Holy Batmania (1989)

[Silver Nemesis]

I remember seeing this video in shops in the nineties, but I don't think I ever watched it until now. It's a straightforward retrospective on the sixties TV show produced at the height of the 1989 Burton movie hype.

[The Dark Knight]

There have been three instances of Batmania.

B66
B89
TDK

B66 was it, even long after it finished airing. Very accessible to younger viewers and plenty for aware adults to enjoy as well. B66 was so well known it was seen as a ball and chain around the franchise, before it was cut off by Tim Burton's darker approach. But nonetheless, the '66 legacy is still felt in various media today. I'd love to see a live action film with the adventurous spirit the show had even if it wasn't as campy.

B89 by all accounts was Beatlemania for Batman. The logo everywhere with people starving hungry to fall in love with the character after a prolonged absence. Then the film actually delivered on the hype. The 90s period with Burton, Schumacher and the animated series is my favorite run in Batman history. Call it nostalgia, call it what you want, but that period can't be topped for me.

TDK wasn't as big as the other two, but it was still big, and the closest thing we've had since B89 mania. Ledger's death took the movie to another level which was attracted a healthy level of hype beforehand. The Joker card at the end of Begins was the start of it all, really. The viral marketing was fresh at the time and it felt like Batman was a big cultural player again.

To be honest I'm not sure when the next Batmania period will happen, or if it even will. These things are special and the stars need to align. But the more I think about it, a rest period can end up being a good thing to help create the right environment for both the talent and the audience.

[thecolorsblend]

B89 by all accounts was Beatlemania for Batman

I lived through that period. It's where my Batman fandom and comic book fandom both started. Trust me, 1989 was everything you heard about. I would argue it was bigger than 2008 because B89 was a HUGE pop cultural event. Truly massive.

[Silver Nemesis]

Some of my earliest memories are of the 1989 Batmania. I'd argue the hype surrounding The Dark Knight in 2008 was less a case of Batmania than Jokermania. I saw a comment someone posted on another site regarding the box office failure of Joker 2 last year, saying that they hoped this marked the end of the Joker craze that Ledger's performance triggered in '08. Looking back on it now, there does seem to have been a prolonged fascination with the Joker ever since TDK came out. How many comics, movies, games and TV shows has Joker appeared in during that time? A lot.

Mark Millar once made an interesting point about the fuss surrounding The Dark Knight Returns in 1986. He said the reason that comic resonated so strongly was that it struck a chord with people who'd watched the Adam West show when they were kids twenty years earlier. Frank Miller mightn't like that theory, but there is undeniably a cultural connection between the West show and TDKR. They represent two extremes of the Batman franchise. One light, funny and family friendly, the other dark, gritty and serious. But had the 1966 Batmania never happened, I doubt The Dark Knight Returns would've made the same impact it did. Just like the 2008 Jokermania probably wouldn't have taken off if the 1989 Batmania hadn't happened.

Fans generally want franchises to mature at a rate commensurate with their own mental age. When we're kids, we're happy to have kid-friendly Star Wars or Batman of whatever the franchise might be. But as we get older, we want our heroes to become darker and more mature. Many complained about the juvenile tone of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, but Lucas knew what he was doing. A whole new generation of kids were captivated by those movies and fell in love with the Star Wars universe. Are today's kids falling in love with the nostalgia-obsessed Star Wars Disney's churning out? They don't seem to be. By insisting Batman be gritty and grounded, are Gen-X and Millennial fans denying the kids of today their own version of Batman?

Could Batmania happen again? Not any time soon. We've been oversaturated with Bat-media since The Dark Knight trilogy catapulted the IP back into the mainstream. In the past three years alone we've seen no fewer than three separate live action Batmen on the big screen, with a fourth likely to follow soon. There have also been an insane number of spinoff comics, movies and TV shows starring Batman's allies and foes. And throughout all this, there haven't been many truly fresh takes on the material. Since the Nolan-era, we've mostly been getting the same dark and gritty Batman over and over. If the '66 Batmania provided a cultural foundation for Miller's TDKR, then by insisting Batman remain dark and serious – and thereby preventing another '66-style Batmania from happening – could fans not also be preventing another TDKR from coming to fruition?

One of my favourite screen versions of Batman from the past twenty years is The Brave & the Bold. I loved that show, as well as the tie-in comics, videogame and Scooby-Doo movie connected with it. It was funny without being snarky. It referenced earlier Batman media without resorting to nostalgia bait. It had its own distinct identity and style, and while it adapted many familiar elements from the source material it also delved into some of the weirder and more obscure corners of comic book lore that other adaptations left unexplored. Adults like me could enjoy it, but it was also suitable for children. That's the direction I'd like to see the franchise head in now.

But before that, DC and WB need to desaturate the market. Ease off with all the spinoffs about Batman's allies and villains. Streamline the whole franchise to just a few monthly comics and maybe one animated TV show. Find a fresh take on the material and get back to basics. Let the new generation of kids discover their own version of Batman. Then, after some time has passed and the demand has increased, they could revive the movie series. Not as part of some overblown shared universe, but as a standalone cinematic and pop culture event for the 2030s. Maybe then we'll see a new Batmania comparable to 1966 or 1989.