McFarlane Toys Goes Old School With ‘Batman 66’ Retro Figures

Welcome to the table,

HOLY TINTABULATIONS BATMAN! 

HA! That is my favorite thing Burt Ward‘s Robin ever said. I used to work at a summer camp when I was in my late teens and early 20s. There were many times we would all try to outdo each other with the classic Robin lines. I was not old enough to watch the show as it was premiering but it was always on some random fuzzy channel, somewhere, early in the morning or super late at night as a re-run. I really need to go back at some point and watch them all to get the full experience. For now, though, let’s talk about these rad Todd McFarlane Batman 66 Retro Figures.

Now, these figures that McFarlane has put out are only sorta based on the classic show. They are based more on the DC Batman 66 comic that continued the adventures from the TV series that ran from 1966 to 1968. The series was written primarily by Jeff Parker and Tom Peyer, with cover art by delightfully talented Mike Allred. It published 30 issues from 2013-16 and occasionally shows up in crossovers that my friends who have the joy of covering DC books could tell you more about.

These figures are a ton of fun, though.

They are designed with articulation for shelf posing and play. Those Peter-pan booties on Robin are amazing!

Each figure is packaged in a card-backed blister with a 1960s-inspired vibe to it and as you can see above there is a Batmobile that looks like it is ready to roll off the TV screen.

These things really do dazzle with their bright colors and retro design aesthetics. 

Also… Lord Death Man is a must-have just because he looks so freaking cool!

Okay, have fun, go play, pre-order at this link!

Until next time, this is where I hid me getting controversial and the whole article takes a wild swing into a direction that may piss people off. I’m saving this for the end rather than opening with it because if you have stuck around this long you are either scrolling for images or actually want to know what I have to say.

So here we go…

I don’t like many versions of Joker in Live Action. The classic Batman TV show Joker played by Cesar Romero is the only live-action version of the character I really like. Mark Hamill is my favorite screen Joker, with Michael Emerson as a close second but the only flesh-and-blood Joker I really really like has been played by  Romero.

I was not even born when the show went off the air. I’m not 100% sure if my mother was even born yet, if she was she would have been super young. So it’s not like I have some kind of nostalgic connection to the show. I just enjoyed the re-runs when I was a kid and think that Romero with the face paint over the mustache and the energy he brought to the role was so unhinged and creepy that it felt like The Joker.

He was nightmarish and goofy at the same time without feeling like he was trying. Even if the show was not violent, the Batman 66 Joker was just terrifying in a way you could not take your eyes off him for fear he would be blowing you up or feeding you to a shark off the side of the S.S. Gotham. He was just scary.