Saturday Night Showcase> Batman: Return Of The Caped Crusaders

I hope there aren’t many readers hit with a region lock on this one.

Batman: Return Of The Caped Crusaders brings back the three surviving members of the 1966 Batman series still working: Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, and Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Everyone else has to use sound alikes, and they’re pretty good. Released in 2016, the animated movie features our heroes dealing with yet another villain team-up…but things take a turn for the worse when Catwoman’s attempt to turn Batman evil works better than even she planned. Now featuring an army of darker knights, can the Boy Wonder trust the crafty feline femme fatale to save Gotham City?

This is the first of two animated movies featuring West and Ward voice acting their character rather than physically playing them, but not the first time they’ve done it. When Filmation realized they still had a little time on their licence they opted not to cause trouble for Hanna-Barbara’s Superfriends and opted to create The New Adventures Of Batman for CBS. With their previous Batman and Robin, Olan Soule and Casey Kasem, now with HB, they grabbed Adam West and Burt Ward. West would later take over as Batman for the final two “Super Powers” seasons of Superfriends for some reason, with Soule voicing Martin Stein, one-half of new hero Firestorm. West has also appeared in other Batman productions as other characters, including the 1960s Batmobile on Batwheels via archival sound clips after his passing in 2017. Ward has mostly stepped back from acting, but according to IMDB played a version of Dick Grayson during the CW Arrowverse’s take on “Crisis On Infinite Earths” in an episode of Supergirl and himself in other projects.

And yes, we’ll do the second movie next week. For this one: enjoy.

I kind of wish the intro had been done in the art style of the old show, and I miss the narrator, despite Jeff Berman doing a good impression as the announcer. How many other references did you catch to the show?

Next time: Batman versus Captain Kirk?