Before Adam West and Burt Ward became the leads of the Batman series, their careers could have changed if the producers of the series had cast Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell.
One of the programs that marked several generations was Batman, the series starring Adam West and Burt Ward, which aired for three seasons and 120 episodes, although history could have been written with Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell as stars of the program.
Don’t Miss: The Lost Batman Commercial With Adam West
The first season of Batman arrived on January 12, 1966, but a year earlier, with the rights to Batman in the hands of William Dozier for ABC, the cast of the program was sought. The first choices to headline the series were Lyle Waggoner as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Peter Deyell as Dick Grayson/Robin.
Lyle Waggoner made a name for himself on television by being part of one of the most popular comedy shows of the ’60s, The Carol Burnett Show, which premiered in 1967. Something that almost didn’t happen, since the producers of Batman had him on the radar.
In 1965 Waggoner did a camera test alongside Peter Deyell, who performed a couple of scenes. One as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson and one as Batman and Robin in the Batcave.
The commercial that changed history
Everything seemed to be going in the direction for Waggoner and Deyell to be the protagonists of the series, but the producers decided to see other applicants who sought the stellar roles of the program.
The finalists did not count on the fact that the producers saw Adam West in the advertisement for a powdered chocolate, whom they contacted to carry out the camera test together with a young actor, an enthusiastic reader of DC publications, Burt Ward.
William Dozier chose Adam West and Burt Ward as the leads for Batman and Robin, but Lyle Waggoner’s career continued.
Waggoner was part of the seven seasons of the Carol Burnett show and later the actor would return to the DC Universe to play Steve Trevor in the Wonder Woman series, alongside Lynda Carter.
It may interest you: Why did Adam West’s Batman series end?
Source: Batman: Holy Batmania, 2002, 20th Century Fox
Batman: Hush, a classic of the present century in SMASH and DC Comics Mexico
Gotham City is infected by a criminal epidemic and all of Batman’s enemies have emerged with the intention of making his life an absolute chaos. But they have no idea that they are merely pawns of the villainous Hush, as part of his elaborate game of revenge against Bruce Wayne.
Driven past his breaking point, Batman will need to harness much more than the abilities of the greatest detective on Earth to uncover the true identity of this mysterious mastermind before it’s too late.
SMASH and DC Comics present Batman: Hush, the work by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee that brought the Dark Knight into the 21st century.
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