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The Boy Who Loved Batman
theodp writes "As a young boy, Batman producer Michael Uslan — a self-described 'ultimate comic book geek' — was traumatized to see the Caped Crusader being 'murdered' in front of his very eyes by the camp 60's TV series. 'I was horrified,' Uslan told a Harper College audience last week. 'I was horrified because the whole world was laughing at Batman, and that just killed me.' At that point, the 13-year-old vowed to teach the world about the Batman he knew, about the crusader who lurked in the shadows, about a darker, grittier superhero. As told in his memoir The Boy Who Loved Batman, he made good on that vow: Uslan has served as the executive producer of all Batman major motion pictures, from 1989's Batman to the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises (trailer)."
sofa
So he made a few more movies where everyone laughed at Batman, and then he made Batman Begins? Why would he do that?
Because bat nipples, the hockey team from hell, "I'll get drive thru", turning Two Face into a cackling idiot side kick, the Riddler being nothing but a Jim Carry character in disguise, the Joker being Jack playing Jack (NOTHING to do with the joker character), or a host of other horrid things in those late 80's/early 90's movies really did a lot to help Batman's image.
Until Begins, NO ONE captured Batman on the big screen properly. The Animated series did as good of a job as possible at the time, but don't give this jackass credit, when was involved with projects that did just as much bad as good.
It's perfectly possible to be a homosexual Batman lover without being latent.
Clods!
I luv Baman Piderman.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Adam West is the one true Batman!
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Did anyone check the midichlorian count on that boy? Seems to be a little too preoccupied with the "dark" side.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
story with an embarrassing beginning.
Did anyone check the midichlorian count on that boy? Seems to be a little too preoccupied with the "dark" side.
Wait wait, don't start a Batman vs. Star Wars argument!
The Star Trek vs Star Wars was bad enough - especially after seeing Star Trek get its ass kicked for being worse than Star Wars! Of course, I'm not one of those losers who is concerned about such nonsense! Having to defend the obvious superiority of Star Wars over Star Trek is just beneath me.
...The whole premise of a man having a ward was weird in the 60's ...
Can somebody explain this? What is a ward in this context? Why would it be strange for a man to have one?
people who are preoccupied with homosexuality and predisposed to see it in everything
The problem is how common such people are in modern American society. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had the Teletubbies scandal with Po accused of calling Tinky Winky a "faggot faggot" over purple fur, a triangular antenna, and a purse.
It is perfectly possible for a boy to love a bat without there being any sexual attraction hence no need for homosex in the equation.
...especially after seeing Star Trek get its ass kicked for being worse than Star Wars! ...
That was only before we had the prequels...
Was is his net worth, he refused to divulge it when he was interviewed by Ian Punnett on Coast to Coast AM several months ago.
Latex
rewriting history since 2109
FTFA
At that point, the 13-year-old vowed to teach the world about the Batman he knew, about the crusader who lurked in the shadows, about a darker, grittier superhero.
And then he goes out and becomes executive producer of Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, and the shit-tastic Halley Berry classic Catwoman.
More like he wanted to show the world that he could cash in on the caped crusader as much as everyone else.
Sorry he has issues over an imaginary character but I'll take 60's batman over the 90's films any day. The Bale versions aren't bad but that doesn't change that 60's batman was awesome.
At the time of the TV show, the comic was intended for little kids. It was "camp". Its only when those kids refused to grow up, and were still reading comics that the comics become "gritty". Batman was not "the dark knight" than, he was a humorless goody two shoes, fighting silly villians.
If you don't like the TV show, you have to dislike the Batman of the 50's and early 60's for the same reason.
Robin has been around since 1940. He's actually a very important part of the Batman story. Unfortunately, unlike Batman he never got a good face lift for the films. Jason Todd would probably change your opinion of Robin. That is to say, as long as Batman could keep him from almost killing you.
Well.
Was he responsible for hiring Michael Keaton who, you young'uns don't realize, not having lived through this terrifying time, was comedic actor Beetlejuice. The horrors that arose as we feared a return to that very campy 60's. I don't know if fan outrage changed things but...
Was he responsible for the zookeeper parade of characters after the first, oriented around a billion dollars of toy sales, the same BS which brought us Jar-Jar?
