The original Batman television show from the 1960's has become somewhat of a cult classic in modern times. The show is a far cry from the modern image of Batman as a conflicted vigilante and a dark, serious character. Many fans like the campy and lighthearted nature of the television series and the antiquated production quality. Fans of the original Batman comic books like the TV series because it is in many ways truer in form to the original comics then later interpretations of the character.

The short lived, but prolific, TV show starred Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. The show was the most lighthearted version of Batman in the character's history. The writing and production was often times deliberately campy. Fight scenes even included words like Bang! and Pow! superimposed onto the screen, similar to a comic book. In the fading days of the show, some attribute the inability to effectively balance seriousness and camp as part of the show's downfall.

There seems to be a demand for the complete 1960's Batman TV series on DVD. At the current time such a collection doesn't exist. In the meantime this means that the 120 episode collection produced over the show's life are not commercially available, in any form. It also does not seem likely for a release of the shows to DVD to happen anytime soon.

The group that owns the rights to the Batman character is Warner Bros., who took over DC comics in the 1970's. The rights to the TV show and it's episodes belong to 20th Century Fox. These two groups would have to reach an agreement before a complete series collection could be released on DVD, but they seem to have conflicting interests in regards to the nature of the character.

Many theorize that DC comics (under Warner Bros.) won't strike a deal to release the complete TV series because they don't want to tarnish the current direction that they are taking the character ( i.e. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight). Although these theories have not been confirmed by DC or 20th Century Fox.