10: Corrections & Feedback

[00:00:00] Alex: for whatever reason, popped off like it has 16,000 views on TikTok

 

[00:00:11] Alex: Welcome to Bat Lessons, the Batman History podcast.

I am Alex.

[00:00:14] Brian: And I'm Brian Anders.

[00:00:16] Alex: And today we're slowing down. We're taking a look back at all the episodes we've done so far. We'll be hearing from listeners just like you, as well as following up on some of our past topics and making a few corrections. Are you excited, Brian?

[00:00:30] Brian: Yeah. I'm always excited to hear from our listeners.

[00:00:34] Alex: Yeah. I've been going back and listening to some of our old episodes. I you told me you were doing the same.

[00:00:39] Brian: Yep, me too.

[00:00:40] Alex: Do you have any sort of insights about, uh, about our performance thus far? How are you feeling about the show overall?

[00:00:46] Brian: Uh, overall I find it fairly entertaining. I'm also my own worst critic, so I hear when I am making mistakes and, and things like that, but yeah. But it's, I don't know. It's good.

[00:00:58] Alex: you know, uh, the same for me. I think a lot of the mistakes that have been made are like, editing or like stylistic or, one of the things I was really worried about when we started the show, which, this will be episode like 10 or 11, I'm not quite sure where, where, not a year in terms of the show being out, but we're actually over a year in terms of the inception of the show.

The first episode ever was recorded about this time last year. So it is a really, um, interesting time to look back. What I was worried about back then was that we would make like, y you know, historical errors or accuracy errors, and that we would be telling people facts or history that were wrong. and the good news is that for the most part, I think we've avoided that.

I think things have turned out pretty okay on, on the history front, so that's pretty exciting. Um, or, or validating, I guess. It

[00:01:47] Brian: Yeah.

[00:01:48] Alex: what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be stepping through each episode one at a time, and we will do a mix of corrections. We'll do some feedback. in some cases we, for the most part, feedback is really short form because they come from things like comment on our YouTube or TikTok. but, there's a couple cases where we got full blown letters, and so we'll, we'll have like a longer conversation from a letter.

that'll be exciting.

but first, before we jump into the sort of retrospective of all the episodes, we did have one review we promised you in the outro read that if you left a review on, iTunes on Apple, uh, podcasts, that we would read that review on the show. So we , we're not a large podcast, we'll be honest, you know, exceeded our wildest expectations in terms of audience.

It's not, it's not a non-existent audience. It is a, a, a, you know, a a fair group of people that come back every month. only one review so far. But, uh, here it is. We'll give it, we'll read it out just for you on the show. 

[00:02:45] Brian: the

title is, holy Podcast, Batman, five Stars by Baby Hands, McGee or MCee. Who knows? This is a great podcast to listen to for people who enjoy a deep dive into subject matter, love Batman history or comics in general. The hosts ask really astute questions and are super relatable. Love it.

[00:03:05] Alex: Thank you baby hands. Maji McGee, McGee McGee, whoever you are. Uh, I appreciated hearing from you. I wish all of the feedback we got was so positive, this positive, but, uh, , we'll, we'll, uh, see it as, as we go along here. but yeah, leave us a review. We'll, we'll, we'll read it on the show. We won't even necessarily wait a whole year for, uh, for a feedback episode. 

Okay. So the first episode was called How Big Is Batman? And if you recall, it was just us talking about what we wanted the show to be. we talked about our history with Batman. We talked about. Y you know, why we wanted to do it, what, the sort of topics were gonna be.

Um, and then at the end I sort of enumerated a list of all of the things that are Batman. We did like, there was a stage show. There was, you know, radio dramas, there were comic books, there were movies, there were novelizations. and that was sort of the, the broad strokes. one of the things that Brian told, cuz we, we both shared our first memory of Batman.

Brian shared that, his first memory of Batman was Aquilo, which was a quilt that could fold up into a pouch to be, to become a pillow that had Batman, the animated series on it. And I, I have to tell you, um, I was at a party, uh, late last year and I had the chance to chat up Brian's mother and I did not pass up this opportunity to do some recon, dear listener.

I asked about the qui because if you recall, we speculated that it might be a retail product that was something you could walk into a store and get. And, per Brian's mom, Aquilo is not a retail product. She, she thinks that she picked it up, both the one for Brian and for his siblings at a crafts fair.

So there you go. That's the history of the

[00:04:41] Brian: Mm-hmm. , I wasn't part of this conversation, but I'd be willing to wager that she got it at a crafts fair in, Springdale, Arkansas or somewhere thereabouts, because usually in October of every year, we would go down there and visit, um, my, my aunt and and family over there, my cousins. And the ladies would go do the cross fair and the guys would like go bowling or something like that.

And lots of very cool crafts came out of those trips. So that's where I'd be putting my money. but not a lot of money.

[00:05:14] Alex: so yeah, that's, that's our first a little follow up tidbit. Here's a little correction. When we were talking about the Batman cereals, which will be the subject of a future episode, we accidentally conflated Nickelodeon and cereals. These are actually two different things. I did a little bit of research.

Nickelodeon were most popular from 1905 to 1915. And this was a type of theater where you would go and you'd see something that was 10 to 15 minutes at length. And it was not cereal, they were standalone. Um, it was kind of a novelty more so than entertainment. You'd go and you'd see someone like ride a unicycle or some sort of, you know, fantastical thing.

Whereas a cereal starts around 1910. So there is a little bit of overlap, but goes for the entire first half of, the 20th century. and a cereal would be about 20 minutes long. It would be narrative. you'd go to the theater, um, you could go to the theater to see just one cereal, but often, you'd go for the entire afternoon.

And this is where the term Matine nay comes from because you'd show up to the theater early, and you'd watch a couple cereals, a news reel, a cartoon, and maybe even a live, full feature length film at the end. So that's the difference between Nickelodeon and a serial. Batman cereals were not Nickelodeon.

[00:06:27] Brian: Good correction, uh, cereals sound amazing. Uh, like this is a really quick side story. Um, my brother lives down in LA and uh, he got us tickets to see, uh, hateful Eight, which is a Quintin Tarantino film

[00:06:45] Alex: Yeah, a good one.

[00:06:47] Brian: Yes, and we

[00:06:48] Alex: they're all in the cabin, right?

[00:06:49] Brian: Yeah, the big, big whodunit western in the winter. And uh, we went to see it at Quintin Tarantino's Theater in la, which

[00:06:59] Alex: wow. Okay.

[00:07:00] Brian: which, um, runs it on, film on the 35 millimeter film. And then, uh, they also do completely different cuts. Not, not for the film itself, but like the trailers are different. Um, so they're like lots of historical trailers. Every trailer relates to a character or, or an actor that's in the movie. So like, we saw an old Mountain Dew commercial that has Channing Tatum in it.

Uh, or we saw it, it's supposed to evoke some of these, those old things. So I, one of the early trailers was also like a Woody, the wood picker cartoon something or other Ed. And I, I think it had to relate to like, when westerns were really popular. That's the kind of stuff that they would, um, show in, in theaters.

Um, and then there was an intermission. There was a 15 minute intermission. And I tell you what, they should stick intermissions in movies all the time now. It was so nice to just like, get up, go to the bathroom, get another popcorn, or refill your drink or whatever. And, uh, and maybe do a little debrief with your friend who's with you.

Like, I talked to my brother, what happened in the first half? What do you think's gonna happen in the second half? The entire experience was so much better. so yes, this idea of cereals and like spending the afternoon watching the news reels, it's like watching tv, but like in a, in a big setting. That sounds incredible.

[00:08:17] Alex: a group setting. Yeah. I think especially as, as, um, movie theaters are having to compete with like more and more impressive, like home television and theater setups, the, um, turning it into more of an event rather than going to consume one piece of media makes a lot of sense. It could, could see a comeback.

We'll see. 

[00:08:32] Brian: that'd be cool.

[00:08:32] Alex: going back to our first Batman stories, yours was the qui mine was going over to my grandparents' house watching Batman 1966 with my grandparents on What I said was Nick and Knight, my sister, avid lister of the show, texted me, challenged me on this. She says, I don't think it was Nick and Knight. And I was like, you're, you're

wrong. It's gotta be Nick and Knight.

And I did lots of research to try to figure this out. there was a few things I learned. One is that unlike I claimed on the show, Nick at Night was never a separate channel from Nickelodeon. they did this thing where there were channels inside of channels where they would change everything over, including the tags and the station, you know, identification and everything.

be something else, it would say it was a different channel. this is exactly the same way that Adult Swim, you know, would say, the channel would say it was Adult Swim. Instead of saying it was Cartoon Network. that's what Nick and Knight was for Nickelodeon. It was never a separate channel.

and then the other thing that, uh, and I could have sworn that this was Nick at Knight, I cannot find a record of Nick at Knight ever carrying Batman. What I can find is that this was on fx, and that's what my sister recalled as well. So I was probably watching reruns of Batman 66, in the, in the nineties on fx.

So that's another correction.

[00:09:45] Brian: For the Nickelodeon versus Nick at night? I, I did know the distinction because I remember watching the switchover. It was like at seven o'clock or eight o'clock or something like

[00:09:53] Alex: Yeah.

[00:09:54] Brian: and it would

[00:09:55] Alex: I recall that being a thing as well.

[00:09:56] Brian: It would jump to like Gilligan's Island and the monsters and like all the, and I would wager that what happened was Nickelodeon wanted people to keep watching their channel after all the kids had bedtimes.

And so it to fuckour parents would've wanted to watch from the past. Um, but I really enjoyed it as well. Like I love Lucy and stuff like that. It's good,

[00:10:17] Alex: Oh, it was so good. We, we did actually watch a lot of it. yeah, it just, it just, for some reason I had constructed a memory cuz this was, you know, he was pre-kindergarten. I was very young, so I've Where where they had Yeah, yeah. , uh, I had imagined it becoming its own, uh, station when it was not. One more correction and then we'll move on to some feedback on this episode.