And the 1960's Catwomen were way better, too.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You wanna make a movie about a crusader who lurked in the shadows, a darker, grittier superhero, then make a movie about Lavrenty Beria. Don't make movies about men in silly masks and also expect people not to laugh.
Uslan has served as the executive producer of all Batman major motion pictures, from 1989's Batman to the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises (trailer).
That's not "all" of the Batman major motion pictures. You seem to be forgetting Batman: The Movie, in which the Penguin dehydrates members of the U.N. security council, reducing them to piles of... stuff... and somehow manages to rehydrate them with everything perfectly back in place and functioning. True, most people have worked hard to forget this movie over the last half-century, and if you hadn't made this ridiculously-grandiose claim I wouldn't have had to remember it either.
This "article" is marketing for the new movie. As such the substance is quite meaningless to consider in any depth. The take-away message is "new Batman movie coming, we think you should see it".
Thanks.
How can you take him serious as he also produced the awfull Batman forever and Batman and robin, those were worse than the entertaining 60's series and movie.
But who cares anyway, batman is an entertaining comic, nothing more nothing less..
reducing them to piles of... stuff... and somehow manages to rehydrate them [wikipedia.org] with everything perfectly back in place and functioning.
Holy Parody Batman! I think you may be taking that film a bit too seriously. People are talking as if it was a serious attempt to bring Batman to the screen rather than a deliberate comedy send-up of superhero comics.
The film also included a porpoise heroically throwing itself in front of a torpedo to save our heroes, a string of nuns, kittens and ducklings getting in the way when Bats was trying to throw away a bomb, and water faucets marked "regular" and "heavy".
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
So.... This guy is responsible for the satanic, mentally disturbed, dysfunctional, mutated, disfigured, amoral, unethical, violent, twisted, sick, dark, cast of superhero vigilante and villains that we know today? The same one's that have provided a more suitable motif for the low quality of law enforcement that we have now, and have been responsible for training our bullies under the guise of 'leadership'. Can't... we.... compromise with My Little Pony? I feel dirty. Maybe its just my speling.
I think I vaguely remember that. The police gunned down Batman, and Robin, in a alley. But I have not seen that episode in over 40 years.
I also seem to vaguely remember, at that time, a lot of comedy shows were considered too violent: Get Smart, McHale's Navy, maybe a few others.
If this post is not an advertisement for an upcoming film, I do not know what else it is!!!
Most of the slashvertisements are posted by Soulskill...is it a real person or some algorithm running on a Windows ME PC?
Tat Tvam Asi
Ok, I agree with his premise, but if he was executive producer of all Batman movies since 1989, what the hell happened with Batman and Robin (1997)? It took a lot of courage to make another Batman film after that piece of shite.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Holy Hypocrisy Batman, we need the bat-revisionist self-promoter repellant!
Why does every comment that is not absolutely positive about America have some self-entitled, politically correct idiot complaining that he is offended?
The Man Who Loved Batboy!
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy_%28character%29 for the younger readers)
So he does mathematical typesetting?
Ironically, the actress who played Po would go on to portray a lesbian in a British TV drama.
Campy yet gritty. Trained assassins bent on revenge who happen to be anthropomorphic mutant turtles.
Nipple suit. I rest my case.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"... was traumatized to see the Caped Crusader being 'murdered' in front of his very eyes by the camp 60's TV series..."
Huh? Which episode was that? I don't remember that one.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
i live right near harper and this is my daily newspaper, cool !
Teletubbies is gay.
why does every story on slashdot always have to have a +5 insightful thread bashing America?
Actually, it's because I happen not to be familiar with how common this homophobia might be outside my home country the United States (other than in Islamic states, of course).
Yeah, because genderless stuffed animals wearing the same getup and using homosexual iconography as homosexuals during Gay Pride Day in San Francisco is a bit of a leap...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The GP had to go back twelve years to find a few assholes arguing about teletubbies as evidence of the awfulness of American society; that's the best proof of America's laid back and tolerant nature I've ever seen.
For gods sake, why does every story on slashdot always have to have a +5 insightful thread bashing America?
Because there are Canadians and Eurotrash mods who think every idiot remark bashing the US is brilliantly clever and daring, so it's pretty much free karma.
The GP had to go back twelve years to find a few assholes arguing about teletubbies as evidence of the awfulness of American society; that's the best proof of America's laid back and tolerant nature I've ever seen.
