How Robin Took Flight

On January 12, 1966, Batman premiered on then-syndicated network ABC.

Starring Adam West as the title character and Burt Ward as his devoted sidekick Robin, the action series took a decided turn towards comedy and camp. Popularizing the characters on television for the first time, West and Ward battled classic villains like the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler and Catwoman in the Gotham City parody.

“I read comic books as a kid, but there was no Batman released where I lived,” Ward begins. “So all I had was Superman and Superboy. I have photos of myself at three years old, on a tricycle, pretending I was Superboy with a bath towel around my neck, held together by a clothespin.”

Seventeen years later Ward went to his first ever audition and landed the role that he would be known for from then on. “I didn’t even know what I was trying out for,” he remembers. “There was such a rush. I got a call from my agents, and they said, ‘Go over to 20th Century Fox, there’s a role over there.’ And I said, ‘What’s it about?’ And they said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Just go over there.’”

After meeting with the casting director Ward was offered the opportunity to meet with the show’s executive producer, William Dozier. “He looked at me and said, ‘I guess you’ve been playing parts between 15 and 17?’ Well, I hadn’t been playing anything, so I kind of fibbed. And he said, ‘You’re kind of big for this role.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I promise, sir, I won’t grow anymore.’ Well, he laughed and laughed. How can you promise you’re not going to grow?”

A screen test with West followed and then Dozier offered Ward the part. “I hadn’t been knocked around for 10 years, with rejection and rejection,” Ward explains. “I wasn’t damaged, I wasn’t scarred, and when I did my stuff I did it with abandonment. When they hired me they said, ‘The reason why we selected you over 1,100 other young actors is because, in our minds, if there really was a Robin, you would be him. So we want you to be yourself and be enthusiastic.’ And that’s what I did."

The eager enthusiasm spilled over into the show, as well as the distinct style of comedy West and Ward brought to the characters, already evident in the earliest screen tests.

“If you really want to see how we made Batman a success, look at the screen tests.” The footage can be found on YouTube and illustrates exactly what the show’s stars brought to the series: a sense of humor.

“There’s a particular one where Lyle Waggoner, a fine actor, and another young actor [Peter Deyell], had a screen test, and they’re miles apart from ours. It’s not that they did a bad job, they just didn’t know how to take the words. They played it straight, and it was dry.”

West and Ward are both appreciative and protective of their characters and both have revisited their roles in a variety of live-action and animated tips of the cap.

“I never really left,” Ward says, smiling. “Because I still go out on the road, signing autographs all weekend long. For 25 years I was on the road, doing 300 cities a year. Batman lives every day. I’ve had policemen come up to me and say, ‘I got in to police work because of your show.’ It’s just amazing how it’s affected people’s lives.

“When people meet me they say, ‘You’re so much like the character.’ Well I am. That is me. And yet, both Adam and I never took ourselves seriously. We always had fun, we always protected the characters.”

On January 12, 2016, Batman the series celebrated its 50th anniversary. The show that Ward says, along with Bewitched, helped to make ABC a network is still loved by fans new and old.

“We did our show when it wasn’t all that recognizable, nobody had even heard of it at that time,” Ward says. “But I like to believe, and I really do believe in my heart, that what we did made Batman so popular that it generated the Batman movies and helped make its merchandising greater than any other licensed movie.

“Not everyone reads comic books,” Ward points out. “Adam and I took something from paper and we brought it to life. Ever since then, one thing has led to another, and it’s still evolving. Who knows where it’s going to go to from here.”

For a 50th anniversary retrospective on Batman, click here.