I said in this episode that there had historically been in the past a Batman Audio podcast. What I was misremembering was that there were original audiobooks from a company called Graphic Audio. They released DC audiobooks from around 2007 to 2014, and they did a bunch of di different di uh, DC audio dramas.

I actually purchased a set of them from Humble Bundle at one point. so that was a, a way that people became aware of them. However, just because there wasn't historical Batman podcasts, this podcast episode released in May of 2022. Also, in May of 2222, Spotify dropped an exclusive show called Batman Unburied, which was a Batman audio drama, which actually would go on to be the number one most downloaded podcast on Spotify for several weeks, beating out even Joe Rogan.

So, um, and this was happening in May and June of 2022. So as people are downloading the first episodes of Bat Lessons and listening to it live potentially in Spotify, and I'm going on or know, there used to be a Batman podcast at one point. I guess people are go screaming at their podcast players going, there is a Batman podcast.

It's happening right now. It's incredibly popular. in our defense, we recorded this episode in February of 2022 and had no idea that it was gonna be. So

[00:11:57] Brian: That's wild. I, I mean, I as, as the like not quite as avid Batman keeper, upper of of current times or whatever. Uh, I'm learning about this right now for the first time,

[00:12:10] Alex: I was, I was vaguely aware that it was happening at the time because I was like doing marketing for us. Like I was publishing the episode, I was buying ads. I was, you know, trying to find ways to, you know, googling things and, and so I was kind of aware that Batman and Buried was popular at the time.

But, um, not until I was researching for this episode did I realize like how much they coincided and the degree to which it was popular. So, um, a little funny in hindsight,

[00:12:36] Brian: That is funny.

[00:12:37] Alex: you think we might have been able to, to kind of coast off that shine, but we sure did not. I don't think that was a booster for us. Um, , we, we, like I said, we have a, we have a consistent, reliable, um, listener base, but I think it a hundred percent of that came from ads that we bought.

So,

[00:12:52] Brian: Woo. Go ads.

[00:12:54] Alex: woo. Yeah, . so one piece of listener feedback from this episode, we, ha had a YouTube clip that was sort of long form that was, sort of us running down all of the different media that there is a Batman like that. How big is Batman? How much Batman content is there?

And we did, we did get one comment. Do you wanna read it?

[00:13:14] Brian: So this is from at Snapple, Bon apple on YouTube. Subbed. I don't know what that means. Oh, subscribed. Okay. Subbed. Yeah. Subbed never been so early to a channel that looks so promising. Looking forward to diving into the Gotham lore.

[00:13:29] Alex: uh, I hearted it, I gave it the heart. So it's at the top of the comments of all of the many, many comments. Yeah. , another, another piece of, of positive feedback, but just you wait. So, yeah, that's episode one. How you feeling? Are you feeling good,

[00:13:43] Brian: Oh, all the, all the feedback's been good, but I'm aware of some less positive feedback. So,

[00:13:49] Alex: We'll, we'll, we'll be reading some together. Um, 

episode two, do you remember what episode two was about?

[00:13:55] Brian: what was the title? Road to Batman.

[00:13:57] Alex: The Road to Batman.

[00:13:58] Brian: Okay. So let me remember the first one was, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this, is this the one that talks, that talks about like the history of comic books and, and paper and all that stuff. Yeah.

[00:14:08] Alex: everything that leads up to Batman, but not really including it.

[00:14:11] Brian: Yeah.

[00:14:11] Alex: I, I suspect, uh, hindsight being 2020, that this was not the best way to start out. a, um, a Batman podcast. uh, episode two. We don't really cover Batman at all. but, but it is what it is. That's the episode we did. I did on this episode because there was so much history and so many facts to check. I hired a fact checker.

he, was well paid. went back and, and checked a lot of things for us. And this is what he wrote. He said, quote, I've listened to the episode twice and also read through the AI transcript, which by the way, if you did not know, there is an AI transcript available for every single episode available at bat.

lessons.com. If you wanna search something, find where we talked about it. He continues, which was of great help. I have to say, this is very interesting, particularly little things like the word cliche. You'll be pleased to know that the episode is very accurate throughout to the point where I struggled to find many amendments to make.

I noticed you guys even picked up on the date of California's session. So I felt pretty good about that. Not a lot of things to correct. pat on the back for us. but he did find a few things and we'll, we'll go over that one. I cited Will Eisner as the creator of the shadow. That was me.

Misspeaking, that's not correct. He created the spirit. I also said that he worked in the Platinum Age and he's really more known as a golden age writer. And even beyond, in 1978, he published a book called A Contract With God, which is often regarded as having popular, popularized the term graphic novel.

So, kind of, uh, misattributing some authorship and, and, and timeline. But that's, that's who Will Eisner was, although he was active briefly in, in the Prego age, the platinum age. you want me to keep going or can just rapid fire?

[00:15:47] Brian: Yeah, I hit it.

[00:15:48] Alex: Okay. I said that the printing press was invented between 1450 and 14 50, 55.

That's wrong. It was invented in 1439. when we were talking about broadsheets, I was jumping around, in time a bit. and while I did not mean to imply as such, it could have been construed as I was stating that Martin Luther was alive in the 18th century.

So this was just, confusing way of speaking. It wasn't really getting the fact wrong, but it sounded like maybe I, he, he was alive in the 17 hundreds, which he was not. He lived from 1483 to 1546. Um, so, you know, not a big deal, only off by 200 years. Brian stated that, um, Sean Connery did five movies and reluctantly came back for a sixth, um, which kind of implied that maybe he only did six movies.

Sean Connery would go on to do seven James Bond films.

[00:16:32] Brian: Yes. Because of, never Say Never.

[00:16:35] Alex: there you 

[00:16:35] Brian: Yeah. That, that

[00:16:36] Alex: say never or never. They never again. How does that go?

[00:16:39] Brian: I think it's called Never Say Never. I mean, I can double, double check.

[00:16:42] Alex: No, you're right.

[00:16:44] Brian: Okay. But, uh, so that's the one. So Eon Productions does all the James Bond films. I don't know why I'm so well versed in James Bond, but I know a lot of random stuff about James Bond.

yeah, he, he did those several movies and then he was off for a movie because of George Lazenby. He came back for one more movie and he said he'd never played Bond again. And, and that's all of all Bond films except for the one I'm about to talk about. Um, and like modern history come from Eon Productions, it's Albert Broccoli and, and all of his, buddies.

I, I don't remember exactly the details, but the rights to a new movie that, or maybe it's the rights to, Rice to Thunderball. I'm pretty sure that's right. Oh man. We're gonna do a corrections episode about the corrections episode.

Um, but I think the Rice to Thunderball were open for a minute, and a different production company bought the rice to those, and they were gonna come out with a James Bond movie at the same time that Eon Productions was coming out with their James Bond films. And so Roger Moore was the Eon production, James Bond.

And they, and this other company managed to hire none other than Sean Connery as the James Bond for their film. And so there was lots of ads around, or was not ads, but was a lot of news about this, saying like, oh, bond is trying to kill bond. And, and that's why they called it Never say Never is because it was all part of this like big marketing, buildup to say, like he said, he'd never be Bond.

Well, never say never. We got him and,

[00:18:15] Alex: say never again. I'm so sorry. I'm, I'm going back on my correction. I'm correcting my correction. I, there's a Justin Bieber song called Never Say Never, uh, that, that screwed up my goo Google food. The Bond movie is called Never Say Never Again. Sorry. Continue.

[00:18:29] Brian: That, that was the end.

[00:18:30] Alex: Okay, . one last correction for this episode.

We had said that one of the reasons comic books occur is because color printers are looking to keep the presses running even when they have no newspapers to print. which is true. we also said that most of the week the printer was idle because the newspaper needed to be done the night before.

And this part is not true. Sunday Color Comics started out as a supplement, right? So they don't actually need to be printed, right before they could be printed early, um, because they're not timely. So, you could print the Sunday Color Comics on Monday, doesn't matter because it was a supplement. The only thing in it that was color was the comics and everything else was black and white.

So, minor correction. 

[00:19:11] Brian: Can we go back to James Bond?

[00:19:13] Alex: yes, of course.

[00:19:14] Brian: Okay. So I am very confident that what I said in the initial episode just has to be wrong. I thought that Sean Connery did four movies, George Leisen be, and then Sean Connery did a fifth and then later came back to do that sixth with Never Say Never Again. Um, but no, he did five before.

George Lazenby did a movie and then he came back for his sixth and then he said he'd never come back. And then later came back. It was like 10 years later, I think 10, to do his seventh Bond film. So I'm very confident that what I said originally was wrong, cuz I didn't know it was five in the original run.

[00:19:50] Alex: Gotcha. Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm glad the fact checker called that out because I, I never would've, never would've brought it up. and, and that's an interesting bit. There's, there's a link to a YouTube short in there. Brian, do you want to, do you wanna play it? 

[00:20:02] Brian: Uh, I can attempt to, it's probably gonna kill my headphones.

[00:20:06] Alex: So, in this YouTube short, I am, talking about how I want Brian to go watch Batman and Bill. I'm trying to convince our listeners to go watch Batman and Bill, um, talking about how great it is and acknowledging the fact that, this was like a really, fact dense episode that like, maybe it wasn't the most interesting.

And so I, I said that I was mortified that, everyone stopped listening to the podcast, turned it off after five minutes and, and no one's listening. Um, so that's the gist of the, of the YouTube short. I'm being very self effacing. I thought it was a little funny. this got like, you know, thousands of views on, on YouTube and TikTok, and we did get one comment, um, to the, to the short titled No one Listens to our podcast.

And do you wanna read that comment?

[00:20:42] Brian: Sure at cracker 74 55 said true

[00:20:47] Alex: True? No one's listening to our podcast. So true. Thank you Cracker 74 55 for that contribution.

[00:20:57] Brian: That's really funny.

[00:21:06] Alex: In episode three, we don't have any corrections at all. it was the creation of Batman. That was the episode where we talked about three of the inspirations. Shadow Zorro and Bat Whispers. And, I listened back to it. I I did some searching. We don't have a lot of feedback, but, um, the clips on this episode, on both on TikTok and YouTube were very popular. This is the first time we had a few things pop off.

and there's a, a short that I, I cut called Batman thing, slow on his feet, and it got, like 2,600 views on YouTube and, uh, you know, several thousand on, on TikTok as well. And so I have a bunch of comments here. Brian, could you describe the, the TikTok to, to people and then, and then we can read some of the comments.