Firstly, no; he really didn't. He did go back twelve years, but he didn't have to. Secondly, he wasn't proffering it as evidence of "the awfulness of American society". Thirdly, I'd like to point out the irony of your comment, considering it's in reply to a discussion of people who are predisposed to seeing things where they don't exist. Lastly, if you want to see how "laid back" and "tolerant" America is, count the number of states where gay marriage is legal, count the number of frothing, rabid protestors whenever issues of abortion or gay marriage are raised, count the number of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh.
You may be lucky enough to live in one of the few amazing cities in America where tolerance and fair-mindedness seems to prevail but from everything I've seen, those are mere enclaves surrounded by a morass of closed-minded moralising nogoodniks.
In chronological order:
For bat nipples
For a rubber suit that doesn't have a neck
For 3 consecutive batmen that hated the job
For Jim Carrey (!)
For no Batman vs Superman
For Quigon Jinn part 2
For putting out a supervillian with his special power being having his head in a sack
For remaking "Big Bird in China"
For making the batmobile give birth to a baby
Good Job!
Now that would be a movie that would piss people off
The thing is, Batman is the only superhero who doesn't have ANY super-power. He's totally human, doesn't believe in using guns (due to seeing his parents shot dead), using only his self-invented bat gadgets to fight crime. No Superman strentgh, no radioactive enhancement, just a very vulnerable mortal with a sense of moral outrage, who can be killed. Best. Superhero. Ever!
Yahtzee makes it very clear how hard it is to take him seriously...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL8SB1YHzFU
When your Batman...
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Had to be said. That series was and always will be awesome.. all those that followed pale in comparison.
Because there are Canadians and Eurotrash mods who think every idiot remark bashing the US is brilliantly clever and daring, so it's pretty much free karma.
That's unfair, it's not just the Canadians and "Eurotrash" who are conspiring against you. Most of the rest of the world is too. And we have worked out the secret of penetrating your tinfoil helmets.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Ironically, the actress who played Po would go on to portray a lesbian in a British TV drama.
Are you using "ironic" in the Alanis Morissette sense, i.e. something that is mildly coincidental or slightly annoying, but not, in fact, ironic?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Firstly, no; he really didn't. He did go back twelve years, but he didn't have to.
And you don't bother to mention anything more recent. You really can't.
Secondly, he wasn't proffering it as evidence of "the awfulness of American society". Thirdly, I'd like to point out the irony of your comment, considering it's in reply to a discussion of people who are predisposed to seeing things where they don't exist.
#2 is splitting hairs, #3 isn't irony, just your lack of a sense of humor to see that I'm teasing our friends across the pond(s).
Lastly, if you want to see how "laid back" and "tolerant" America is, count the number of states where gay marriage is legal, count the number of frothing, rabid protestors whenever issues of abortion or gay marriage are raised, count the number of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh.
A fair reckoning, of course, would be to look at the funding for AIDS research, but that would be inconvenient to your paranoia about a homophobic conspiracy.
Also inconvenient is that the group that has come out the most strongly against gay marriage have been blacks. They're not listening to Limbaugh (nor are you, since the guy is perfectly tolerant and laid back if you actually listen to his show) but they also don't feel any compulsion to do what whiny white liberals demand that they do. More importantly, when whiny white liberals threaten to not be their friend, they don't give a fuck. They've listened to the arguments on their merits and found them unconvincing.
That's the reason the gay rights movement has been a train wreck: they've never presented a coherent reason why they deserve broad social approval, only condemnation of people who don't grant it, as you just did. And then, repeatedly, when the issue came to a vote and it didn't go their way, they went to the courts to overturn it. That notion that they were going to force society to accept them through dicta from courts has basically been the animating factor behind the anti-gay rights movement.
I suspect that in 20 years gay marriage will happen, but it will be largely due to demographic shift, and in *spite* of the gay rights movement. But liberals will never accept responsibility for their actions or seriously question their judgment, it will just be on to the next Quest for Great Justice.
You may be lucky enough to live in one of the few amazing cities in America where tolerance and fair-mindedness seems to prevail but from everything I've seen, those are mere enclaves surrounded by a morass of closed-minded moralising nogoodniks.
Well, those cities are all run by liberals, so what do you expect? It is a lot more laid back and tolerant down South.