Watching Batman in 1966

Me watching Batman in 1966.

Brian B

Batman: Murder at Wayne Manor

While remodeling my Batroom I decided to display some of my Bat-books on my bookshelf.
I thought I would tell you little about the third book from the left.

As with many things in my Bat-collection this book was a gift from a fellow Bat-fan named Lee.

Back then I used to see Lee about once a year at camp.

He brought me this book one year and told me excitedly that "You get to BE Batman not just read about him!"

Needless to say I couldn't wait until I could get some time to read this book.



The book is called Batman: Murder at Wayne Manor and is written by Duane Swierczynski.

Lee was right. This is no mere book where you read a story and hear about clues that the Worlds Greatest Detective finds. You are the detective and the clues are in your hands.


Here is the first clue.

Construction workers at Wayne Manor find a body buried on Wayne property and along with the body, Bruce Wayne finds an invitation to a masquerade party held at the manor years ago.
On the back of the invitation is a hand written message and blood stains.

Needless to say Batman is on the case and he begins to investigate whose body is buried on Wayne property and who murdered them.


Along the way Commissioner Gordon slips you a copy of an autopsy report.

Alfred passes you a photograph from that night as you rebuild the nights events.
The photo contains a picture of Bruce's parents and another couple.



You also better brush up on how to read DNA results because you will need this information if you want to solve the case.

Once you have all the clues for the case it is time for you to solve the mystery.

The last chapter of the book is sealed shut so you won't accidentally get a peak of the answer while you work through the book.

This is a fun book and I look forward to going through it again after I have forgotten who did it.
I would love to say I completely solved it but I didn't. I did get the majority of it right but I missed some the little details.

This book came out in 2008 so I am sure you can still find a copy of it somewhere.
I highly recommend that you do and don't peek!

Brian B

DC Direct Batman The Animated Series Batman Maquette

Here's the Man of the Hour, himself, as a 9" maquette produced by DC Direct. Bruce Timm's design for the character in Batman The Animated Series was such a great combination of Batman's classic look and the new-at-the-time all black and gray look that Batman had taken on in comics. This was certainly a response to the all-black costumes in the first two Tim Burton movies that had been released, at that point. Timm designed a sleek and stylish Batman that would translate well to animation. Whether he knew it at the time or not, I think he created an iconic look for the character that will most likely still look great 50 years from now.

DC Direct produced this maquette in 2004 in an edition size of 2300 pieces.

DC Direct Batman The Animated Series Harley Quinn Maquette

In honor of "Harley Qwursday" here on UTGP (just kidding, Bubbashelby), I present DC Direct's Harley Quinn maquette from 2004. This is another statue from the same series as the Joker from my previous post.

She stands about 9" tall and was produced in a limited edition size of 2000. I don't have much more to say about these statues than I did in my previous Joker maquette post.... so, I'll just let the pictures "do the talking."

DC Direct Batman The Animated Series Joker Maquette

This is DC Direct's 9" Joker Maquette as he appeared in the late, great Batman The Animated Series that debuted in 1992. DC Direct produced a handful of characters from the series as maquette statues. These were produced in a breakable, porcelain type of material and need to be handled carefully.

A maquette is a sculpture for animators to use when drawing a character over and over. The animator refers to the sculpture often to make sure they are drawing a character correctly from the many different angles animation requires. Some still-frame artists (like comic book artists) may use something like this from time to time, too. Most often, the maquette is sculpted in a static, non-dramatic pose so the artist can more easily see body proportions and what-not on the character.



While not true animation maquettes (as in actually used by animators), these DC Direct statues do a good job of replicating the type of statues that animators of BTAS might have used day to day.

At any rate, here's Joker from Batman The Animated Series in all his glory. The statue was produced as a limited edition of 1400 pieces and was released in 2004. While only 4 or 5 characters were produced, rumor had it that many more of these BTAS maquettes were planned. Apparently, the demand wasn't there and the line disappeared prematurely. However, as often happens, since these weren't all that popular and low edition sizes were produced, they command a "collector's price," these days.

Joker Starlog Make up

While I was looking in my box of stuff for my Batman tortilla chips I found an old Starlog magazine which had a Batman related story in it.

I figured since it is October I would scan it and post it for those who like to do special effects make up.

This is from January 1993





Brian B

Batman Tortilla Chips

You read that right, Batman Tortilla chips!

These came out back in 1989 along with the release of the movie, Batman.

