The Camp Beneath the Cowl: Judge Maurice Cobbs Interviews Paul A. Kaufman

Judge Maurice Cobbs

May 23rd, 2005

Meanwhile, in his secret subterranean lair, Judge Maurice Cobbs makes contact with Paul A. Kaufman, director-producer of the campy television reunion movie Return To The Batcave, and learns about the Batmobile that's not the Batmobile, the trouble with lawyers, and a pink Rolls Royce. One hint: The worst is yet to come!

Judge Maurice Cobbs: What interested you in this project?
Paul A. Kaufman: Well, [Surviving] Gilligan's Island was a big hit, and I was looking for something else that we could do like that, so I started thinking of some of my favorite shows from when I was a kid, and Batman popped up. We looked at Adam West's book Back to the Batcave and we looked at Burt Ward's book Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights and thought that there were a lot of really great stories and anecdotes that we could tell.

Then we had to ask, "How do you tell a story with all these great anecdotes?" You know, Adam and Burt have very different ideas about what happened. There's a lot of stuff they don't agree on, and we thought, "That's perfect, we can work that into the story." That's why there are times [in the movie] when they'll say, "Well, I don't remember it that way...." We put Adam and Burt into an adventure that's in keeping with the campiness of the show, and when you're telling a story that campy, there are no rules. We had no rules. And we could do that kind of campiness and exaggerated ridiculousness and have it be fun.

Were you a fan of the Batman series before you started "Return to the Batcave"?
I was a fan. I liked the show, but I wasn't a die-hard fan. I wasn't like a Trekkie.

What was it like, working with Adam West and Burt Ward?
It was great. Adam is a really funny guy. My son was really excited, too, because he'd seen the TV show and he really likes it. And it's great working with someone you've grown up with. It's surreal. I have the greatest job in the world.

Burt Ward was really great, too. They're both very nice, they have the biggest hearts in the world. Lee [Meriwether] was delightful, and Frank Gorshin and Julie [Newmar]... they really enjoyed what they did.

Jack Brewer and Jason Marsden were amazingly well cast as Adam and Burt.
Thank you. Adam was involved in the casting. We brought in a ton of people and Jack just won us over. He actually spent some time with Adam while preparing for the movie.

Jason won us over, too. There's a much greater height difference between Jack and Jason than between Adam and Burt. It's much greater than on the show. We had to put lifts in Jason's shoes and do some trick camera shots... Jason is a really small guy. But he was perfect for the part. Jason is a Batman fanatic, too. He has a tattoo on his arm and he collects all sorts of Batman memorabilia.

I understand that Adam West had resisted the idea of a reunion-type movie for a long time, is that right? [West was quoted as saying that he'd been opposed to the idea of a reunion show because he "never wanted to be perceived as a member of the over-the-hill gang."]
Really? I hadn't heard that. When we spoke to him he seemed pretty excited about the idea. He didn't need much convincing.

Do you think that audiences who are only used to the Tim Burton Batman movies and the current comics will enjoy this movie?
I think there's room in the world for both. There's room to tell some really dark, complicated stories, and there's room to do the really campy and sort of silly stories as well. They're not mutually exclusive. It's like taking a Rolls Royce and painting it pink. You might really like your pink Rolls Royce and just have a lot of fun driving it, but some of the upper-crust people might look down on you and say, "You've destroyed this car." And that's what those fans [who look down on the show] are doing. But there's room to do both; both are good.

For the most part, the response to the show has been really great. We had a couple of bad reviews and 20 good ones. And a lot of people have e-mailed and said how much they enjoyed the movie, and we got tons of letters from people who were excited about the movie and just idolize Adam West. So it's been well-received.

Are you looking forward to the new Batman Begins movie?
I'm a little apprehensive. I'll have to let you know after I've seen it. I liked the Tim Burton movies. I didn't care for the Schumacher ones. But I'm reserving judgment on this one; I've been a little apprehensive since I saw the Batmobile. You know, they're taking it back to the beginning and the Batmobile is kind of blocky and... I don't know how I feel about that. I like to see Batman push a button, and the jet turbine ignites and the wheels spin and I think they've lost some of that feeling. But I'll reserve judgment until after I've seen it.

