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That Time Adam West, TV's 'Batman', Also Advocated For Videogames (twitter.com)
Adam West, star of the 1960s TV series Batman, has died at age 88. An anonymous reader shares a memory of that time the 53-year-old actor wrote an op-ed for a 1982 issue of Videogame and Computer Gaming Illustrated.
"I've been playing with computers longer than most," West wrote on page 6. [PDF] "I had onboard computers in Robinson Crusoe on Mars, having learned in an episode of TV's The Outer Limits that you can't survive on the Red Planet without them. Then, of course, I was up to my cowl in computers as television's Batman... In 1966, when the series began its three season run, all of that was science fiction. Computers were playthings of the researchers at MIT... Today, a lot of the apparatus we had in Batman -- dressed, of course, in less imposing names -- is fact. And we're lucky this is so."
West called videogames "an ideal means to broaden the imaginations of young people," saying the medium "can expand our awareness of the world as it is, was, or might be. The medium is still in its infancy, but read this again in a few years and see if this prediction hasn't come true: as videogaming grows, we will grow."
My favorite story is how West was cast as Batman after the show's producer spotted his performance as super-spy Agent Q in a commercial for Nestle Quik. And CNN also remembers that "later in life, West made appearances on the animated series 'Family Guy' as Mayor Adam West, the oddball leader of Quahog, Rhode Island."
West called videogames "an ideal means to broaden the imaginations of young people," saying the medium "can expand our awareness of the world as it is, was, or might be. The medium is still in its infancy, but read this again in a few years and see if this prediction hasn't come true: as videogaming grows, we will grow."
My favorite story is how West was cast as Batman after the show's producer spotted his performance as super-spy Agent Q in a commercial for Nestle Quik. And CNN also remembers that "later in life, West made appearances on the animated series 'Family Guy' as Mayor Adam West, the oddball leader of Quahog, Rhode Island."
Adam West is best known for starring in the lead role of a TV adaptation of a comic book. His death is obviously news for nerds (and I'm sorry to hear he's gone). That he wrote an op-ed for a 1982 computer gaming magazine is even nerdier -- comics, computers, the '80's, that's like triple nerddom crossover.
Slashdot got rid of that "news for nerds, stuff that matters" catchline a long time ago. It is now unofficially "whatever gets people to click articles".
Adam West is best known for starring in the lead role of a TV adaptation of a comic book.
For those who don't know, the parent is obviously referring to his recurring role as "Catman" on The Fairly Oddparents.
Farewell, Adam West. I enjoyed your work - and the fact that you had absolutely no trouble making fun of your own career.
#DeleteChrome
A twenty one gun salute for a damned fine bat.
Some of us who were born after the initial run can still find the "West"ern Bat was still the superior species of Bat.
RIP Adam West
Holy heart failure!
51 year time bomb.
I'm so glad he found more recent fame as Mayor Adam West on Family Guy. I'll miss his humor.
I met him years ago, what a really nice man! Very personable too. RIP Adam.....
If anyone doubts Adam West was the greatest, here is the definitive analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Mayor Adam West was not available for comment.
#DeleteFacebook
A question you might ask yourself...
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Don't forget the great Batusi! Even had Travolta and Uma doing it in Pulp Fiction. Ha!
https://youtu.be/RsYA8Gr5NTY
RIP
RIP! I just saw http://starringadamwest.com/ last month. It was good. Check it out if you haven't seen it.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Too soon. :^(
Joke's on them, nobody RTFA.
Until "Batman", West was known primarily as a Dramatic Actor. If you have never seen "Robinson Crusoe On Mars", check it out. For a very small budget, it was an extremely well-done film; much better than the title might suggest.
West's portrayal of Batman as the only member of the Cast who was not let in on the Joke- This isn't a Comic Book Series like all of the others, this was a parody of them. But West played it straight, and that was what made it work. He found the Humor off-set. There was one Promo pic of him and Ward in Costume gazing intently at a copy of "Mad Magazine". They were on the Cover. (I think that it actually was printed in "Mad Magazine"...)
He and Leslie Nielsen had a lot in common, finding their later careers anchored in Comedy. Nielsen had his own Sci-Fi Classic- "Forbidden Planet", based on Shakespeare rather than Defoe.
FWIW, I was interested in Batgirl. Craig was then in "Star Trek's" "Whom Gods Destroy" as Marta. Yowza.
Video games were popular in 1982, like incredibly popular, as in a multi-billion dollar industry. The 2600 was still around, but showing its age. Mattel's Intellivision was starting to chip at its market share and ColecoVision came out that year. Computer gaming was taking off as well. Then 1983 happened. The video game industry went from $3+ billion (almost 8 billion adjusted for inflation) to $100 million industry over the next two years. Video gaming was declared a dead fad in the United States and virtually disappeared. The US may have given up, but Japan didn't - they released the NES into the US market in 1986 and it was raking in $5 billion by 1989 with a virtual monopoly on consoles (some late comers like Sega Genesis had some market share, but Nintendo dominated).
The video game crash of the early 80s was the result of crap being released and shovelled in front of the user. Retailers were buying up tons of video games because consumers were demanding it, and tons of developers were exploiting this, releasing half-done crap. Eventually the consumers got fed up with buying another crap game and stopped buying games altogether, leading to the crash where retailers were suddenly holding stock in tons of cartridges and no one was buying.
ET did not kill it - after all, the landfill contained ET, but it contained many other more popular Atari games as well. In fact, ET only made up a small part of the recovered cartridges - around 20% or so. The rest were all the more popular Atari mainstays, having been returned by retailers.
Nintendo would succeed with the NES for two reasons. First, they implemented an early DRM with the NES10 chip, which made sure that only games approved by Nintendo will make it onto the market. (Remember, a flood of crap was the cause of the crash, so by controlling who could make games, you could ensure only high quality games were released). Second, the NES was never sold as a video game system - no retailer was willing to take another chance on video games, so Nintendo sold the NES as an electronic toy.
This would be critical - because toy stores still are separated into girls and boys, and thus Nintendo could only market their system to one group, of which they chose boys. This may have been a primary influence to the male domination of computer science - prior to the crash, you had representations of the entire family from mom and dad to the daughter and son on everything. After the crash and Nintendo, ads featured primarily boys. Enough so that even regular people saw video games as something kids do despite it actually being a mostly adult hobby (most gamers are adults).
And we're seeing the crap come out again - Google Play, Apple App Store are filled with crap apps (even Apple's moderation still results in billions of crap being added). And Steam is having the same problem as well - lots of crap showing up everywhere - it seems everyone and their dog is creating a game with the canned textures and models that stuff like Unity come with and releasing it. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have tightened their approval policies trying to keep the crap from flooding their markets.