[00:21:41] Brian: Yeah. So basically you're describing how, um, in that first issue of Batman, um, he's trying to save the. before the, like the big glass beja comes up over the top of him, where a gas is supposed to come out. And basically, the, the title is Batman Thinks Slow on His Feet Cuz it, it seems kind of odd that he would go into the area of peril with the, the victim, plug the gas and then untie the person and then break the glass to get them out.

And that maybe he could have broken the glass on his way in and, and pulled, pulled the guy out and not worried about the gas until a moment later or something. But, uh, 

[00:22:22] Alex: Yes. I'm very indignant

[00:22:23] Brian: sure. And we're just like, we, we were both just kind of like teasing how it was kind of not intuitive. It's not what we would've done for sure.

[00:22:33] Alex: And, and this, garnered lots of comments. We got lots of feedback on it. at Omega von Doom says, it's so stupid when people try to make sense of comics. Like it's the real world.

[00:22:41] Brian: At user dash Y five F D seven W X seven Q. Right. Comes right off the tongue. Yeah. Rolls off the tongue. Said uh, well yeah, if he breaks the glass and is unable to stop the gas from leaking, then it gets everywhere by getting in and stopping the gas getting out, he assure. only him and Rogers will die if he can't stop it.

So it's actually smart.

[00:23:10] Alex: And then at New Kid, 1987 said, since Batman doesn't know how fast the flow of gas is, if he hadn't covered the nozzle, it could have just blasted the guy in the face and engulfed him in gas since he couldn't move. So dealing with the unknown but easily dealt with the threat was the smartest option with minimal risk.

That one got four likes.

[00:23:27] Brian: Nice. At Q W E 63 48. Such good names said, I like the washed out blue Better than the purple gloves.

[00:23:39] Alex: I love that one. It's just totally

[00:23:41] Brian: It's completely

[00:23:42] Alex: to the guy. Guy is looking at the art. Yeah. . And then at Dakota, Vaughn. 37 68 says, think about it though. He breaks it without stopping the gas. It just leaks out into the room. It makes sense, six likes. So, uh, I guess, I guess I can't be too upset that we were taking the comic over really seriously.

And then people decided to in turn take us a little bit too seriously. But, um, that one got a little traction. there's another short, do you wanna watch it and explain it?

[00:24:10] Brian: . . So basically this short is showing how Gardner Fox puts a gun in Batman's hand.

So in in that, that first issue, he, Batman wields a gun at one point, which is really unusual because he is very, very anti-gun in the world we live in today. Uh, and he

doesn't kill 

[00:24:30] Alex: And this one really popped off as well. And it has 3000 views on YouTube and has like another 2000 on TikTok. So very popular with the people Batman holding a gun. I was a little surprised by that. Guess I shouldn't be, um, America, uh, and . and then we did get a comment from someone. Uh, do you wanna read

[00:24:49] Brian: This name is still really hard. It's, uh, at Kimchi Fry, I think 90 69, random. But you should collab with Dr. DC podcast if you love bat.

[00:25:01] Alex: We had a few of these sorts of things, um, where people suggested people that we should, we should do some sort of collaboration with in the future. I think we're open to that sort of thing. I did check out the Dr. DC podcast. Um, the thing is that it's a little weird, right? You don't want to invite yourself onto someone else's show.

And the format of our show isn't necessarily one that's super amenable to a, a guest that also just happens to be like a Batman nerd because either, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna come on and we're gonna like, preach at them about Batman facts, or we're gonna ask them to do like episode prep, to pre chat us about Batman facts.

So, uh, we're not the most like shoot the breeze kind of podcast, so it's not as easy for us to invite people on, but we're definitely keeping it open in the future.

on one of our very first tos, there was some comments. it was, it was, uh, a segment where we were describing the stage show, you know, Batman World tour and someone was like, um, hey at Comic Sal you should do this thing, which is, he's the host of, a YouTube channel that I really like called Comic Pop.

And I was like, holy crap. Like I would love to do a collaboration with them, but then, you know, it's a little weird. Like, we're really tiny, you know, and they're really big and is that sort of thing actually gonna make sense? We did, we did have made a couple contacts. There's another podcaster who does a show called The Captioned Life that, um, we interacted a little bit on, on TikTok, liking each other's, um, shorts. And, you know, he reached out to say that he listens to the show, so, and I was like, oh, yeah, if it ever makes sense, maybe, maybe we'll do a collaboration or something in the future.

So there, there's potential for that sort of thing in the, in, in the future, but, um, you know, right now, not so much. all, all of the listeners go ahead and, and at your favorite podcast, , tell them to, to bring us on, uh,

[00:26:34] Brian: I mean, it's really, really cool that he's a listener.

[00:26:37] Alex: Oh, the Caption Life guy.

[00:26:38] Brian: light guy. Yeah.

[00:26:39] Alex: Yeah. It is cool to, to have another podcaster that's interested in our show. Not only is he a listener, he let me, I mean, I, I don't know if he would want me to read his message on the show. I probably shouldn't, but he was very complimentary, so,

[00:26:49] Brian: That's really nice.

[00:26:51] Alex: yeah, it is really nice. 

, real quick, before we we're done, I want to, we have to talk about this, TikTok because it has a bajillion comments and, it's just like a 62nd super cut I did to like, Go over the sort of like inception story and how like all of the things that you think of Batman came from Bill Finger and this, for whatever reason, popped off like it has 16,000 views on TikTok. And I didn't pay for an ad on this one. Um, it has 1,765 likes, and it's got 52 comments.

People really, really appreciated this TikTok yeah, I guess we should read, read some of them. Um, see what people have to say.

[00:27:25] Brian: Uh, so we've got afterlife underscored doctor here saying thank you in all caps for helping to teach others about Bill Finger and what he did.

[00:27:35] Alex: We've got Armen. They broke the mold. Uh, one says Rip bill Finger. The real creator of Batman

[00:27:40] Brian: The guy Sean 7 77 Bill Finger and Jack kirby.dot.dot. The true unsung heroes of superhero comics.

[00:27:49] Alex: Loaf Boy says he was the reason Batman is Batman. He made Gotham in a lot of the villains. I think . I appreciated that.

[00:27:56] Brian: PA Smith, PA Past h Smith's, PA, PA Smith, whatever. I always thought Bob Kane was egocentric and never acknowledged fingers contributions a great character. 

[00:28:07] Alex: Brock Thor says, thank you for this.

[00:28:09] Brian: Nick, be Santi, I guess. Said if y'all haven't yet, check out Batman and Bill on Hulu. It's all about this very interesting and sort of a sad story. It has a happy ending though. Thumbs up.

[00:28:25] Alex: and I replied to this one. I said, uh, we talk about it on the show. Our next episode we have Mark Taylor Nobleman as a guest. He's the children's author from the documentary. he did reply to this and said he would listen. So if you're listening, Nick, be Santi. Welcome to, uh, bat Lessons

[00:28:37] Brian: Yeah. Heck yeah. Urban Legend vo.

[00:28:40] Alex: vo. 

[00:28:41] Brian: Yeah. Instant follow. Hashtag preach, hashtag concise, hashtag factual

[00:28:47] Alex: got the comic connoisseur. He says, just realized OG Batman is post infinite crisis. Tim Drake pretty much, I think he's talking about the costume. I don't know.

[00:28:55] Brian: that's hilarious. I love it. We've got, a couple here. We've got Duck the Bear saying Love you Bill and Hillbilly comics saying Bill finger clapping hands and crown emoji.

[00:29:05] Alex: Team King Craw tight. Templeton did a great one page comic of what Batman would've been like without Bill Fier. Look it up. I do recommend looking up the Thai Templeton comic about this, turn of events. Tight Templeton, by the way, also was the artist for the Mark Tyler Nobleman children's book.

Um, so there's kind of a, a connection there.

[00:29:24] Brian: Elric 1138 says so glad you're getting the word out on Bellfinger

[00:29:29] Alex: ivy's Thoughts says W Video plus new follower 

[00:29:33] Brian: I don't, I don't, I don't understand it. I skipped it cause I don't understand it. 

[00:29:37] Alex: Oh, that's, That's what the, the, the cool the kids are saying these days. hello fellow children. W means win and l means loss. So if 

[00:29:45] Brian: Oh, 

[00:29:45] Alex: if you're in the Twitch chat and you, you put W's in the chat, you think it's a, you think it's a w like a noun. You w it's a w

[00:29:52] Brian: Got it. Got it, got

[00:29:53] Alex: It's good. He says that our video is good 

[00:29:56] Brian: Thanks man. 

Thanks. I feel kind of like an L for not knowing that Radio Gaga 4 45 says, seeing his name at the credits of the Batman was one of the highlights in my life. I'll never forget.

[00:30:13] Alex: It's pretty cool. I definitely noticed it when I would not have before had I not done the research.

[00:30:18] Brian: Yeah, me too.

[00:30:19] Alex: V S P J says Batman is the best superhero ever created. that one got 71 likes at 20 replies in and of itself.

[00:30:26] Brian: Wow.

[00:30:27] Alex: I think that's it. I think that's all the ones I wanted to read, but 

[00:30:29] Brian: All right, cool. 

[00:30:30] Alex: Okay, moving on.

Another episode for which we have no corrections was episode four, and this was the time we had our guest, Mark Tyler Nobleman. uh, this is one that listening back to you, I have been reflecting on. I'm really proud of this episode. Um, one of the things that I, I had said when I emailed him was that I was gonna do my best to give a unique interview.

I was gonna try not to ask things that people had asked before. Um, and I think we succeeded at that. I think it, it

[00:30:54] Brian: He said it.

[00:30:55] Alex: had some really good content. He did say, yeah, yeah, yeah,

[00:30:58] Brian: Yeah. I mean that, that's the moment where I felt really proud is when he was like, man, you guys are really making it worth being here.

