Zap! Pow! The Batman TV show is still for kids

My theory about the Batman TV show from the 1960s is that it's something you love as a kid because it's bright and colourful and wholesome, and hate as a young adult because it's bright and colourful and wholesome, and then you love again as a proper grown up because it's bright and colourful and wholesome.

It was certainly my gateway drug for all things Bat, I still remember tuning in every late afternoon to see how Batman was going to get out of the latest death trap. And while I was deeply embarrassed by all things connected to it when I grew up and wanted to know why everybody wasn't taking comics as seriously as they deserved, I've managed to grow up even further and embrace it for the camp masterpiece that it is.

So when I saw a dirt cheap DVD box set of every single episode, it was an easy buy, as it was something I could watch with the kids. While they love superheroes, so much of the movies and TV shows that come out are deeply unsuitable for their young brains. (The six-year-old was keen to see the new Superman movie, but I had to check it out first to make sure it wasn't too intense, and the scene where some random guy gets shot in the head in front of Superman pushed it over the line.) 

But the 60s Batman is easy to watch, because it's super wholesome, the characters are polite and good mannered, and always just trying to do the right thing in any situation.

I did have the fudge the issue when Jill St John tumbles to her death in atomic fire - 'it's okay, kids, they took her to hospital after that - in the very first episode, but that was the only real issue. There have been conversations about the merits of punching out the bad guys, with clear lines of demarcation between 'play punching' and 'punching kids for real', but this issue is easily overshadowed by the colourful antics, and the way you should treat all people with respect. 

So we're deep into the second season now, and the kids have their favourite villains - Catwoman and the Penguin are obvious favourites, but King Tut is also somehow a winner - and while there is repetition to the death traps, they get anxious about the dynamic duo facing danger, and relief when they inevitably use their wits to free themselves.   

And I dig it, get the joke. I also still have deep crushes on the various Catwomen and many of the villainous henchwomen, who are plainly the most attractive women ever put on film, and I also get some weird thrill from the stock footage they use at the start, where the narrator introduces us to Gotham City with footage of people going about their business in 60s New York, and it fascinating to see how they lived.

This show was goofy as hell when I saw it as a kid in the 80s, and that goofiness means it has aged a lot better than superheroics produced 10 years ago. Batman and Robin will never die, not as long as they always remember their pleases and thank yous. Even kids can figure that out.