I’ll be honest, the vast majority of times I hear about a media personality dying, I don’t really care. Actors, musicians, performers, guys like Chris Cornell, Roger Moore, Chuck Berry or Bill Paxton come to mind. Some, I feel like I should have appreciated more than I did, like Mary Tyler Moore and Don Rickles, but they were also of a different time than my own, and I never sought them out later in life. Often, I’ll see stories of their passings flash on the web and social media, and sometimes I’ll recognize their names, but other times, I quickly come to the conclusion that as unfortunate as the loss of life may be, I didn’t really know much about them, have any sort of emotional, nostalgic connection with them, and not really care and be off with the rest of my days.
Adam West is a different story however, because I am a nerd who was and is a fan of Batman in just about every possible iteration of the property. And despite all the jokes throughout history about a jaded and resentful portrait of Adam West, resentful of the passage of time and the laundry list of other actors who have portrayed the character, there was always a shred of truth to his underlying message: he’s Batman.
As campy and corny the 60s television series was, it was still classic and iconic television that will probably never be touched in terms of formula and execution. As a kid, I wanted to mock it and goof on how campy it was, but when the day was over, I realize that I had sat through two episodes of the show and found myself enjoying it. Every day after elementary school was the same formula:
