The Batman/Superman Hour

Did You Know?

• The Batman half of the program consisted of new shorts: one story presented in two 6½-minute segments and one story in a single 6½-minute segment.
• Thirty-four stories were produced for the Batman portion.

Series overview

This was the very first time Batman, his allies, and classic foes like the Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, and Mad Hatter appeared in animation, alongside a few villains created just for the show. Filmation had originally planned other projects after The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure did well in 1967, including a Metamorpho pilot. Those plans fell through when CBS got the animation rights to Batman, thanks to the popularity of the live-action TV series on ABC. Because production had to start just before the 1968 TV season, Filmation rushed to pull animators from other jobs to get the show made. Olan Soule and Casey Kasem voiced Batman and Robin for the first time here. When The New Adventures of Batman came out in 1977, Adam West and Burt Ward took over, playing the same roles they had in the live-action show. Soule and Kasem later returned to voice the characters in several other series, including The New Scooby-Doo Movies in 1972, Super Friends in 1973, and various Super Friends shows through 1983. In 1969, the series was cut down to half-hour episodes for Sunday mornings, dropping the Superman segments and getting the new title Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder. Batman’s next animated appearance was in The New Adventures of Batman in 1977. In 1985, Warner Home Video put out five episodes on VHS as part of the Super Powers collection. Those tapes came out again in 1996 but are now out of print. In 1996, episodes were included in The Superman/Batman Adventures on the USA Network, and later aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang.