The actor died Friday at age 88
Batman is ridiculous, because life is ridiculous.
Dont take it so seriously: comic books, TV shows, acting, fighting, life, death.
Thats not a lesson Adam West tried to teach, and yet he taught us.
Credit: Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Westdied this weekend, 88 years old.
Even when he wasnt credited as Adam West, he was utterly Adam West.
(WatchLookwellright now, dammit!
)Past a certain point, he mostly played himself.
No one else could.
Of course, Realism was a tricky topic, even before we all started living in clashing alternate realities.
Or that it gets better when you understand the subtext.
Wests line delivery is deadpan deep baritone, almost talk-sung.
(No reason why, but try just listening to hisBatmanshow without watching it; its great radio.)
The words hes saying could be silly, and they could be profound.
Gee whiz, Aunt Harriet, Dick complains, Whats the big deal about Chopin?
All music is important, Dick, he says.
Its the universal language.
One of our best hopes for the eventual realization of the brotherhood of man.
Say that ten times fast; now say it in the same sentence as the brotherhood of man.
Weirdly, you could argue West was the most life-experienced person to ever play Batman.
Many people today have opinions about Batman.
The latter is a showcase for the least-remarked-upon thing about Wests Batman.
Six-foot-two, pre-muscular, West moves like no other Batman moves.
Theyre good actors; in Bat-costume, theyre chins.
But West-as-Batman was a madness of long limbs, every action scene a Batusi waiting to happen.
I could watch him run around with this bomb all day.
Last year, I interviewed Mark Hamill, theStar Warsstar who has voiced Bat-nemesis the Joker for decades now.
Hamills a talker who loves tangents, and somehow we got to talking about West and his Batman.
Hes so underrated as an actor, Hamill said.
His timing, his approach,makesthe series.
And he took it as an insult!
And I meant it as an absolute compliment.
HisBatmanshow was underrated for years.
sound effects, the whole central idea that there is something truly wonderfully, outrageously funny about Batman.
West himself had a few official DC roles.
His last listed project on IMDb is Bruce Wayne/Batman in something calledBatman vs. Two-Face.
Will anyone else ever play Batman across 51 years?
Theres a late-series outing of theBatmanshow called Surfs Up!
It is about the Joker trying to become KING OF THE SURF AND ALL THE SURFERS.
Cut to Adam West, in full Bat get-up, plotting anti-Joker espionage with Burt Wards Robin.
Leave your board outside the Hang Five and follow me in, Batman tells Robin.
Six years ago, I was fortunate enough tointerview West at Comic-Con.
Weve been 45 years with this nonsense, he said.
No one ever made the word nonsense sound lovelier, funnier, more essential.
WestsBatmanis beautiful nonsense from a time before the average grown-up took superheroes seriously.
But West wasnt doing comedy, and wasnt making fun, wasnt above it all.
Superheroes, entertainment, art, life: Its all nonsense, so why not play along?
For half a century, West played along.
And he played it cool.