[00:31:05] Alex: Yeah. No, it, it was validating on multiple levels, age, just to get the interview b for him to be so positive about it. And then c for like me to listen back and, and feel proud of it as well, because I don't always, right, like you had said at the top of the episode, you're your harsh cri critic. So, um, to, to listen to it and feel feel good is, is really nice.

But, this is one that I didn't do as much short form content for every episode. I try to cut up like 10 to 15, um, YouTube shorts and tos, which are just like, you know, 62nd versions of the show to do promotion as, as sort of free advertisement. this one, he did have sort of like more long-winded, um, answers to questions and things like that, and I didn't feel super comfortable chopping it up and I didn't want anything to be out of context.

So I only did a couple. but I did do long form clips of the show and there is one that, um, got a, a, a few views and, and has a comment. Um, And it was a segment where, about about 10 minutes of Mark Tyler Nobleman, specifically talking about Bob Kane and, and his, um, sort of, trustability as a source.

his, his views on, on Bob Kane, which is something that I really wanted to sort of push on. and we did get one comment if you, wanna read it. Brian

[00:32:07] Brian: at Zhan. Buari 22 said a lot of respect for Mark. Totally agree. Zhan. Totally agree.

[00:32:16] Alex: Moving on to episode number five. This episode was entitled Battering because it was the first appearance of the battering and the first appearance of the bat plane. if you recall, we spent a little bit of time talking about Gardner Fox. We spent a little bit of time talking about Shelly Moola and reread two Gardner Fox issues of Batman.

and in the episode, Brian, you asked who was first, uh, as being super fast Superman or the Flash, and I told you I didn't really know. Do you remember that conversation?

[00:32:42] Brian: I do.

[00:32:43] Alex: Well, I have an answer for you,

[00:32:45] Brian: Okay. Me

[00:32:46] Alex: Okay. So Superman was definitely fast first. he was described as faster than a speeding locomotive throughout the golden age, very, very early on, um, but only faster than a speeding locomotive. So he was pop topping out at like 60 miles an hour for the entire golden age. So not until like the fifties, sixties, does he get any faster than that.

flash was described as much faster from the get-go quote faster than the streak of lightning in the sky swifter than the speed of light itself fleeter than the rapidity of thought is the flash reincarnation of the winged mercury. His speed is the dismay of scientists, the joy of the oppressed and the open mouth wonder of the multitudes.

So,

[00:33:27] Brian: Do you remember what else I said when I pondered that?

[00:33:30] Alex: you were trying to, you were trying to figure out how special the creation of the Flash was. Like you were saying, like trying to figure out Gardner Fox as a creator, what was his bonna fi days? Right. If um, he creates the flash hole cloth, then that's particularly impressive, but if he's just kind of riffing on Superman, maybe less so

[00:33:49] Brian: yeah, that's what I remember as well.

[00:33:53] Alex: do you still feel that 

[00:33:55] Brian: that way? Uh, it kind of, I mean, I do less so in the sense that he, he took it from 60 miles an hour to like faster than the speed of light.

[00:34:05] Alex: Sure.

[00:34:06] Brian: Right. But yeah, the idea of like a very fast person, you know, um, he, it, it seems like some somewhat of a riff on that.

[00:34:15] Alex: yeah. I mean, I, I do think it, it is kind of cool that he's not like, extraterrestrial, he's not an alien. He is, um, inspired more by, mythology. He's, you know, a, a play on the Winged Mercury. In fact, the, he, uh, , the golden age flash was kind of silly looking. He didn't really have a superhero suit, as you think of it was kind of just like blue pants, red shirt.

And then he had this like golden helmet thing that was kind of like a, you know, bowl on his head that had these wings coming off of it. Kind

[00:34:41] Brian: Oh yes. I forgot about this flash. Yes. 

[00:34:44] Alex: His name the, the golden Age flash name is Jay Gehrig. flash that you think of today that has the sort of the red jumpsuit with the yellow, um, sort of, uh, acc crema, uh, and sort of highlights, is either Barry Allen or Wally West.

Um, doesn't show up until the Silver Age. Yeah.

[00:35:00] Brian: It's very interesting. cuz yeah, it's like a total riff on Mercury. He's got the wings on his boots. He's got the wings on his, his, I don't know, it's like a silver, 

[00:35:10] Alex: It's like a World War, world War I helmet. It's like, it's it's a helmet, but not the way you would think of. 

[00:35:15] Brian: Yeah.

It's pretty cool.

[00:35:17] Alex: Yeah. Um, so I, you know, I think there's quite a bit of originality there. Maybe someday, we'll, we'll read a flash comic. who knows? Uh, we probably won't. It's, it's a, a year and we're on like issue 20 of detective comics. So , we'll see if we ever get to, to other topics. We also mentioned, that there was the, filler page that Shelly Muldoff drew for action comics.

Number one. It was this big splash of Lou Garrick and had a bunch of facts about him and we said that we didn't know what team he played for. it was the New York Yankees. So clarification from that episode. I also said in that episode that post-crisis era was from 19 90, 89 to 2012, which is incorrect.

Crisis on infinite Earths occurs in 1985. So 1985 to 2012 off by a little bit. there's YouTube short, do you want to describe it to people?

[00:36:02] Brian: Sure. So what you're saying is that, Shelly Muldoff, originally was famous for, um, drawing. Covers. So drew the cover for the Flash and, and some other stuff. And then later in, uh, their career, they were the primary artist for Batman inside the comics as well.

Um,

[00:36:21] Alex: Yeah. So it's just a random factoid about Shelly Muldoff.

[00:36:24] Brian: Yeah. Good factoid. then we've got a comment. It's Mozart, but cool on YouTube. Said, thank you teacher. welcome. Mozart, but cool.

[00:36:32] Alex: You are welcome. Uh, Pata one. 

episode six was the Halloween episode. that was the episode where we talked about Dracula and then we read, um, the first appearance of the Scarecrow. This is, one of my favorite episodes. And Brian, you were telling me about, some feedback you had gotten from a friend about this episode.

[00:36:47] Brian: Uh, actually my sister, um,

[00:36:49] Alex: Oh, okay. 

[00:36:49] Brian: one of the, not the only person, but one of the people who, um, said, basically asking, are we gonna do the firsts of all the different, villains, because she really enjoyed the show and, and wants to hear more about that. I had some other friends who shared that sentiment, but I heard it first from her.

[00:37:04] Alex: Yeah, I heard this as well. This was a favorite episode from people who are doing, doing the audio. I think in terms of like traction for like video clips and things like that, there were other episodes that, that had more engagement, more downloads, things like that. But from, from actual living, bre breathing humans, this is one that people really like.

So I think it's definitely something we'll revisit in the future. just covering, you know, firsts for different characters so we can see how they've changed over time. so I have a few corrections. there's one in here that I absolutely, fell down the rabbit hole on. I went way, way, way too deep, and I apologize in advance.

do you remember Brian, the, the stupid plan that Scarecrow had where he leaves the, the note for Batman at the post office?

[00:37:43] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So, there's layers of stupidity, if I remember correctly. So, the scarecrow decided he was going to leave a message for Batman in the newspaper, um, in, in like the personal section or something that he apparently believed that only Batman would read. And the, and what it said was, go to the post office and ask for a letter for you, Batman.

And, and so then Batman goes to the post office and well actually Bruce Wayne goes to the post office, I think, and asks for a letter that had been left for him. . and so the second thing is like, wouldn't any random person be like rushing to their post office to see what that secret letter was?

Wouldn't the person who, who actually pulled that and put it in the newspaper, like the, the person who works at the newspaper go do that so they can scoop the news story? Wouldn't the person at the post office who received a letter that says, for the Batman be really freaking curious and open it up.

and then also wouldn't the person at the post office know who Batman was Once Bruce Wayne showed up and asked for a letter for Batman?

So tho those are the things off the top of my mind that make this silly,

[00:38:56] Alex: right. And the thing that really got me hung up in addition to all of this is like, can, can you just leave a letter for someone at the post office?

[00:39:01] Brian: right.

[00:39:02] Alex: It turns out, yeah, the answer is yes. , this is not so crazy. there is something that the U S P has to this day called general delivery. big shout out to, a good friend of mine called Timo, who pointed this out to me.

He was like, aren't you just talking about general de delivery, Alex, like, as like this totally obvious thing that I should totally know. Yeah. . And I'm like, Haba the gist is that, when you're addressing a letter or a package, you can put your name, a city and a state, a zip, everything that you normally would, but omitting the street line, right?

And instead put the, in all caps, the text, general delivery, and then the post office that receives this letter, holds that item for you until you show. To pick it up. today, you would need identification to, to get that. The idea is that you don't have a home if you're between homes or at this time of the comic.

What's particularly important is if you don't have a home that is serviced by a carrier for delivery, you can still get mail. Okay? So general delivery is a thing that, that exists. For example, people who do the, like the tiny house thing or like the, the like van life thing or like they're living in an rv, right?

They're very likely to take advantage of general delivery. It's a thing you can do. I'm told that you should call your post office that is going to receive the item for you to make sure that it's okay before you do it. But there's a website here, uh, the U S B S has. I'll leave in the show notes about general delivery.

my sister also, um, avid listener of the show, likes to send me corrections. Sent me a note about this, about the way mail used to work. That, that, that sort of lucid dates. Why is this a thing that they provide? Back in the day in England and in the colonies, there were these stage coaches. They were called post chases, I don't even know how to pronounce it.

that would carry mail along given routes, uh, for long distance communication, and the mail would be drop dropped off at designated spots along the route called posts. The posts were usually ins or pubs, and they're so named because they're often places where the government would place notices for the public to see on literal wooden posts.

So, like, you know, you go, you see the wat sign? It's on a post, right? Call it a post. So the, the places are called posts because they would post things in front of them, but they're ins or the pubs. And then the locals, it would just be up to them to distribute the mail however they saw fit. And usually what that meant is that people are physically coming to that place to pick up the items.

