"Why would they have gone to the trouble to hire the best comedy writers in the business to write funny material for us to play straight, if the children in our audience were the only audience"
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Ward is letting the mask slip on the candy-colored innocence of 1960s Batman: the show was never just a kids' romp, even if it was packaged like one. His question is basically a wink at anyone who grew up thinking the punchlines were accidental. They weren't. The production "went to the trouble" of hiring top comedy writers because the real target was a two-tier audience: children thrilled by costume-and-caper simplicity, and adults who could savor the deadpan delivery, the knowing absurdity, and the social parody hiding in plain sight.
The key phrase is "play straight". That's the engine of the whole phenomenon. Camp isn't just loud silliness; it's seriousness applied to nonsense until the nonsense becomes commentary. By performing the lines with sincere conviction, Ward and company turned every overripe moral lesson and ludicrous gadget into a joke about moral lessons and gadgets - and, more broadly, about the performative righteousness of mid-century authority. The writers provide the twist; the actors provide the discipline not to tip the hand.
Subtextually, Ward is also defending craft. When people dismiss the series as childish, he pushes back: that tonal balancing act required intention, talent, and a sophisticated read on TV audiences in an era when "family viewing" meant negotiating competing sensibilities in the same living room. His rhetorical question insists that the show’s apparent naivete was a strategy, not a limitation: Batman was an early mainstream proof that pop entertainment could be broadly accessible while still smuggling in jokes for the grown-ups who pretended they were just supervising.
The key phrase is "play straight". That's the engine of the whole phenomenon. Camp isn't just loud silliness; it's seriousness applied to nonsense until the nonsense becomes commentary. By performing the lines with sincere conviction, Ward and company turned every overripe moral lesson and ludicrous gadget into a joke about moral lessons and gadgets - and, more broadly, about the performative righteousness of mid-century authority. The writers provide the twist; the actors provide the discipline not to tip the hand.
Subtextually, Ward is also defending craft. When people dismiss the series as childish, he pushes back: that tonal balancing act required intention, talent, and a sophisticated read on TV audiences in an era when "family viewing" meant negotiating competing sensibilities in the same living room. His rhetorical question insists that the show’s apparent naivete was a strategy, not a limitation: Batman was an early mainstream proof that pop entertainment could be broadly accessible while still smuggling in jokes for the grown-ups who pretended they were just supervising.
Quote Details
| Topic | Funny |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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