And an article came up in google for me:Come on out and see me at Spartan Bookstore @MichiganStateU this Monday! @NeeboHQ at #MSU @NeeboHQ at #Spartans
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/watercooler/ ... MSU-Monday
(LANSING STATE JOURNAL) - Adam West will visit Michigan State University on Monday, signing autographs and telling stories.
That may leave many students with a key question: Who, exactly, is Adam West?
Trust us on this: A couple generations ago, he was big on campuses everywhere.
"I've been a superhero, if you will, for almost 50 years," West, 84, told TV critics this month. He's become part of something "that is so lasting ... even though it was tongue-in-cheek."
That was the 1966 TV version "Batman." It became "probably the most oddball success story in ABC programming history," network founder Leonard Goldenson once wrote.
At its peak, "Batman" was No. 5 AND No. 10 in the annual Nielsen ratings. More than one-quarter of all TV homes watched it. Even college students watched; at the University of Wisconsin, a political issue involved whether to move a student-government meeting away from a "Batman" night.
West's current campus presence comes from doing cartoon voices - including 76 episodes (so far) as the "Family Guy" mayor - and from being spokesman for Neebo, a school-supply firm. The company says MSU is one of two schools he'll visit, to "sign autographs and help students find the best deals."
Students will meet a guy who says the bat-costume made it easy to step into the character. "Once I pulled it on, I immediately had the sense memory of playing Batman when I was a kid."
Well, maybe he didn't play it a lot back then; West was 11 when the Batman comic book debuted.
As an actor, however, he played a lot of strong-solid types. During a busy decade, West was a regular in one TV series (the final year of "The Detectives") and a guest star in many westerns.
Then came the "Batman" series. "To my knowledge, nothing like it had been done before in television; it was a chance to do something wildly singular," producer Edgar Scherick wrote in Goldenson's book ("Beating the Odds," 1991, Charles Scribner's Sons).
One ABC executive, he wrote, told him "you're out of your mind." Test audiences agreed; "the test was a disaster - the lowest score on record."
The solution, Scherick decided, was to make sure viewers were prepared for tongue-in-cheek fun.
And "Batman" was fun. It had "a carefully contrived camp formula that gave the kids a serious hero, (but) presented knowing adults with a send-up of all the old radio serials and Saturday-morning picture shows," wrote the Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction (Warner, 1977).
It had bright colors, broad victims and brash words - "slam," "kapow" - splashed across the screen. It was "theater of the absurd," said West, whose authoritative voice made him ideal to play the absurdly righteous Batman and millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne.
Like many fads, "Batman" faded quickly, lasting barely over two seasons.
Running twice a week, however, it had made an impact ... and made West's life. "Bruce Wayne handles my money," West said, "so I'm OK."
