June 23rd, 1989. The release day of Batman is a day that will be forever burned into my mind. In June of 1989 I had just graduated high school and was working at my first job. I was a 46 at Winn Dixie. That’s what they called baggers at that time because someone must have had the idea being a number was better than being identified as a bagger. It sucked equally as much I can assure you.
I was working late that night and a group of friends showed up and said they were going to see the new Batman movie. I promptly decided that my employer had too many people working on a slow Friday night and offered to go home early. Screw losing money, I had a caped crusader to see. We all went to the local movie theater, which was pretty much the only movie theater. It was one of those old school theaters that had over 20 auditoriums that could hold tons of people with screens the size of football fields. None of this stadium seating with postage stamp sized screens that we have now.
I had seen the previews, but otherwise was pretty much in the dark about this Batman. The guy from Mr. Mom was playing Batman, the creepy guy from The Shining was playing Joker and it was being directed by the same guy that did Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. Even with all that, the one thing that I struggled with the most was that my Batman always wore Blue and Gray. This one was all black. It didn’t make much sense to me then, but the hype surrounding the movie was enough that I was going to see it no matter what color the suit was.
As the movie started playing, I still had a little doubt in my mind, but I can remember exactly when I fell in love with this movie. When the goons are on the roof counting their money talking about “the bat” and you see Batman in the background with the smoke swirling all around. Then he raises up that cape and the goons freak out. I have goose bumps at this moment just thinking about it.
Goon: Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me, man!
Batman: I’m not going to kill you. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to tell all your friends about me.
Goon: What are you?
Batman: I’m Batman.
I think the entire theater erupted into cheers at that point and they had a younger, skinnier version of me with more hair totally wrapped around their pinky. I spent the rest of the movie with either my mouth hanging open in awe or totally giggling with excitement like a school girl. It is only one of a few movies that I’ve ever seen when everyone stood to their feet and cheered for a long time at the end. It was so loud and went on for so long that you kind of expected Batman to come out and do an encore performance. It was something quite special and is in my top two movie experiences of all time.
In the past 25 years there have been many other Batman and super hero movies that have come and gone, some may have been better, many have been worse, but I don’t think there has been another super hero movie that took over quite like Batman. Everywhere you looked you saw t-shirts with the Batman symbol on them. There were hats, cups, cereal, action figures and Prince singing Bat Dance on the radio. Every kid was Batman for Halloween that year (and possibly a geeky eighteen year old too). I even remember walking into the local Walmart when it was released on VHS and seeing an entire aisle lined with a black box with the yellow Batman symbol on it. It was a beautiful moment in time for a comic book geek like myself.
Batman is a juggernaut for DC Comics and arguably their most popular character. To say that it is solely because of this movie would be a disservice to the many great writers and artists of comics starring the character. However, the movie changed the perception of many people who had never read a comic. They had only the 1966 Batman TV show or various cartoons as a frame of reference before this. I would argue that many of those people took their eyeballs and wallets into a local comic shop for the first time and created the spark that propelled the character to where he is today.
I had the chance to rewatch it a few months back, which was the first time in several years that I had seen it, and it is still an amazing film. I watch it through nostalgic glasses so it is hard to be objective, but it is unfortunate that there are people that have drawn a line between this movie and the Nolan films. I guess that is inevitable. There are probably people that think Batman and Robin is the best Batman movie ever. It’s all subjective and my love of Batman comes from experiencing everything that went along with its release. Many people credit Jaws as being the start of the summer blockbuster, and rightly so, but on that 23rd day of June in the summer of 1989, a new type of film was born. Blockbuster and merchandising converged into a cultural phenomenon that set the bar for how these types of films are marketed. If you enjoy eating pretzels dipped in Wolverine’s White Fudge (not a lie, look it up), then you can thank Batman for it.
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