They go to the post, they get their mail because there are no mailmen. Right. and even after, the US Postal Services started by Benjamin Franklin, if you lived in the country, y you know, there, there was no delivery. You would have a servant go pick it up, or maybe you would go into the, to, to the market on a particular day of the week.

you'd go and pick up your mail. So not until the advent of what they called rural free delivery was everyone guaranteed that that mail would be delivered to your address. And that didn't happen until 1902. So the people writing this comic book, remember a time when there are many people living in this country who don't have mail delivered to them at all.

And the only way to get mail was for you to physically go to the post office to pick it up. so that is a relatively new thing at the writing time of the writing of this comic. very fascinating subject. I fell down the rabbit hole on it to the point of like, I was online asking strangers to

[00:42:07] Brian: fascinating.

[00:42:07] Alex: I don't know how much to tell this story. I was trying to figure out like when PO Box boxes were invented, cuz I was like, oh, maybe he's got a PO box, right? Like I was asking just the dumbest questions. did tons of research for no good reason. This was actually happening on Thanksgiving by the way.

Like while we were hanging out I was

[00:42:20] Brian: Oh, really? This is the thing you were looking at. That's hilarious. Yeah,

[00:42:24] Alex: I was like, I asked people to signal boost me. I got like, you know, 50 boosts and like had random college professors like replying to me about like how this worked. 

[00:42:33] Brian: amazing. 

[00:42:34] Alex: yes, it was, it was, hallmark. Alex, I will leave a bunch of links in the show notes if you're interested in reading up on rural free delivery, on post chases, on general delivery.

[00:42:44] Brian: I'm totally blown away by this, by the way, because, because like what

you're saying is, oh yeah, I've never heard this before. General delivery is crazy. But like the idea that a post office is, is like the office outside of like the town post where they like just like nailed shit to a post. Like there's an office for that.

fuck

the fuck world. That's so crazy.

[00:43:08] Alex: Yeah. And you had to go to it to get mail.

[00:43:11] Brian: yeah, and I'm, I'm like greeting the name, history and, and like the post office, Wikipedia or whatever, but it's like, yeah, there were post towns between major cities and they had stables and inns and, and there the term. Was all, there was a post house and, and it's like, and now it's starting to like really connect in this idea that like, towns don't exist today unless they have a post office.

And it's because of like this special post thing, this freaking piece of wood. so crazy. But yeah, I mean they have to congregate around something that's just, that is the fact of the podcast right there.

[00:43:52] Alex: I'm glad I could provide you this. Um, hallmark, uh, bat lessons tidbit. Um, uh, very interesting history, having nothing to do with Batman bat

[00:44:00] Brian: Nothing at all. Yeah. That's great.

I love how both of our sisters give us feedback on the show. They're both listeners. They both also, I will say that like my sister has texted me a couple of times and I doubt, I doubt they're in here because they were just like little things I couldn't remember at the time. Like in, this is at one point I reference, I think in the Halloween episode, I reference, gargoyles and it's David against Goliath and it's David and I can't remember his name right now. xto, that's what, it's David xto. my sister, as she's listening to the show, just text me xto. And I was like, what is this about? And she's like, oh, I'm listening to that episode.

That's the name you couldn't remember. I was like, oh yeah, David xto.

[00:44:45] Alex: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, here's another tidbit. Maybe hopefully you find this one as interesting cuz this is one I also found interesting. Spent less time researching also. the research was triggered by my sister sending me a text message. in the Halloween episode, we described the way that a pane of glass was.

Kind of with crosshatching, kind of had like a grid pattern on it diagonally. And we said that maybe it looked like the glass that you'd see in certain windows with metal lines in it. but we didn't really know what it was called or what the purpose was. this type of glass is called old wire mesh glass, and it was invented in the US in 1892 by a man named Frank Shaman.

It's not to be confused with tempered glass, which was invented in France in 1903 by a person named Ed Edward Benedictus. as you may know, tempered glass is stronger than other glasses and is designed to shatter dull instead of sharp for human safety. So like, if you ever see like a window that shatters and it's a bunch of little kind of like round thingies that aren't particularly sharp, that's tempered glass.

Normal glass when it shatters is very, very long. Breaks, sort of cracks like a chip, you know, and it's very sharp, very dangerous for humans. wire mesh glass is different. you might think by looking at it that it's stronger than typical glass because it kind of looks like, you know, rebar, wood and concrete.

Like it, like it's a strengthening member inside the glass, but it's actually weaker because it messes up the internal structure of the glass breaking up the sort of like tinsel, you know, rigidity. and it's more prone to being sharp. So it, so it is dangerous for people to be around. But wire mesh glass is for fire safety.

The glass will get much, much hot, hotter before shatter. And when it does, the glass will stay in the pane, which makes it easier, uh, or makes it a better firebreak. So it shatters but stays vertical right inside the pane.

however, as you can imagine, material science has gotten much, much better since 1892.

There are better materials for firebreaks than wire mesh glass at this time, including transparent ones. Um, so as of 2006, it's actually essentially banned in the US building code. So you won't find wire mesh glass in new buildings anymore.

[00:46:39] Brian: That's super interesting. building code A as a homeowner who's had to deal with like building code, especially building code in California, it's always really interesting to hear about building code and like why it changed and where it comes from and stuff like that.

[00:46:53] Alex: I remember, um, growing up, uh, all, every classroom at every school that I had had these big wooden doors that had these quite small vertical, glass windows so that you could see into the classroom from the outside and vice versa. And they were always made of wire mesh glass. So it's kind of wild to think that as of 2006, like right as I was exiting high school, this became illegal.

And so like kids in the future won't even know what was a thing. Kind of a flash in the pan about a 

[00:47:16] Brian: Yeah. 

[00:47:17] Alex: Okay. There's a couple clips, um, from this episode if you wanna talk about 'em.

[00:47:21] Brian: So, um, in this issue that we were reading, it's the issue that is teaching us how to read comics. It's got numbers in the pains and it's got arrows pointing to the order that you need to read it in, which now is, is like a standard part of comic books.

but at the time it was, it was very new. So that, that's essentially what this short, uh, YouTube video is about. at Joshua Satter White, 95 20. they said, man, this shit pisses me off whenever I see it. End up rereading the page like three times.

Skull emoji.

[00:47:54] Alex: I thought that one was particularly, particularly good. I feel your pain. Joshua Water White. This next one actually is a short, I think.

[00:48:03] Brian: So this short is basically Alex describing how in the 1940s, new New York World's Fair, they had a Superman day where kids dressed up and they had their little s s on their shirt and they would do relay racing and stuff to, to show that they're physically fit, um, American little kids or whatever.

And the, and, and I make a comment of like, the children in admission is 10 cents. cuz like this crazy cheap and this, uh, person commented on the video, it's at silent g. 2064 and what is that, like, the date of their death or something. But,

uh, 

[00:48:42] Alex: Yeah. I dunno.

[00:48:43] Brian: said, uh, hope I see more of your videos on my shorts.

This was really interesting also. 10 cents Children Admission. 10 cents Bros. Got P T S D. is it like the raffle emoji? It's like the, the crying, laughing emoji. Yeah,

[00:48:59] Alex: yeah,

[00:49:00] Brian: for sure. Whenever I see like super, super cheap stuff, I'm like, my God, how, how much the times have changed. And like, even in my lifetime, I think about, like, I remember when gas was really cheap.

Certainly un like a dollar 30 if not less,

but yeah.

[00:49:18] Alex: Some of that is also geography, like where you live. Have you just moved back to the Midwest from California? Gas is like super cheap out here. It's kind of wild,

[00:49:25] Brian: Wow. I just looked it up online. It was crazy cheap in the nineties, like sometimes under a dollar.

[00:49:33] Alex: Yeah.

[00:49:34] Brian: Wow.

[00:49:35] Alex: Episode seven and 

[00:49:37] Brian: eight.

the bat. Um,

[00:49:39] Alex: This was our discussion of, the Matt Res, Robert Patson Batman movie. This was another favorite of mine to go back and listen to.

[00:49:45] Brian: me 

too. I rewatched the movie after I

listened to this, after I re-listed to this. Yeah. It's

a killer 

[00:49:52] Alex: I, I need to, I did acquire the movie. I bought the movie on Blu-ray, so that I could, rip it and edit in clips into, into shorts and, and clips and stuff.

But, have not yet watched it, nor nor edited the edited the clips. So we're a couple months behind on, on YouTube clips and stuff, but I'm looking forward to watching it again. so a few clarifications more so than corrections. Um, although some corrections as well. One is, Brian brought up the, so actually I brought up there, there was a moment where there was a sound effect that kind of turned into music, and then Brian brought up the fact that there was music that, um, was happening both in the movie, and was the soundtrack to the movie.

And then he says you would know the name of, of what that's called. And I was like, I would know what the name of that's called, but I couldn't remember it in the moment. That's called Giant Detic Music. and the definition is Detic music. it's music that's part of the fictional setting is also heard by the characters, so, point of clarification. Brian brought up a factoid in the episode that, uh, Robert Patson had Adlibbed the Line, I Am Vengeance In the Movie Turns. I did lots of research on this because I, my mind was so blown. Yeah. Turns out 

[00:50:56] Brian: was, my mind was blown when I read it.

[00:50:58] Alex: Yeah. Turns out it's not true. he did ad lib the choreography.

There's a part in the scene where he, brings a man to the ground and then continues to punch him on the ground. There's two extra punches that was suggested by Robert Pattinson. However, he did not ad lib the line. I Am Vengeance, which hindsight being 2020 makes sense. The working title for the script was vengeance.

So, um, that line does exist. Yeah.

[00:51:21] Brian: so I, I can, I can send you, I'll, I'll just go ahead and send you this, it's a, it's a reading confusion thing,

what it says is the last two punches in the train station scene where the victim is already unconscious when Batman says, I'm vengeance, where Robert Pattinson's idea and he improvised.

So I guess what it's saying here is the punches were improvised. Not that whole sentence.

[00:51:42] Alex: That's correct.

[00:51:43] Brian: Yeah. Okay.

