Adam West
Adam West is an actor, born 1928.
William West Anderson took the professional name Adam West, and from 1966 he was one of the most recognisable men on American television. Batman ran on ABC and produced a theatrical feature the same year, and West played Bruce Wayne with a completely straight face while everything around him was a joke. That choice is the entire performance. The show is camp because he refuses to be.
There was a career before it. Born in Walla Walla, Washington in 1928, he made his film debut in the 1950s, played opposite Chuck Connors in the western Geronimo, appeared in Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and turned up with the Three Stooges in The Outlaws Is Coming. None of it survived the cowl. What followed was a long stretch as the standing punchline about typecasting, and he spent it working anyway: horror in One Dark Night, a stuntman comedy in Hooper, and Batman's voice in Super Friends and The New Adventures of Batman.
The recovery came from comedy, and specifically from playing himself. NewsRadio, The Critic, Drop Dead Gorgeous, and above all Family Guy, where Mayor Adam West was a deranged fictional version of the actor that West committed to entirely, without ever appearing to find it beneath him. He got the last word on the original role too, voicing Batman again in Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs. Two-Face. He died in 2017, having long outlasted the joke.
Movies (33)
- Chicken Little (2005)
- Meet the Robinsons (2007)
- Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
- Batman (1966)
- Once Upon a Time: The Super Heroes (2001)
- Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (2005)
- Aloha Scooby-Doo! (2005)
- Family Guy Presents: It's a Trap! (2010)
- Hooper (1978)
- Batman vs. Two-Face (2017)
- Night of the Kickfighters (1991)
- Catwoman: The Feline Femme Fatale (2021)
- Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest (2007)
- Robot Chicken DC Comics Special III: Magical Friendship (2015)
- Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016)
- Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman (2006)
- Family Guy Presents: Stewie Kills Lois and Lois Kills Stewie (2009)
- Batman & Bill (2017)
- Joyride (1997)
- Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
- Geronimo (1962)
- Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt (2003)
- The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980)
- Baadasssss! (2004)
- Knight Immortal (2019)
- Young Lady Chatterley II (1985)
- The Young Philadelphians (1959)
- Monster Island (2004)
- Nevada Smith (1975)
- Zombie Jamboree (1993)
TV (30)
- Family Guy (1999)
- The Fairly OddParents (2001)
- Batman (1966)
- Johnny Bravo (1997)
- Jake and the Never Land Pirates (2011)
- The Boondocks (2005)
- The Batman (2004)
- Batwheels (2022)
- The Man Show (1999)
- Super Friends (1973)
- NewsRadio (1995)
- Laramie (1959)
- Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero (2014)
- The Detectives (1959)
- George Lopez (2002)
- The Critic (1994)
- The Adventures of Pete & Pete (1993)
- Comic Book Men (2012)
- Nurses (1991)
- The Hollywood Palace (1964)
- Zorro (1990)
- Black Scorpion (2001)
- The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs (1998)
- The Ben Stiller Show (1992)
- Histeria! (1998)
- The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985)
- Johnny Midnight (1960)
- The Beachcomber (1962)
- The New Adventures of Batman (1977)
- 1 vs. 100 (2006)
Where to start with Adam West
The series is the point, so go straight at it. Batman is best sampled rather than binged, two or three episodes at a sitting, and it is funnier than its reputation as children's television suggests. Then Batman, the feature, which is the same joke with a bigger budget and a better rhythm.
For the second career, Family Guy is where most people under forty first met him, and the Mayor West material is genuinely strange. The Fairly OddParents gave him Catman, the same self-parody aimed at a younger audience.
If you want the pre-Batman actor, Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a surprisingly serious science fiction picture. If you want the circle closed, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders puts him back in the cowl decades later and is made with real affection. Meet the Robinsons and Chicken Little are the family-film paydays.