Ya know, there is a lot of pent up hostility towards the old ADAM WEST BATMAN tv series in fandom. "How dare they make BATMAN campy!?!?" Well... given at the time in the comics for well on a decade... Batman and Robin were in the goofiest of situations... Batman with a full indian headdress... Batman as Robin Hood... Batman had fallen into self-parody and was dangerously close to falling into obscurity when the amazingly camp BATMAN tv show came to life.

Comic fans have been living with its aftermath ever since. Now personally... I love the ol Adam West BATMAN show and the classic feature film version (which world premiered here in Austin, Texas by the way! Tiny Trivia Note!) As a matter of fact those BAT BOAT scenes took place on Lake Travis with the Glastron BatBoat made here and partially designed by... get this... GILBERT SHELTON who was working at Glastron at the time!

CAMP is an extremely delicate thing to pull off... If you mix serious situations and camp you get the Schumacher films... a confused mess. But the old series set the tone from the second the SCORE kicked off. You heard Neal Hefti's BATMAN Theme and you just start smiling. Those cartoon images... big POW, KAPOW, WHAM, BAM firing across the screen... the semi jazzy hip swing sound... HAPPY MUSIC.

Well, the BATMAN movie they did took what the television show delivered and nailed it perfectly. Cesar Romero, Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith... AMAZING. All completely and deliciously playfully menacing. The plans for death... exagerrated... the puns corny and painful... but the music from Nelso Riddle accented it all... never let a joke fall silent... always a twiddle of horns... a double blast of a muted horn... And this has been one of those scores that has been missing from BATMAN music collectors.

Everybit as iconic as Elfman's theme... but inducing of a completely different mood. It's great to write to... Well... fear not... the score exists... albeit there are only 3000 copies in the world.... 2999 not counting mine.

FILM SCORE MONTHLY continues its brilliant series of unreleased scores with this BATMAN (1966) feature score. PURE JOY. I'm still listening to it as I type and it is like a happy thing. One of those things that just produces a smile... but is also fantastic music. Over 65 minutes of thrilling fun music that you can only get by CLICKING HERE!!! By going there you'll hear about all the restoration, plus you could browse through and pick up these other exclusives to FILM SCORE MONTHLY:

The Undefeated/ Hombre (Hugo Montenegro & David Rose)

* A Guide for the Married Man (John Williams)

* Tora! Tora! Tora! (Jerry Goldsmith)

* Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Leonard Rosenman)

* The Omega Man (Ron Grainer)

* Take a Hard Ride (Jerry Goldsmith)

* The Flim-Flam Man/A Girl Named Sooner (Jerry Goldsmith)

* Rio Conchos (Jerry Goldsmith)

* Exorcist, The (Penderecki, Henze, Webern, Various)

* Enter the Dragon (Lalo Schifrin)

* Wild Bunch, The (Jerry Fielding)

* Stagecoach/The Loner (Jerry Goldsmith)

* The Poseidon Adventure/ The Paper Chase (John Williams)

* Fantastic Voyage (Leonard Rosenman)

* Gerald Fried 2CD Set: Return of Dracula (Gerald Fried)

* 100 Rifles (Jerry Goldsmith)

* Patton/ The Flight of the Phoenix (Jerry Goldsmith and Frank DeVol)

* Monte Walsh (John Barry)

* Comancheros, The (Elmer Bernstein)

* All About Eve/Leave Her to Heaven (Alfred Newman)

* Prince Valiant (Franz Waxman)

* Prince of Foxes (Alfred Newman)

* Mad Monster Party (Maury Laws)

* Deadfall (John Barry)

* Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The (David Shire)

Of all the film fan style magazines, FILM SCORE MONTHLY is my favorite, because not only do they write about subjects they love... but they help preserve and make available the music to the films we love and don't see on shelves at stores near us. Lukas Kendall, Nick Redman and Jeff Bond all deserve not only all the success they've had, but some sort of Film Geek Nobel Prize for making these CDs... and Especially the 1966 BATMAN score... Christ... why hasn't this been on our shelves for years already? Now.. Go get the damn thing... Put it in your CD player before leaving the garage.... then peel out around the corner... ENJOY!!!