I was thinking about the the other day when my daughter came to work with me.
She was working upstairs where I had worked about 12 years ago and while I was checking in with her I started to look around for some of my old stuff that was stored up on the third floor.

When I had moved floors 12 years ago I had taken down most of my things and stored them in a box up there.
Well I couldn't find it.
So I began to think about what was in that box or boxes.
I had all kinds of things stuck on the wall back then. Family pictures, World news pictures with Presidents and aliens posing, sight gags I had built and of course Batman stuff.

That is when I remembered my Batman tortilla chips.
I began to get mad. "Who moved my stuff?" "Did they throw it away?"
So I went to the office to ask the Boss what they did with it.
He said "I don't know. Look around some more." So I did.


Two boxes of my stuff up on a shelf in an old bathroom.


I pulled it down and no doubt it was my stuff because it said right on top of it "Brian's Stuff".

I pulled of the top lid and saw that it truly was my stuff.

Here are a few items I found inside.


You can clearly see why I would be upset if this stuff had been thrown away.

There was also this treasure.

I remember buying two bags of these when I bought them. One to eat and one to save.

I should have bought one bag because these were awful!
I don't think I finished the bag I opened and it is a small bag.
For those that know me that is saying something. I eat the very last french fry because I paid good money for it and don't want to waste it.
I didn't eat all of these.

I mean these have been in storage for 21 years and mice didn't eat them.
The plastic on the bag had split open from age and still no mice. They were gross.

There is an ad for a night light on the back but I don't know what language is written on the Bat symbol.
Ingredients includes Bat-rat repellent.

Brian B

Batman Playing Wii with Batmite

The Guardian website has a trailer for the new Batman: Brave and the Bold season.
Batman, Batmite and GreenArrow are all seen playing the upcoming Batman: Brave and the Bold game for Wii.
I thought you all might enjoy it so CLICK HERE to see it.

Gotta love the posters on Batmites walls too.

Animated Ad

This ad comes for a 1993 magazine.

I have to say that while I am going through my collection and figuring out where to display what, I can clearly state that the toys based on The Animated Batman series are my favorites.

This might be due to the fact that my kids were the perfect age for these toys.
So I also have good memories of watching my kids play with these figures.
This probably also explains why I have just about every one of the toys that are in this ad.

It was easy to buy my kids the same hero I grew up with.
I even made sure they watched the same Batman I did growing up.

While we were expecting Megan, my oldest child, they were airing the 1966 series to ramp us all up for the release of Batman in 1989.
So I programed my VCR and recorded all that I could and saved them for them to watch when they got older.

It was fun to watch these shows with my kids. To see them enjoy them as I did.
They had it better though. They got to see them in color where I had grown up watching them in black and white.
The only bad thing was that they would want what was being advertised on the commercials but they were 6 or 7 years old by the time they were watching them.

Recently a certain Bat-friend gave me the Adam West series on DVD that he had recorded off T.V. Land.
So we got to watch them again recently.
My son even made his fiance watch the 1966 Batman movie last week.
It still holds up. She laughed through the whole thing.

Brian B

Fisher-Price HeroWorld DC Super Friends Toy Line!

While I was stalking the toy aisles at Toys R Us yesterday, I came across a new line of Batman toys that I had NO IDEA were going to be released. In this internet age, we tend to know about everything that's coming down the pike months before things actually start showing up on shelves. So, it was quite a shock to find these guys next to the Batman Imaginext stuff!

They had Superman, Batman, Joker, Penguin, and Mr. Freeze. It looks like Fisher-Price is rebooting the Rescue Heroes line at a smaller size and these HeroWorld figures are meant to fit right in. There were also new Rescue Hero toys right next to these at the same scale. They even share the same packaging design. (Edit: As it turns out, "HeroWorld" is the name for the entire line. Both "DC Super Friends" and "Rescue Heroes" are sub-lines of the HeroWorld line. Like the Imaginext line, I think it's a pretty brilliant idea that Fisher-Price is including Super Heroes in a line that also includes "civilian" playsets and vehicles... what a HUGE world for kids to play in.)

Sorry about the poor-quality photos. I shot these photos in a hurry since I don't have time to set up lights and what-not. I haven't seen word of these anywhere on the net. So, the photos may be down-and-dirty but I wanted to get these up for fellow Bat-fans to see.

Size comparison with Mattel's older, large Super Friends Batman. These new figures are, roughly, double the size of the smaller Imaginext figures.