The Batmobile Page #2

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I got permission to take the Batmobile...

...and leave the studio...

...so I went trick-or-treating,

in costume, in the Batmobile.

I couldn't convince anyone to go with me.

They thought I was nuts.

[CLICKING TONGUE]

"Trick or treat."

"Oh, my God! There's Batman,

and look, there's the Batmobile!"

Oh. It was so funny.

And it lasted about three houses,

then I had to come back.

Well, we enjoyed driving it

many times for fun.

Batchutes, these are real parachutes,

the ones used for race cars.

I'm coming down the 101 Freeway

and I pop my Batchutes.

Going the other way

was a highway patrolman.

The Batmobile itself

that was in the TV show...

...actually works its way

into the comic books themselves...

...because the books want to be reflective

of the success the show was getting.

Super Friends TV show

started in the 1970s.

They also based their animated Batmobile

after the Lincoln Futura model.

Throughout the 1970s, there had

to have been about a dozen variations...

...and that continued through the 1980s.

There was no set template for a Batmobile.

You could turn to 1986, Frank Miller

deconstructs Batman in graphic novel.

He rethought what Batman was.

It's a darker time, it's a very dystopian world.

He needed something big and heavy

and that was this Batman Assault Tank.

It was like, wow.

This was the first time

we've really seen anything quite like that.

I think when I think of the Batmobile

I always think of the classic...

...Michael Keaton, the first Tim Burton movie,

really low to the ground.

When Ben Melniker and I

acquired the rights to Batman in 1979...

...it took 10 years before the first dark

and serious Batman movie came out...

...in 1989, thanks largely

to the genius of two people:

Tim Burton and my dear friend, Anton Furst.

Up until that time, comic-book movies

were, I think, seen more as light.

The only one that I can recall which

was a big movie, was Superman...

...but, you know, Superman is a much more

positive, acceptable character...

...for a big movie, rather than some

dark internalized guy...

...who dresses up like a bat.

So, I mean, it was--

It felt like kind of new territory...

...for that kind of movie at the time.

USLAN:
To get an audience

to suspend its disbelief...

...and buy into the fact

that there could be a guy...

...seriously getting dressed as a bat...

...that took a lot in order to accomplish that.

Part of that is the effectiveness

of the Batmobile.

I wasn't interested in making the TV show.

I was much more interested

in making a darker version...

...more what the roots

of the comic book was.

Just going back to the psychology

of what the guy is trying to do...

...he's trying to scare people,

he's trying to make a mythic...

...almost supernatural persona...

...because he is a real person

and he's just--

You know,

he's trying to intimidate and frighten.

So therefore, the intention

of the Batmobile was...

...to look as imposing as possible.

The Batmobile became an interesting problem

because which way were we to go?

We didn't want to put it in any particular

period. We just went into pure expressions...

...into the car and taking elements

of the Salt Flat races...

...of the '30s and the Stingrays of the '50s.

CROWLEY:
He's also taken reference from

people who've broken land-speed records...

...like the Bluebird, you know,

with the big jet engine.

The science of the times is jets.

We made a little clay maquette

to see that we got that right.

We got the basics of it right,

then we did it full size.

One of the funny things was Tim

came in and said, "It's really great.

The only problem is," he said,

"how do they get in it?"

There wasn't a door. I'd forgotten.

I'd never thought of a door.

[LAUGHS]

So then John Evans and I told him:

"Well, why don't we get the whole

canopy to move forward, like a jet?"

The same time the body was being made...

...the actual engineering side of it was made.

SMITH:
We've got two of them.

One was a Chevy Impala.

The other one was the ugliest pink Oldsmobile

Cutlass convertible you'd ever seen.

ACKLAND-SNOW:

They had what they call a box chassis...

...so we could cut this

and extend the prop shaft...

...and that's why we chose those cars.

Plus, of course,

they didn't cost very much money.

We've got to get them ready,

service them up to speed...

...test them, and make sure it all works.

ACKLAND-SNOW:
Tim Burton said,

"What are you gonna do about headlights?"

My wife had a Honda Civic

and the lights were that way...

...and I thought, if you turn them upside down,

we put them there, and they worked.

I turned up behind a Ferrari

in a traffic jam...

...and I thought,

"Oh, look, there's a big red, round light."

So I went to Ferrari, they said, "How many

do you want? I said, "Make it eight."

I was in a traffic jam again.

Right beside me was a Routemaster bus

with a big sort of filler cap...

...and that's what you see on the car.

We had a guy that used to bring

all this aviation scrap.

The intake fan was off

the emergency generator...

...that dropped down out of the wing

of a Vulcan bomber.

The tailpipe was different. The tail end of the jet

was off a Bristol Viper jet.

The design that we finally ended up with,

which I love, was just sort of unexpected.

It made us kind of laugh

because it was tough...

...but it was kind of perverse.

It had a weird quality to it

that I can't quite put my finger on...

...but it still had the bat kind of motif to it,

but something else.

It just was an aggressive thing.

And also just the right sort of

paint job and texture...

...and a kind of gun-metal quality to it...

...to give it that sort of scary,

kind of aggressive persona.

It could actually go much faster

than the amount of room we had...

...you know, just by the time it got up to speed,

you were off the studio lot.

I actually drove it in the film at one point,

as well. I was Batman, yeah.

Where he machine-gunned the door off,

that was me...

...and one of the other guys, Barry Whitrod...

...doing all the bullet hits

and working the guns.

We actually had three of us

stuffed into that little car.

When we shut the lid the first time out...

...and he got in with the costume

and the door shut...

...and his little ears were sticking out,

trapped in the door. Ha-ha-ha.

ACKLAND-SNOW:
Bob Ringwood,

who was the costume designer...

...made what they call the Batmobile hood

where his ears are just three-eighths shorter.

[CHATTERING]

[CHUCKLING]

BURTON:

I did drive it for a second.

I don't think they wanted me to drive it,

given my driving record.

I took it for like 50 yards or something...

...but I was used to, like a Ford Fiesta,

so, you know...

...it's a little different in terms of feel.

- Get in the car.

- Which one?

ACKLAND-SNOW:
There was a paint

called Flip-flop, from Japan.

When you sprayed, one way it was purple,

the other way it was black and a bit of blue...

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