Batman 1966 TV Show

SSgt Burton

SSgt Burton

Sr Member
(My apologies in advance if the title of this thread got anyone's hopes up- no I haven't seen/heard word of the '66 series being released on dvd.)


So the other night I was trying to explain to my wife why '66 Batman was never released on dvd/Blu-Ray etc.

It's my understanding that Fox owns the rights to the show, but WB owns the rights to the character. So the '66 series is in legal limbo right now.

(I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than this- but this is the jist of it yes?)

So my wife says, "But the ('66) movie was released on dvd- why not the series?"

:confused

This is where I was completely stumped.


And I don't like when I get stumped with my wife (although it wasn't one of "those" discussions. :lol).

So anybody able to shed some light on this?

I understand that WB and DC want to keep up the image of Batman being "dark" and play down (sweep under the table) the camp of the '66 series. But this still doesn't explain why it was okay to put out the movie on dvd but not the entire series.

I could have sworn I read the answer somewhere (Fox owning exclusive rights to the movie?), but I can't find it.

Kevin
 
I don't know for sure, but it's fairly common for different aspects of a property to be under the control of different companies. Meaning that the movie's distribution was handled by someone completely different from the TV show, and whoever owns the TV show has declined to release.
 
I believe it came down to the '66 film being a test to gauge appeal and when it didn't do well enough on DVD Fox decided against releasing the rest of the series.
 
I've been told by more than one person at DC that it's never coming out. My favorite quote was "It's all on YouTube; be happy with that." :cry
 
I truly believe that if this were released, our children would grow up better and build a better future for the world.
 
Tetsuyacasshern- thanks for the links, but I don't really care for pirated stuff. Otherwise I would have bought a boxset at Dragon con long ago. ;)


Larry Young said:
I've been told by more than one person at DC that it's never coming out. My favorite quote was "It's all on YouTube; be happy with that." :cry
Click to expand...

Well that just sucks! :cry

Looks like I may actually have to grab a "bad" set. :thumbsdown


Hedjii72 said:
I truly believe that if this were released, our children would grow up better and build a better future for the world.
Click to expand...

This is the best post I've read in a while! :lol :thumbsup

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Kevin
 
I knew a guy who had a full set of Batman episodes on 35mm film. He swore he was going to get them scanned himself, as he had contacts at the level also saying they'll never make to DVD. Haven't seen him in 10 years or more. I should look him up.
 
A few years ago I read a rather in-depth online article that described all of the legal problems involved in getting the '66 Batman television series released officially. In a nutshell, it's all about money.

IIRC, Warner Brothers owns the rights to the Batman character and all theatrical films (including the '66 film based on the series) but Fox owns the rights to the '66 television series. Aside from coming to an agreement about which studio gets what percentage of the profits, they have to pay everyone who was ever involved in the production of the series--wardrobe designers, prop makers, writers, guest stars (or their estates), George Barris (who still owns the rights to the Batmobile), Neal Hefti (who wrote the theme music), Nelson Riddle (who arranged and produced Hefti's score), etc., etc.. By the time everyone gets paid off, the list price of the dvd/Blu-Ray set would be so astronomically high that nobody in their right mind would pay for it.

After all of that got sorted out, they would have to decide what to do about the crossover episodes starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee as The Green Hornet and Kato. Fox owns the rights to the '66 The Green Hornet television series, but at the time the article was written it was unclear who owned the rights to the Green Hornet character. With the film coming out next year, I'd guess ownership of the Green Hornet character has been established, so the rightful owners would now have to come to an agreement with Fox. Either that, or they would have to omit the crossover episodes from any dvd/Blu-Ray release, which would make any such set incomplete.

Regardless, it's such a legal nightmare that all parties involved would likely spend more money sorting it out than they would gain from sales, so I think it's safe to say we'll never see an official release.

As for why Warner Brothers released the '66 film, because a) they could do so with no legal interference from Fox, and b) because they knew they'd make a nice little profit by doing so.
 
My head hurts from reading all that. Liked the TV show more than the movie. Would be nice if the two merged and all the legal entanglement would be a bit easier.
 
Zombie_61 said:
As for why Warner Brothers released the '66 film, because a) they could do so with no legal interference from Fox, and b) because they knew they'd make a nice little profit by doing so.
Click to expand...

Okay- first off thanks for the very in-depth insight on how convoluted this is (and I mean that in a good way, not sarcastically).


But about what you just said quoted above- WB released the '66 movie? How come the dvd case has Fox logos plastered all over it and the 20 Century Fox logo during the opening credits?

Is it a case of WB "allowing" Fox to released the film?


Kevin
 
It's on VHS , just transfer it to DVD and be happy. I say the same thing about BC's Christmas and Thanksgiving, but that will never happen either
 
I can download the series from a site , if you have rapidshare they are all available..not sure of the quality but they are free


Edit:

i will d/l one and do some caps to see the quality
 
Alright, after a viewing the discs today, here is what you will see there are 10 discs. Each disc has 12 episodes on it. There isnt much in screen navigation a standard menu selection seperating the eps in 3's. The resolution is 640X480 minor distortion minimal compression. Looks fine on my 1080I 37in lcd tv. Its encoded in dolby pro logic stereo sound. Now the reason why these are not 100% legal is these were taken off the fx channel when fx played it. Meaning the fx logo is in the upper left hand corner slightly translucent.

What i can tell you is what they probally did to produce this set is recorded off the dvr edited out the commercials, then did some light processing before burning them to dvd.
 
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