[00:51:44] Alex: No worries. I mean, it's still interesting that he was, an important part of like creating that scene because I do think it's visually interesting as well beyond just 

[00:51:51] Brian: Oh, sure. 

[00:51:52] Alex: nature of it. I also think it's really interesting that this, what you've sent me is, is a trivia page that has this fact on it.

I did not find this page. I actually found the interview where he was explaining the ad lib, which actually took me a while. I wish I had gone back and found the trivia, to reread it to, to find that it wasn't the line, but the punches. But, cuz I, I was just, I was like, there's no way. I was really, really blown away and I, I wanted to find a, a a, a sort of primary source and, and

[00:52:17] Brian: Yeah, well you, you did the right thing. I will say cuz, cuz like, I know how you feel about citations and like a lot of the trivia in IMDB is like user generated. So there, there aren't

citations. 

[00:52:28] Alex: And I don't have anything wrong with like, going and finding something that doesn't necessarily have a citation and like going like, huh, that's cool. But like being someone who's like a podcast host and like repeating things to people, then I just like think there's a slightly higher bar of me to like, just go and double check.

Um, and that's just how my brain works. Like I'm, I'm broken in, in so far as like, I, I want to find the primary source that's just like,

[00:52:48] Brian: Yeah. I I, I think in the future if I were to do this again, it would be more of a CYA to be like, I saw this thing on IMDBs trivia that looked really interesting to me.

[00:52:59] Alex: One thing I wanna call out, I was doing a, uh, one of the things I did before the episode was after I took notes on how I felt about the movie, I did take in a lot of media that other people were talking about the movie. And I tried very hard on the episode to when I brought something that someone else had said, to cite that source.

So like, I brought up the, the, the sort of idea of, author intent is what I had said. I, I had sort of said, what is Batman trying to say? And is that what people are taking from it? I did cite in the episode that Patrick Williams was kind of the person that introduced me to that concept.

I had also brought up that like, on Fatman, on Batman, the, the Kevin Smith podcast and Mark Barnard that they had talked about how, you know, if, the Christopher Nolan Batman movies had made, Batman reel that, you know, the, Matt Reeves Batman movie had made Gotham reel. And so I was like trying to call out those things.

There is one thing listening back that I realized that I had lifted without siding a source, um, from another commentator. Um, and I, I don't want to plagiarize and I wanna give props the way it's due. So I pointed out that, in the opening scene of the movie, Ridler kind of steps outta the shadow.

He doesn't have a catch light on his face. If you, if you're not familiar with cinematography, the idea of a catch light is that everyone in movies usually has a, a light or a reflector for a light pointed directly at their face. This is weird. This is not how people look a normal life, but it is something you expect in a movie.

And so when someone doesn't have a catch light, it's very unsettling. It looks weird. It feels weird. It's a horror movie trope that Matt Reeves is using to sort of like be unsettling with, with the ridler in, in his introduction to, to people. I called it out, but I was not the first person to notice this.

This was, something that was pointed out by Tiffany on comic pop in, in their episode about the Batman. And so I just wanted to call that out, it was a, a piece of information that another commentator had brought up that I did not cite on this episode. So, editorial note.

[00:54:47] Brian: one, one thing to go back the I'm vengeance, the, the extra two punches. Really curious what that stunt person thought when they were receiving those punches.

[00:54:57] Alex: I, I assume when they say ad lib, they mean that he suggested they do it, in while they're doing the scene. Not that he just decided to punch the dude , but I don't know, maybe he just punched the dude.

Uh, 

[00:55:12] Brian: Maybe it just felt right

and 

[00:55:14] Alex: great. 

[00:55:14] Brian: yeah.

[00:55:15] Alex: our first letter of the episode, this is, a letter from a listener that neither of us know. Uh, we've been talking about feedback we've gotten from like, good friends or, our, our siblings, things like that. Um, we have been talking about a lot of strangers from YouTube comments, but this is the first letter from someone that we don't know.

Brian, do you 

wanna read this letter 

[00:55:30] Brian: Hi Brian and Alex. My name is Ben, a listener from New Zealand, which is really cool that we're international. my first Batman, yeah, my first, Batman memory is pretty straightforward. Batman, the Animate series on the weekend mornings. Still the defining Batman for me and Mark Hamel is the epitome of the Joker not Heath Ledger.

Sorry. That said, I was listening to the two-parter on the Batman and accidentally started taking notes that I thought I would share with you up front. I am firmly on Brian's side that this is the best Batman movie ever. Thank you. I absolutely agree with you, Ben. I thought Nolan's films were good action movies, but not very good Batman movies.

Before The Batman, I always said that Batman 1989 was my favorite. Here are my notes In no particular order about some things I wanted to say about the Batman. As a side note, you guys didn't mention Lego Batman, which is genuinely a really good Batman film

[00:56:31] Alex: I I am very upset that we didn't do this, cuz he is absolutely correct. Lego Batman is a fantastic Batman movie. Um, it's gotta be in the conversation for best Batman.

[00:56:40] Brian: On Dan's performance as the Ridler, I never read it as this being genuinely his true cadence and intonation when he spoke, his performance came across as something that I think is a growing thing on social media to gain a following That is a performative mental illness, huh?

[00:56:58] Alex: Yeah, this is an interesting read. I, I'm open to it. I'm open to this, this interpretation.

[00:57:03] Brian: too. Yeah. I believe that the ridler in the Batman is definitely putting it on, but because his online following buys his bullshit, he buys his own bullshit on the note of his followers. The movie is a commentary on online radicalization. Sure Riddler's motivation may have started as being to do with his forensic accounting and holding people to account, but it became warped by the adoration of his followers. He got power, a very different kind of power to the corrupt leaders, but power nonetheless.

And what do we know about power? It corrupts, of course, he started as a activist and then became a warped version of the very thing he hates so much, driving his followers to commit atrocities that are barely even related to what he believed to start with. It's bloody brilliant. Actually, this is a really, really good point.

[00:58:01] Alex: Yeah. This is, this is a good take. I, I, I, I don't know that I necessarily, agree that it was excellently executed because I didn't come along for the ride. Like, um, but also not spoonfed. I think the idea that, You know, there, there are a lot of examples of YouTubers and audiences, Twitch streamers and audiences, you know, political commentators and audiences where there's this, uh, uh, sort of this virtuous feedback loop, right, of like parasocial relationships where people feel like they're close with people that they don't know and people feel like they have to behave a certain way or say certain things or believe certain things because their audience expects it.

Right? There is this, terminally online ness that is, is, uh, very ripped from the headline sort of thing. Very 2022. And, um, I, I buy this interpretation, this makes a lot of sense to me

[00:58:47] Brian: Yeah, I agree.

[00:58:48] Alex: he's, he is this online figure and so much of his, uh, actions are motivated by that. that, that makes sense. I wanna watch the movie again cuz I don't know if the movie really, really sells that enough, but I, I think this, uh, this sort of interpretation makes things click for me in a way that didn't including like that, that that final scene where there at Madison Square Garden and it's, they, 

he's blown up the, the 

[00:59:09] Brian: about that. 

[00:59:10] Alex: Yeah. It makes a little bit more sense with this light sort of shown on it. And I, I, I wanna, I wanna watch a movie again, see if, if, if that, if that plays for me.

[00:59:18] Brian: Um, this is a very astute take from Ben, I have to say.

[00:59:22] Alex: Yeah.

[00:59:24] Brian: Final thoughts. I want to reiterate that I don't see this as a quote realistic movie. it is still a superhero movie. It just lets you into what the hero is feeling in a way that just hasn't been done before. And the genre, when he smashes into the bridge, you feel it when he fails as a detective, you feel it in some ways.

I found the movie gave me very similar feelings to one of my all-time favorite films. Mad Max Fury Road, Alex, what you see as indulgent, the constant shifts and changes in visual tone and feel, they all still knit together. For me, they are discomforting Sure, but in a way that makes me grip my seat. I can see why you might think of it as indulgent, but I would use a different word for it, which sums up how I feel about the film as a whole.

Relentless. Anyway, hope this offered some extra insight into the film from another enthusiast. Thank you both so much for all your work. I'm a lifelong Batman fan. I do find that we tend to be the kind of people who enjoy saying what we don't like about our hero almost as much as we enjoy explaining why he's the best one.

You're a humble bat pupil. Ben.

[01:00:37] Alex: Thank you so much for this thoughtful letter bin. Um, we will probably, yeah, yeah, yeah. we might edit just a, a little bit out for the show just for the sake of time, but, um, I think we'll, we'll have the, the thrust of all of this in the show. and I think, you know, broad strokes, I tend to agree with your feelings that this, was a very, very intentional, um, tone and a very, very intentional approach to the movie.

so I don't necessarily disagree about your, your perspective that it, it's relentless. I think, you know, it's, it's just more that, that's not my speed, right? Like everybody has their own sort of things that, that they're into. Again, I love this movie. It's a great movie, but, you know that that's where I'm coming from.

Did you have any other thoughts on the letter? 

[01:01:14] Brian: uh, not, not a ton other than I, I, more than anything, I love these fresh takes on pointing out things that you and I didn't talk about, because I like to look at this from as many directions as possible, and to. Isn't enough, you know? And, and I would love for more people to write in with their, description of, of how they felt about the, the movie and, and give me some more perspective.

[01:01:38] Alex: totally. And, and I'm not just bull and smoke when I say I have listened to a lot of critics and a lot of commentators, and read a lot of different sort of perspectives on this movie, and Ben is touching on some things I've never heard before, so that's really cool, um, to be able to, to have that extra sort of color. one last thing I wanna touch about on this episode, 

[01:01:55] Brian: we need to explain the matrix joke.

[01:01:57] Alex: We gotta explain the matrix joke. So this episode ended with, me saying that there is media that is better for its sequels or worse for its sequels and how people build, you know, head cannons where they sort of acknowledge or not the existence of certain things. And then Brian says, like, the matrix, we cackle and then the episode ends.

Like, we're laughing. Like, this is the funniest thing ever, and I realize listening back to it, that you guys probably don't understand what that means at all. 

[01:02:24] Brian: I'm sure a lots of people do

[01:02:27] Alex: well, maybe, yeah.

