The Hollywood trades are reporting that Warner Bros. Consumer Products has announced a new licensing program based on the campy 1960s Batman TV series.  For the first time in decades the entire range of images and characters from 1960s series has been licensed.  Products will include toys like the Bat-Zooka, the Bat-Signal, and Bat-Phone as well as action figures and apparel bearing the likenesses of Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, Cesar Romero as The Joker, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Vincent Price as Egghead, and Earth Kitt as Catwoman. (No word yet on the images of Frank Gorshin, the Riddler, Yvonne Craig as Batgirl, or Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon.)

 

While Warner Bros. Consumer Products was unable to provide an ETA for the merchandise at retail, prototypes of some items should be available at the San Diego Comic-Con.  The light-hearted 60’s Bat-products should make a good contrast with the largely humorless sturm and drang of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, which opens on July 20th in the wake of Comic-Con (July 12-15).

 

Why has it taken so long for Warner Bros. Consumer Products to exploit the rich 1960s vein of Bat-merchandise?  Turns out the 1960s Batman series was produced by 20th Century Fox.  All that WBCP could license was the Batmobile, the series logo, and the “POW!” animated opening.  Starting way back in 2009, WBCP started negotiating with Fox to acquire additional rights for the show—and relations between studios being what they are, a deal finally comes to fruition a mere three years later.

 

WBCP definitely feels that the light-hearted, campy Batman of the 1960s is an easier sale for merchandise in the mass market than Nolan’s dark and forbidding take on Batman, which of course has found enormous favor at the box office.

 

While the opportunity to acquire a Batman Sponge or a Bat Speedboat is great, the big news that should be forthcoming in the near future should be the availability (at last) of the 1960s Batman TV series re-mastered in hi-def on Blu-ray.