What got me into Batman was Adam West. And I don't mean Adam West's TV series. I mean Adam West himself, flesh and blood. This is a bit lengthy, but it's a cherished memory to me, so...
It was April 1986; I was nine years old, and my older brother took his girlfriend, my youngest uncle (about three years younger than my brother), my older sister and me to the World Of Wheels Auto Show in Omaha. By this point I knew about Batman from Super Friends and old episodes of the TV series, as well as this old oversized TPB of Silver Age stories my brother once had (which I remember specifically for having a kick@$$ spread of the layout of the old '70s-era Wayne Tower) - but like Superman, I wasn't particularly interested in the character at that time because by that age I had already been exposed to live-action science-fiction and fantasy - the classic SW and ST films, etc. I'd seen starships travel at warp speed and lightsabers crash into each other, so a drawing of a flying man didn't mean squat to me, let alone a guy in a mask with no powers; it took the Reeve films for me to develop any genuine affection for Superman.
Anyway, my real object of fascination going into this auto show was the chance to see KITT. I watched every episode of that show every night it was on and just thought it was the coolest TV show ever made, so now I was going to get to see him up-close. But see, I've always been grossly naive. I still am, in spite of myself. And upon seeing KITT in person I was less than dazzled. Not that the car itself looked bad at all, but it was just a deflating experience for the hyper-imaginative nine-year-old that I was to see with my own eyes that the car was just a car. It didn't talk. It didn't carry on conversations. It was just sitting there, lifeless. I think that's when the reality of deception that special effects are meant to create sank in to me for the first time; not coincidentally, I didn't watch Knight Rider anymore after that.
What does this have to do with Batman? Well, of course, Adam West and Burt Ward were going to be making one of their usual appearances at this show, as was the old TV Batmobile. We get to the bottom floor of the Civic Auditorium, and lo and behold, there's the car, and just looking at it - with that fiery red trim and all the little gizmos on the dash, the pipes sticking up outta the back, the red bats on the door and the hubcaps - it really lifted my spirits. I don't quite know why; certainly this car was no more capable of wondrous feats than that stoopid Trans Am was. But there was something about that car that made it a fun thing just to look at.
Then the magic hour arrives, after we've been standing there ogling this wonderfully-kitschy double-bubble-topped icon, when Adam West and Burt Ward make their triumphant appearance. Of course, this is 20 years after the show, so West is pushing 60 and Ward somewhere around 40 by this point. But what made this great? They showed up in costume. This was back before WB's legal strongarms put a stop to that. But I gotta tell ya, even at the age that they were - 'cuz you could see the years starting to creep in around West's mouth - they didn't look all that much less in those suits than they had in 1966. Anyway, they do their customary little show of Bat-skills - West hefting one of the chairs at their signing table over his head - and the line forms for people to pay their $35 to pick out of a stack of photos with most of the actors' handwriting already printed on it so that they can just sign your name and be done with it. There was a funny moment (for me) where as I'm getting in line, these two kids who were about five years older than me are trying to get West's attention by shouting "HEY BATMAN!!! IS SUPERMAN YOUR BROTHER???"; this was where I rolled my eyes, as even I knew that Superman was from the planet Krypton.
Anyway, I shook Batman's hand in an ecstatic daze while he signed my name (which the attendant had already printed on the back so he could spell it correctly - that's Batman for you; always thinking ahead). And while there were a thousand other kids there that night getting the same, I didn't care then, and I don't care now...to dust off an old chestnut, I shook hands with the ***damn BATMAN.
And that is where my Batfandom began.
Not to mention Tim Burton's Batman movies. =D I kind of stopped being a Batman fan after Batman and Robin but when the news of Batman Begins began i remerged!
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