[01:02:29] Brian: inside of a joke as you might think, but yeah,

[01:02:31] Alex: I think the, the fact that we find it so funny is, is the inside joke less though than the, the sort of like framing itself.

But Brian and I have had many a conversation about, various film series. We couldn't help but talk about Star Wars, um, so much during the episode because we're just that big of Star Wars fans.

But, one of the, the films series that I'm particularly interested in is The Matrix, and I'm an incredibly big fan of the First Matrix movie. And, um, for many, many, many years, I, you know, in conversation would pretend to not know about the Matrix sequels, the second and third films. Um, they didn't exist to me because, um, I didn't, I didn't care for them.

I will say, looping back on this where I say that like, you know, a sequel could make the, the previous films better or worse. Like, for example, Batman Begins is kind of like a C movie on its own, but I think it's easily brought up to a BB plus by its sequels because they interweave with each other, they build on each other, and the sequels are so good.

I actually think the fourth Matrix movie is really great. Um, it's a very, very different film, but I actually think it makes the sequels better because it recontextualizes it, it makes fun of it a little bit, it makes fun of fans a little bit. So, my feelings have evolved with time, I, I still don't think they're great movies.

so that, that's the inside joke on, on the Matrix.

[01:03:43] Brian: But you, you accept that they exist now,

[01:03:45] Alex: I think I can acknowledge that they exist. Yes. 

All right, one more episode, episode number nine, the origin.

Brian, this is your episode.

[01:03:52] Brian: yeah, so this is the Origins episode where, it's a, it's a two-parter, maybe three parter depending on how Alex chops it up. But, yeah, this is the first part where I just talk about, um, all the different origin stories of Batman. how it started it with just the parents being murdered and, and Bruce Wayne vowing at his bedside that he's gonna war on vengeance for the rest of time. and then towards the end of the episode, we're talking about these, these long comic book, multiple issues that just talk about all the work that happens between Bruce Wayne as a child and the very first time he puts on the bat suit, studying with the FBI and, um, with different detectives and, and, uh, honing his body to, to be very strong and agile and, working with martial arts and stuff like that.

So that, that's what that episode is about.

[01:04:43] Alex: Yeah. And as we're recording, it hasn't been out for very long. Um, so we haven't had as much time for things to percolate. Listen to it again, find things to correct, have people write in, have our sisters or whoever, um, write us letters. so I don't have as much, but I do have one correction that I wanna bring up.

and it's, we spoke about Thomas Wayne wearing a Batman costume to a ball in the 1950s, and an issue of, of Batman from the 1950s. And I had brought up a modern writer that had called back to that, but I was kind of vague. Couldn't really remember. I had said, maybe it was Jeff Johns and Flashpoint, or maybe it was Tom King and Batman Rebirth.

It was neither the writer who calls back to, this is Grant Morrison and he does it in the Batman r i p storyline. I felt really silly about making this mistake because calling back to the golden Age is Grant Morrison's social shtick. That's what he does.

so. Yeah. this is, this is a Grant Morrison thing, which interesting point. If you've been paying attention to the news as we're recording just a couple days ago, James Gunn has announced the sort of DC movie slate for 2025 and longer. We could probably do a whole podcast episode just about that.

But the, the, the Batman movie that they are going to be doing is, based on the Damien Wayne story, which is also part of, of Grant Morrison's Batman Run and Takes Place just shortly after. he, he does the callback to, Thomas Wayne wearing the Batman and Costume. So, uh, maybe we'll see it on the solar screen.

[01:06:01] Brian: Yeah. The, uh, the Damien Wayne thing, from James Gunn I thought was really interesting because we had just talked about that in that episode together and how it was new for me, the Batman versus the Robin, 

[01:06:14] Alex: Mm-hmm. 

[01:06:15] Brian: And you were like, oh, wow, it's this big thing. It's really cool. You should, you should also check out, the son of Batman.

which I have done since then, and I, I enjoyed it. I'm gonna watch them both again, probably before too long cuz I, I did enjoy them, but I'm sure I miss some stuff. a lot of times when I watch

[01:06:30] Alex: watching them out of order.

[01:06:31] Brian: uh, yeah, I watch the amount of order, but also like, I play games on my phone a lot when I like watch things, so.

[01:06:37] Alex: I, we are not friends anymore.

[01:06:39] Brian: Okay. That's it. Last episode of the podcast folks.

[01:06:46] Alex: Yeah, I, I must admit, I'm not the biggest Grant Morrison fan in general. his, his new X-Men Run is fantastic. Frank Quietly is an amazing artist. and, and they did really great work together. But his Batman Run is not at the top of my list. I do think I need to go back and read it again because it seems like they are going to lean into it for, for the new, DC Universe, film stuff.

also of Note the Superman, uh, movie that they're making, Superman legacy. The artwork that they showed in the announced video was from All Star Superman, which is another Grant Morrison book. So it definitely seems the case that, that James Gunn is, is a Grant Morrison fan, which isn't surprising.

He's a very, prolific writer and a lot of people are big, big fans of, of, of them. So, yeah. Well, I'm sure we'll be getting plenty more of that in, in the years to come. So, um, we did get, another letter. This one is from my good friend Timo, who also, sent me the, uh, correction about, um, general delivery for the post office. and it was about the time that this episode was coming out, so I thought it would, this would be a good time to read the letter. Brian, do you wanna read it? 

[01:07:48] Brian: something I'm wondering, how did continuity or even progressive revelation work on the early comics when you have multiple writers?

Did the first guy have a Batman bible that they shared? Did the subsequent writers just riff on what's been done already and expanded as they saw fit? Seems like there was probably a lot known but not yet disclosed. When the first comic was written, How did the, how did the other guys know what to reveal and when?

[01:08:13] Alex: first. Yeah, thank you Timo, for, for writing in. and I did a little bit of research cuz I wanted to be accurate and, and, and there's a few different ways to answer the question. one is sort of observational, fuckcan you infer by just like reading the comics and like taking in what continuity there was?

And the observational answer I, you know, might be less accurate because it's just an educated guess. that, that observational answer is that they didn't worry much about continuity, , or progressive revelation at all. comics were primarily for children. They were very disposable and not just disposable as in the paper that was printed on, but end up in the waist basket.

but the stories were viewed that way too. Writers often assumed that, that the work that they did would never, ever, ever be reprinted. It was regular practice at the time to destroy original art after a comic went to print. So trade paperbacks or collected editions of comic books didn't really start happening till the fifties.

And in fact, there are many, many, many comics from this era, from the golden age that have never ever been reprinted and collected, collected edition. I'll drop a link in the Shown Oats to, a list of lots of comics from this era that were never re reprinted. Batman, luckily has, but honestly, only recently.

So the, the Batman man Golden Age Omnibus series was recently finished, like in the last few years and we've just now moved on to Silver Age omnibus. So, Yeah. I think the assumption that, that there was a lot known but not yet disclosed, probably wasn't true. they just didn't bother agreeing with each other.

They were making it up as they go, went along. It was really, uh, there was not a lot of reverence for the material, even from the writers. There's a second answer, which is textual, which is like, what can I glean from the research I did? and this is probably more accurate than the observational answer because it, it has a citation, but it is a much shorter answer, because we know very little.

the best source is the book, the Creators, the Batman by Rick Worth. I've cited it before. I, I'm gonna try to get Rick Worth on the show. I've got to, he's great. wrote a really awesome book. and my info here comes from that and we know that, um, at first, Bob Kane is the sole connection between DC and Batman in 1940.

So after two years, bill Finger and Jerry Robinson would start getting works, and jobs with DC directly. Um, but before that, they were only working for Kane and they were working for Kane in his studio. And by studio Studio we mean his bedroom in his Bronx apartment. So Kane Finger Robinson Muldoff, win Morr, Jack Burnley, some other people we haven't talked about.

All these people are coming to Bob Kane's house to do their work. They're all in this tiny little room together. Well, it's the case that Bob Kane wasn't always around. They were often all in the room together. And we know that, that Bob Kane's father was kind of a taskmaster, and he would often check in on people to make sure that things were staying on time. He would pick up finished pages and take them to DC. So, the, the sort of the, the answer that's textual is that they were in the room together and they were talking to each other.

So, um, that's probably how the basics of Batman's origins and early stories are, are agreed upon. but since you ask about a Bible specifically, it is worth noting that there are multiple Batman Bibles. one, was written by NY O'Neal. There is a blog post about the Ny O'Neal Batman bible that I will leave a link to in the show notes. Um, but Brian, if you wanna read the first couple paragraphs, 

[01:11:16] Brian: Sure. I'm just, I'm, I'm reading The Domain, the other Scott Peterson, which is like woof, woof times a thousand. Do you know who Scott Peterson is?

[01:11:26] Alex: I don't.

[01:11:27] Brian: Uh, he murdered his wife, Lacy Peterson

[01:11:30] Alex: Oh, okay. Well, he's the other one. Not that one.

[01:11:33] Brian: Yeah. . Well, I mean, I guess that's contentious. There are some people who think he's innocent, but he's convicted. He's in prison right now. 

[01:11:42] Alex: Okay. There you go. 

[01:11:43] Brian: okay. First couple of paragraphs, the Bat Bible. When I became Dennis O'Neill's assistant editor in 1991, I think I was given many responsibilities, one of which was to send a copy of the Bat Bible out to any creators working for us on Batman For the first time. Oh, it was the first time they were working on Batman. Got it.

[01:12:03] Alex: Yes, that's right.

[01:12:04] Brian: Denny had first written the Bat Bible sometime in the late eighties. It says 1989, which is the year the Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Tim Burton film came out. But it's possible he wrote a draft earlier. it definitely includes the script for the man who falls a fantastically concise and powerful origin story.

Denny in Dick Giordano

[01:12:24] Alex: Giro.

[01:12:25] Brian: Giordano, created for a special trade paperback, secret. Origins collection DC put out shortly after the Batman movie. Took the world by storm, collecting otherwise previously published origins for the likes of Superman, wonder Woman, flash, green Lantern, and the Martian Man, hunter.

