Lorenzo Semple Jr. (1923 – 2014)

Lorenzo Semple Jr. who originally brought the Batman comic book to life on television, has died.

Semple was the creator of the 1960’s Batman TV series starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin, the Boy Wonder. On the show, there was absolutely nothing dark about Semple’s “Dark Knight”. He created a Batman world that was colorful enough where kids cheered and adults laughed. The jokes were understated and the plots were goofy and it all worked in Lorenzo Semple, Jr.’s Gotham City.

It was the most non-violent violent show on TV. Each episode contained a fight scene with over-the-top costumed villains like the Joker and the Riddler, where the punching and kicking were emphasized with a cartoonish “Pow!”, “Bam!” or “Sock!”. He gave us the Boy Wonder’s catchphrase of “Holy – whatever” and those elaborate traps that Batman and Robin found themselves in each week like a giant snow cone or hourglass.

Semple Jr. did other notable work as well. He wrote and co-wrote films like “Papillon”, “Three Days of the Condor”, “Never Say Never Again,” (Sean Connery’s last James Bond), and 1976’s “King Kong”. But it was TV’s Caped Crusader that he considered his favorite, saying – “I think ‘Batman’ in general was the best thing I ever wrote… extremely witty, genuinely witty on two levels.”

Lorenzo Semple Jr. was 91.

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