines up with all the timelines that we've set forth before in terms of the pop culture, in terms of the fifties is a time of great conformity and you need to sanitize everything from Bugs Bunny to, you know, sex on TV kind of thing. Yeah. And to the point where like no married couple has the same bed anymore. You know, uh, which talk about a rich people flex in a weirdest goddamn way. In the most bizarre. Oh my God. But, but it, like so the 50s sanitization with the CCA, which was in 54, like you said.

And you have all of that and the fetishization of kids and at the same time sanitizing everything that they've got. And then... And the fear of them. Yeah. And then into the 60s, you get this rubber banding effect, but it's almost like this sweet rebellion because it's boomers who absolutely want to test the boundaries, but they absolutely want the material wealth that their parents had gotten to. So, you know, yes, I want to experiment and try the pot, but I don't want to spend my life doing that.

You know, I'll get the job, dad. Don't worry. I just, you know, gonna do this for a while. Just don't make me do it like right now, man. Right. But then like going, so going into that into the 60s, just the counter culture, I really liked how Batman was just very much another example of that. Like we just keep adding transparensties to the top of the picture, and it's just getting

more and more obvious what's happening culturally at that time. Especially if we again look into the 70s, you're saying how it gets all darker, and I'm like, well shit, yeah, people are on barbituits. Like, it's, you know, and the reason they're on barbituits is because the world is getting darker, like all that shit's happening. Because there's multiple energy crises, there's water, there's like, yeah. But more importantly, there's a toppling of white dominance of the culture, and people don't know how to handle it. And I mean, that's really there,

because that's when you start to see a lot of your superheroes of color and your women and your psychedelia, because that's a destabilizing reality. And I do like that Batman is absolutely just right in line with all of that. And of course, you know, looking back, it's like, well of course he was, like, of course he was,

but at the same time, that I really took away from it. It's just more reinforcement of those themes. Yeah, well, you know, and again, it's all of the ways you've never realized at the time something was reflecting Greater social forces Yes, the larger social forces now having said that I want to ask you and and I will absolutely back off at this point Are you going to deal with the death of Jason Todd in the next episode?

We we can certainly talk about it. Okay, it's it's not explicitly in my notes Are you going to deal with the death of Jason Todd in the next episode? We we can certainly talk about it. Okay. It's it's not explicitly in my notes right now But I think it's worth it's worth talking about because I think the fact that people called in To vote one way or the other on his death and he gets killed is really really indicative of how fucked up we were in the 80s Yeah, like how dark we got. It's like, okay, let's kill a child. You know, you're like, ah, so, but people would have to pay money to do it too. Like there's an extra layer to that because there's a 900 number. It's just, oh, what a stunning indictment. So yeah, that's what I took away from it.

And I bet you I can predict the 90s and the 2000s what will become of the comic because of what I know of those eras so all right yeah so so I'm going to tell you now okay we're not going to get into the 2000s two thousand two thousand by the time of two 2000s come around, we're getting way too close to the new 52, and the reborth and all the stuff DC did after that, and it just, my ability to follow the comics kind of fell apart. So we're getting in, we're gonna get into the 1990s and T things up for discussion of the movies, which we're gonna kind of pick chronologically from. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. But I will say then what you just said about it, because I do remember hearing about that, there is a huge fracturing of everything culturally in the early 2000s.

And I think part of it had to do with broadband internet and the explosion of cable services. Yeah. Suddenly everything becomes niche. And now you've got 100 different kinds of Batman. And that's OK, because they're all trying to gobble the same dollars. But I think that that's absolutely fitting for Batman in the 2000s.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So what would you recommend we read this time around? I'm OK. Right now, the recommendation I'm going to read is actually something we're going to start talking about at the beginning of the next episode. I would recommend everybody find a way to get a hold of Batman year one, which is Frank

Miller in 87 published in 87 88. And we'll get into kind of, it's influence, but I think for an understanding of the modern bad man, I think it's almost required reading. Okay, and that's why I've not read. So, all right. Well, let's see. Okay. I don't really have much to recommend as far as reading goes.

I am still deep into the Star Wars, Yu-Juan Vong series. Okay. You know, Christy Golden said that she just finished the, she's an author of Star Wars books quite often, as well as World of Warcraft books. I'm going to have a fun little story about that sometime I'll tell you, but she just said that she just finished writing a book about General Viers.

And I thought that was, yeah, I was like, no, that might be worth checking out. That could be, yeah. So, but, so yeah, I don't have much to recommend. So Batman, you're one, I think,'ll I'll just second that not having read it Okay, so all right well where can people find you on the social medias? They can find me on the social medias Thank you squirrely Dan at EH Blaylock on Twitter and

EH Blaylock also on Tiktok and Mr. Blalock on Instagram. And they can of course find both of us, if you want to holler at both of us simultaneously about a continuity error I've made in talking about the history of Batman and his villains, you can get ahold of us at Geek History Time on Twitter. And if they want to take deserved offense at any of your mangling, the English language, Mr. Harmony, where can

they get ahold of you? You can find me out in these streets. No, you can... Cash me outside. But wear a mask and six feet away. Yeah, yeah use a use a staff to do six feet. Exactly No, you can you can find me on the Twitter and on the Instagram at Duh Harmony that's two inches in the middle and you are welcome to correct me on my Discussion of LBJ ping on a secret service agent. It could be I can rest I still can't believe that. Oh, yeah. But I know it happened.

I mean, I understand I totally can believe it. Yeah. But like, I had not had any idea. Oh my god. So, okay. All right. But yeah, you feel free to find us there. I do want to point out one thing before we go.

Let's make sure that I can pull it up though, because otherwise I'll just point it. Okay. I can just bring it up on the next one. That was not it. Here we go. We have a retraction that we need to do. Oh, yes.

So I will tell you the retraction. In our Deep Space 9 episode, which literally is aired like I think last week, we erroneously mixed up Herman Cain and Ben Carson. Herman Cain is the former Godfather CEO whom Trump attempted to put on the Federal Reserve Board a position for which he was horribly unqualified. He has since died of COVID after mocking the disease.

Ben Carson is a brilliant neurosurgeon who believes the pyramids were made for grain silos and who is the current HUD secretary a position for which he is horribly unqualified. Yes. I mixed them up and I'm sorry. There's no reason that I should have thanks to Brian Williams

that was brought to our attention. Brian Williams can be found on Twitter as at professional henchmen, but you had to abbreviate. So thank you, Brian, for bringing that up for us. And I am sorry that I mixed them up. I had no business mixing them up, but the Rogue's gallery of unqualified Trump

pandits, individuals in the Trump administration. Yeah. Yeah. But all the same. It's a rotating set of targets, but yes, we should have been paying more attention to that. And of course, that being a mistake made by a couple of white guys about mixing up a couple of black gentlemen successful after the gentlemen. Yeah, unfortunate and yeah, we're very sorry about that. So thank you, Brian, for pointing it out. And if you want to find Brian and thank him as well, it's at profession hench. So there we go for Geek History of Time. I am Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylach.

And next time, find us on the same bat time at the same bat channel.