[01:12:44] Alex: So yeah, that, that was one of those super interesting, I think, uh, to me, because I touched on things that we talked about in this episode about origins, about the Dene O'Neill story, stories of, uh, shaman and, and the, the bat, the Man Who Falls.

so that is a Bat Bible that was used recently. another one was a Batman bible created for Batman, the Animated series by Bruce Tim Paulini and Mitch Bryan. So, the, the answer to your question is yes, bat Bibles exist, but they don't start until like the eighties . Um, and that's when DC really started taking continuity seriously as a cue from Marvel.

Marvel comes in, continuity becomes a big deal in the sixties. DC decides they need to start doing it too. The eighties, they start taking it seriously. Um, and all of the books start interweaving and connecting. Um, and, and that's when that really takes off. So long answer to a short question, Timmo, I hope, I hope, um, that answers what you were looking for. 

[01:13:30] Brian: when they were doing the original Batman comics, it, I'm, , I'm not po positive about this, but kind of my read on how things were back then is it was kind of like a little startup and, I, I think with the eyes of today, we think about like a, a comic book comes out and, and it is forever, like, it, it, it ends up in museums and, and like, like if you post something on the internet, it can just never go away because there's backups of backups, of backups, you know, um, same thing with like movies and stuff, but if you go back in time, there are like many examples in history of things in music or film or, or literature that there are no living copies of today.

And it's because there were so few and there was no, I don't know what you would call it, like a governing body or, or, or anything that is like trying to take note or keep them for historical, purpose. Like, like for instance, we were talking about, the, uh, Nosferatu and how it had in infringed on copyright and was ordered to have all copies destroyed.

But thankfully that didn't happen and there were some overseas copies that managed to survive.

Um, there. . Yeah. There are some, um, other famous examples from history where, like the original film, versions in the BBC for, Monty Pythons

[01:14:52] Alex: Flying Circus.

[01:14:53] Brian: Flying Circus, was just going to be reused.

They were gonna recycle the film and, and, or maybe it was tape I guess, but they were gonna reuse

[01:15:02] Alex: tape. Yeah. BBC's notorious for that. That's how we lost a lot of the early Dr. Who.

[01:15:06] Brian: There you go. Yeah. And so they, were they someone who worked inside a BBC called, I don't remember who, one of the Monty Python guys and Let 'em know. And like that day he drove into BBC and he like purchased the films and he took them home so that they wouldn't be written over. Uh, and so like I think it's easy to take our 2022 eyes and apply them to like 1931 or whatever the year was.

but, or 37 I think. But that's, um, that's not particularly accurate with just the way that history has boomed and, and changed the industry over time.

[01:15:44] Alex: Yeah, totally. When, when, when I, I describe it as disposable, which we did do on, on some of the early episodes of the show, we described comics as disposable. I'm not being hyperbolic. Like people thought of it as like it was literally, you know, from , written from the pin, drawn from, from the pencil, you know, pH photocopied printed onto the news stand with the intention that it was going to end up in the trash

Right? Like, um, kids were gonna read it, they weren't gonna remember it. They were gonna move on with their lives. These were not seen as significant and they wouldn't be for a long time. Yeah. It's kind of wild. and, and yeah, to your point about Mos Lost Media, I think it's, it's a shame so many things are lost and, and it's, it, it's a really underscore like how lucky we are that certain things have survived.

You brought up Nosferatu. Nosferatu isn't smuggled outta Germany, doesn't make it to America. People in America don't see it, decide that they want to make the Dracula movie, right? The Dracula movie doesn't get made. Bob Kane doesn't go see it in movie theater. Maybe isn't inspired to make a bat themed superhero.

Maybe we don't get Batman, right? Like, there are so many things that were so close to not making it that did, that were so important. So, We are lucky to have all of the early Batman comics. And, uh, to my understanding, we're restored from Prince, right? Because again, original art was destroyed. we're, we're restored from Prince at great cost, right?

So, um, we're lucky that, um, we have companies that, that have decided to take stewardship of these things. I mean, yes, because they can make money off of it, but, but also because it's of a historic importance. So, yeah, the moral of the story is thank you very, uh, much to the internet ar internet archive and, and give a donation because I don't know what I would do without the way back Ma Machine and, uh, archive.org.

[01:17:26] Brian: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:17:28] Alex: one last thing, we'll end the show on it. I desperately tried to get people to write in and tell us about their first Batman memory. It straight up didn't work. Ben, uh, our writer from New Zealand was one person who gave me one. my friend Nick from high school that I know personally, he sent me one, um, we could read it here in a second, but I, I literally, I bought an ad.

I spent like 30 bucks on TikTok of like a video asking people to tell me their, their their, first memory of Batman. Nobody did it. So turns out it's not an interesting thing. People don't wanna do that. we won't ask you again. I'm so sorry.

[01:18:02] Brian: Oh, I think it's fun. I think it's fun to think about the past, you

[01:18:07] Alex: it is fun to think.

[01:18:08] Brian: yeah.

[01:18:09] Alex: I was in love with that. I thought it was great. We, but if you remember we asked Mark Taylor nobleman that question on the podcast as well, and he was like, nah, I don't

[01:18:16] Brian: yeah. He was

[01:18:17] Alex: a actor figure, baby

[01:18:19] Brian: Well, I can, I can understand how he, he in particular is so deeply and like entrenched in Batman that it's hard to remember some of those, like early, not very notable things.

[01:18:31] Alex: totally.

[01:18:32] Brian: that like thi this would be a good thing to like do one of those like YouTubers on the street kind of thing.

fuckwas your first memory of 

[01:18:38] Alex: Yeah. 

[01:18:39] Brian: what people say.

[01:18:40] Alex: maybe that's a good idea. Maybe we'll try something like that. Um, but yeah, I'll, I'll I'll go ahead and, and to close the show cause I don't, I don't have anything else. I'll go ahead and read my friend Nick's, uh, first Batman story. first Batman memory. So he says, seeing the mask of the Fantasm theaters and the Fantasm scaring me shitless.

at his first appearance, the car ramming through the parking garage wall and crashing into the building across the way was a bad memory for a long time. Now the memory is just like, yo, I was one of the 2000 people who saw it in theaters. Like, every time the fantasm appeared until near the end was Accidently terrifying for a four year old me.

We were the only people in the theater too. This was the one year anniversary after my father had died. So my mom was just looking for a distraction. This movie made her love Batman as well. She still talks about it to this day.

[01:19:23] Brian: Wow. That's really cool.

[01:19:25] Alex: Yeah. I appreciated Nick writing in to tell me the story. I wish I had such a great memory of like, yeah. Going when I was young, empty movie theater, you know, seeing a, a movie that not a lot of people wouldn't saw in theaters. yeah, it's, it's a good story. Thanks for sharing. Any other closing thoughts on, on, uh, the first year of Bat Lesson's brand? As you look back, do you, do you have, uh, ambitions or goals, any New Year's resolutions? New, new bats resolutions?

[01:19:48] Brian: I, I mean, I, I enjoyed hosting. I'd like to do that again. I, we, I know off, off, off recording, we've talked kind of back and forth on fuckwould be interesting for people to listen to. Um, I like the idea of more firsts. I think it'd be fun for us to talk about our favorite characters and then also like host episodes talking about those characters, um, and stuff.

I think that could be really interesting. So th those are like my biggest thoughts. and then also lots of learning and what we've done over the past year and, how we can have more interesting recordings. How I record, like I, my setup is a little bit different than when we first started and stuff.

Um, so I can be a better participant and, yeah, it's all good. I'm, I'm digging it and I, the future is bright.

[01:20:36] Alex: Same man. I have lots of Mor Mormon fuzzies about bat lessons. I think it's been going great. I'm, I'm so thrilled looking back at the amount of, um, interactions we've had with listeners, comments we've gotten on YouTube and TikTok, letters we've gotten from people, people reaching out, uh, you know, individually.

It's, it's really great to know that there are people out there who appreciate what we're doing. So, yeah, here's to, to another year.

[01:20:57] Brian: Indeed.

[01:20:57] Alex: If you like the show, then maybe you can help other people find us too. Tell your friends about the show if you think they'd be interested. If you're using Apple Podcasts, tap on the name of the show.

Scroll down and find a place to give us a review. All you gotta do is tap on the stars, but if you write a review, we will read it on the show. If you're using Overcast to the Star at the bottom of the now playing screen to recommend us, it helps a lot. If we can build an audience, we can keep putting out episodes.

You can find all of our episodes and show notes@batlessons.com. You can send us comments, questions, corrections, or even suggestions to contact@batlessons.com, or you can tweet at us at bat lessons. Until next time, I'm Alex Cash.

[01:21:32] Brian: And I'm Brian Anders

[01:21:34] Alex: Thanks for listening.

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[01:21:40] Alex: you know, bowl on his head that had these wings coming off of it. Kind

[01:22:16] Brian: Oh yes. I forgot about this flash. Yes.

[01:22:19] Alex: Yeah, his name is Lou Gehrig. Um, the flash that we think of today, um, whether it's Wally West or Barry Allen, the

[01:22:26] Brian: Jay Garrick.

[01:22:27] Alex: happen.

Jay Gehrig. Sorry. Yes. I'm

[01:22:30] Brian: Yeah. Lou Garrick has a disease. 

He is a, he is a baseball player. 

Oh man, you're making me cry. Laughing inside a little bit. Uh,

[01:23:00] Alex: I love that that's the defining characteristic that you reach for. Luke

[01:23:05] Brian: to think of, I knew he was an athlete. , but yeah, that's, I bet money. That's why the majority of people know that name today.

[01:23:15] Alex: Oh, sure. It's just a funny way to say it.

[01:23:19] Brian: Luke Kerick has a disease.

[01:23:21] Alex: Yeah. Forget that he was a baseball player. He has a.

[01:23:24] Brian: Yeah.

[01:23:25] Alex: Um, sorry that was me jumping forward in my notes. Uh, we will be talking about Lou Gehrig in a second. You're right. His name the, the golden Age flash name is Jay Gehrig. Um, the flash