I recently catalogued my DVD collection (amazing what you get up to during lockdown!) and I had a total of 18 different DVDs and box sets that contain Batman!
Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in 1939, in 1943 he made his first appearance on the silver screen in the serial Bat-man, followed in 1949 by Batman and Robin.
In 1966 the ABC network unleashed a twice weekly live action version starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin!
It's was bright, colourful, campy and hilarious and had some brilliant comedic performances
Between 1966 and 1969 ABC produce 120 episodes, as well of course Batman: The Movie!
It went quiet for a while and then in 1989 Tim Burton graced us with the excellent Batman, starring Michael Keaton (still one of my favourite portrayals of Batman) in the lead role and Jack Nicholson as The Joker, Burton gave us a dark gothic vision of Gotham, but still maintained it's comic book roots.
Burton directed the follow up Batman Returns in 1992, again starring Keaton but this time battling Danny Devito's Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, another great film, with a wonderfully over the top performance from Christopher Walken.
Things started to go downhill after the first 2, the studio wanted to change the direction of the franchise, Burton wasn't happy with that so Joel Schumaher took over the directing helm, and Keaton wasn't either so Val Kilmer donned the cowl, what a mess they made of them.
First we had Batman Forever, they tried to recapture the campy 60's feel, which worked then, but not so much in the 90's, and there were too many villains.
Next we had Batman and Robin, and another new Batman, George Clooney and the infamous bat nips! Again it just didn't work and there were too many characters, Robin's annoying and Batgirl is pointless, another fine mess Joel got us into to!
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