You were involved in another TV show reunion movie, Surviving Gilligan's Island. How did this one compare to that one?
Surviving Gilligan's Island was much easier to do. Return to the Batcave was much harder, because of the legal spats between Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox. There were a lot of limits on what we could and couldn't do, a lot of restrictions, and we'd have to deal with everything on a day-to-day basis. It's difficult having this great creative vision for what you want to do, and then being told you can't over and over. Ultimately, it turned out good, very good, but I think it could have been even better if we hadn't had lawyers crawling all over and stripping things away.

And let me say that I completely respect the trademark; DC Comics and Warner Brothers have this great trademark and franchise and it's made them a lot of money and they want to protect it.

What were some of the things you wanted to do, and couldn't?
There were lots of bats -- symbolic things. But we couldn't have any images of bats. We could only use bat images if we were replicating something that had been used on the show. For instance, in the scene were the Batmobile leaves the little oil spots, those oil spots were originally shaped like bats. But they wouldn't let us do that.

We even had to establish that the Batmobile wasn't the Batmobile; that's why the woman makes the little speech in the museum about it being the car built for the series. The lawyers wanted us to emphasize that this was not a Batman movie, and they felt that they owned the right to bat-everything. We even had to find a title that showed that this was not a Batman movie; that's how we ended up with "The Misadventures of Adam and Burt." It was this crazy game, doing this little dance with the lawyers.

But the Batmobile was the real deal, right?
Actually, no. It was a replica. It's one of George Barris' replicas. There was just one built for the show, and George Barris built a couple of others that were used for just one shot, like there was one that you hit a button and parachutes came out of the back, and they only used that one for one episode, and there was one that had a buzz saw, I think, and they only used that one for one shot. And the problem with those is that sometimes they won't start.

Did you get to drive it?
I got to drive in it. I could have driven it, but I was so busy that I didn't get the chance. I should have. I got to drive the Maseratti. I got to take that one home with me on weekends.

You got to have a little cameo in this movie.
I try to do one every time. My kids think it's fun. It's like a little game we play; they try to find me in my movies.

Who is your favorite Bat-villain from the series?
I really liked the Penguin. I liked all the gadgets he had, like the umbrellas that would shoot smoke or water or whatever. The Riddler freaked me out a little, and the Joker had so much kinetic energy, he was really too crazy. But I liked the Penguin.

Who's your favorite Catwoman?
You're asking me as an adult, right? The most interesting was Eartha Kitt. She just brought this amazing...thing... to Catwoman. She was dangerous. She wasn't as sexy as Lee or Julie; I saw them more as being more sexually manipulative. But Eartha Kitt was more cunning. Dangerous.

Do you think that the series will ever be released on DVD?
Eventually. I have no control over that, but yeah, I think it will be eventually released. I know that it's a big thing between DC and 20th Century Fox. You know, we were the first people to bring them together on this, to get DC to agree to it. I think that what finally convinced them was that we were well within our rights to make the movie. I think that there are a lot of people over there who hold some grudges, and when they move on, maybe some of the younger people will say, "Hey, this can be a real moneymaker." And eventually, I think it will happen. But I think that it's a bone of contention with some people over there [at DC Comics] to never see this show released. So it may be twenty years from now, but I think, yeah, eventually.

I really enjoyed Return to the Batcave, and I also enjoyed Run the Wild Fields very much. What other projects are you working on?
Thank you very much. I have a few. I have the remake rights to Harper Valley PTA, and I have the rights to a book called Hole in the Earth. I've sold a few pilots, and I have a few TV movies in development. I don't really know what my next project will be.

Are you relieved that I didn't use one single "Holy" pun in this interview?
(laughs) Were you going to? Were you holding back? Is that what you're going to do in the article? You can, if you want to.