The dynamic duo are as funny as ever. Adam West and Burt Ward delighted Batman fans at this past weekend’s Dallas Comic Con. The dynamic between these two is like they have never missed a beat from being Batman and Robin in the 1960s. At their Q&A panel, West and Ward reminisced about their building climbing days of the “bright knight” as compared to the darker Batman of today and also about a possible Grey Ghost series, getting “Naked,” rescuing dogs, and what it was like to fight Bruce Lee.
A fan asked about West’s voicing the character of The Gray Ghost, Bruce Wayne’s inspiration to become a caped crusader, in Batman: The Animated Series in the 1990s and West announced that a Gray Ghost series is in the works. Though he did not necessarily say that he was attached to said series… we may be able to infer this connection by the mere fact that West mentioned it in the context of paying gigs.
West also was asked about his Adam West Naked DVD. West explained how this DVD came about:
“Listen, the DVD of the Batman television series has not been released as you know. And I guess they are still battling over who gets whatever slice of the pie, so I decided to do my own DVD. I called it Adam West Naked in which I expose ev-ery-thing… that you ever wanted to know about 120 episodes! AdamWest.com [for an autographed copy], you can buy it today.”
Of Burt Ward, a fan asked about the Green Hornet and Kato two-episode crossover with Batman and what it was like to fight Bruce Lee. Ward noted a bit of film trivia that that scene was actually the first fight scene Lee ever filmed:
“Most people don’t know this but at the time I was filming Batman, I lived in a condominium complex that Bruce Lee also lived in. He and I were friends and he and I actually trained together and sparred together. So fighting on Batman [as Kato versus Robin] which actually from a trivia standpoint, was Bruce Lee’s first filmed fight scene was fighting me.
We actually sparred together off camera and he was a great martial artist. I do remember, this was back in 1966 where his wife Linda and I and Bruce and son Brandon who was six months old, we’d go to dinner in Chinatown in Los Angeles. [Bruce] was a great guy and very smart and trained eight hours a day. He was really a terrific martial artist and a nice guy.”
These days, Ward is now known for going from a caped crusader to a canine crusader for his efforts in rescuing dogs with Gentle Giant Rescue:
“My wife and I are very interested in animals because they are very loving and very innocent. Most people have dogs or cats. In fact I think there are 85 million dogs in the United States, 63 million households. It was just something that we decided to rescue and in eighteen years, we rescued about 15,000 dogs. (crowd applauds)
What we’re really thrilled about is that we primarily rescue giant breed dogs, like Great Danes and Saint Bernards and Irish Wolfhounds. They traditionally have very short life spans of about seven to nine years. And my wife and I spent a lot of money and a lot of time and we have actually developed a food called Gentle Giants, because that’s the name of our rescue, that actually doubled the average life span of these dogs. You can read about it on our website www.gentlegiantsrescue.com”
Batman, the television series, can be seen on the Hub channel everyday.
Keep it here on SciFi Mafia for more coverage of Dallas Comic Con.
