Batman Archives - Page 8 of 9

The Batcut

Posted on July 12, 2008 by sexyarmpit

Harry Potter has been a phenomenon with young kids and adults for years now, but does that mean people have been going to their local hair salon and asking for “The Potter?” Kid and Play and Vanilla Ice have had influence on trendy hairstyles but neither of them had the type of impact to make a guy do THIS:
Aside from Beatlemania, I doubt anything will ever be bigger than Batmania. I’m glad I was around for it. Sure, we’re all eagerly anticipating The Dark Knight’s release but the feeling is nowhere near the feeling that came over the world in 1989 when Batman starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson was released. It could have been that it was almost 20 years at that point since Batman was blasting onto the small screen. The Batman TV show was cancelled in 1968 and Tim Burton’s version didn’t hit theaters until 1989. It’s almost legendary how bad producers in Hollywood wanted to get a Batman movie going after the success of the Superman saga.

Like Tom Petty once said, “…the waiting is the hardest part” and I guess finally getting what we were waiting for made us do some pretty outrageous things like shaving bat symbols into our heads. It’s possible I might get reprimanded at my job if I pulled a stunt like this, so in honor of The Dark Knight’s release I’ll continue to obsessively write Batman related entries until the films release. Pictured above is a clip I scanned from my collection. It was printed in a local newspaper in ’89.

Heather Lagenkamp and her “Attractive Batcycle Outfit”

Posted on July 11, 2008 by sexyarmpit

I can’t say I truly appreciated Heather Lagenkamp’s beauty until I got a little bit older, or at least until I went to the theater to see New Nightmare. If I could refrain from my evil amount of superficiality then I can continue with this post. …ahhhh…there….now I can continue.

Heather Lagenkamp made a big impact in the ‘80s with her role as Nancy in The Nightmare on Elm Street series. Shortly thereafter she competed for the spotlight with a few other hotties on Just the Ten of Us. Although, for my money it was almost impossible for Heather to ever surpass the greatness of Jamie Luner. Heather played Marie, the nerdy, book smart girl perfectly. Heather may as well be crowned queen of geekdom because not only did she play one masterfully but she’s also an icon to millions of horror geeks like me across the globe.

It was always a welcome surprise to see her pop up in guest spots on Growing Pains and films like Shocker. In those roles it was easy for her to shine since she didn’t have any mass competition. Unfortunately, in 1995, Heather made the mistake of participating in The Demolitionist starring one of my all time favorite chicks NICOLE EGGERT! You can’t go up against Jaime from Charles in Charge and expect to win especially when she wasn‘t Jaime, she was THE DEMOLITIONIST!

Possibly the occasion when Heather was most triumphant wasn’t for her role in a film. Heather appeared in a catalog from Warner Brothers advertising all new Batman memorabilia. I remember the pamphlet style catalog was given out at the theater on opening night of Batman in June of 1989. I was amazed at how cool the bat-merch was that they were going to release. Finally some really cool, high quality Batman stuff would be released! I wanted everything in the mini catalog. I begged my mother for each item as I stared at the catalog over and over all the time. The photos and the presentation of the catalog was well done.

After second guessing myself twice (is that possible? Lol) I finally decided that I was right the first time and it WAS Heather Lagenkamp, fondly gazing at Batman, riding a bike, and modeling that “attractive batcycle outfit.” The outfit, since it was the ‘80s, happened to be made of “comfortable body hugging nylon, lycra, spandex” I must admit, I wound up getting that little tingly familiar feeling like when I saw her in that guest spot on Growing Pains. It was like “Wow, is that Heather Lagenkamp?” At that point, the only way anyone knew who I was talking about was if I said, you know Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street and Dream Warriors? Was she THAT hard up for work that she appeared in a Batman collectible catalog? I guess throwing her in this Batman ad was intended to skyrocket her to fame, leaving her character Marie Lubbock behind in her meteor dust. The caption reads “Heather Lagenkamp (from TV’s Just the Ten of Us) & Gotham City residents will rest easy tonight knowing Batman is around.

The Day I Got To Be Batman

Posted on July 10, 2008 by sexyarmpit

This whole Dark Knight countdown is becoming a huge obnoxious competition against myself to find out who is the bigger Batman fan, ME or ME? Either way, it’s on like KONG! (the article above appeared in the Cineplex Odeon newsletter called “The Biz” in ’97)

When I was 16 I applied to work at the local Cineplex Odeon Cinema at the Menlo Park Mall. (Cineplex Odeon is now AMC Theaters) I knew it would be the perfect job for me especially since I was in high school and didn’t want a job where I had to be too serious or have too much responsibility. Without even realizing how fast the time went I wound up working there for about 5 or 6 years! I met so many awesome people throughout that time and saw a ton of movies. Sometimes on a Thursday night we would have screenings of the big films that were coming out the next day. I remember getting sneaks of all the cool movies especially for all the Star Wars re-issues and The Phantom Menace. I have some great memories of that place.

For the first 2 or 3 years I worked there the management was very supportive and excellent to work for. One busy night at the theater in 1997, Bob, the house manager, pulled me aside. I got a bit nervous. Bob was easy to get along with but he was nothing but business. He wasn’t smiling so I thought something was wrong.

JAY: “Did I do something wrong, Bob?” I always ask that of all my bosses…I just like the sound of it.
BOB: “No of course not, as always you’re doing a great job! I just have something I want to ask you…”
JAY: “Oh Ok sure”
BOB: “How would you like to be Batman for us at our premiere of Batman and Robin?”

Speechless….

JAY: “Are you serious? Holy Crap, of course!!!”

F–k Jean-Paul Valley! What an opportunity for me since I used to pretend I was Batman for the first 16 years of my life and now I could actually be him in front of people. I definitely felt like I was a shoe-in for the job because everyone there knew I was the resident Batmaniac. When I put on the cowl and cape, such a familiar feeling came over me as if I had put on a cape and cowl every day of my life. I did my best impression of Michael Keaton when he became Batman. Screw Kilmer and Clooney, I was still a Keaton mark! Not only did they get one of the more professional looking bat costumes for me to wear but they also had a few members of the management team create an overhang above the ticket ripper that made you feel like you were entering the Batcave!

To make the premiere even more of an event they had one of the girls who worked at the concession stand, Jen, play Poison Ivy. Like me, she really ate it up. She waltzed in like she spent months taking lessons from Uma Thurman! The kids and adults loved it! I shook so many hands that day, was asked to be in a ton of pictures, and I was also asked for autographs which was bizarre but I had prepared for it just in case. I remembered that back when I was a kid I met a Batman impersonator at the Wildwood boardwalk back in ’89. I took a picture with him and he signed the Polaroid. I dug it up and took a look at how he signed it and I sort of lifted his technique. I know, I know…you all want to ask the burning question: Did I stuff my codpiece with socks? Don’t you know that Batman never reveals his secrets? Let’s just say, the ladies seemed to be quite aroused! Come to think of it, they were probably more distracted by my huge batarang. (pictured below: Batman/Me trying to resist Poison Ivy’s pheromones)

Answer the Batphone, it’s for you!

Posted on July 9, 2008 by sexyarmpit

I’ve been fortunate to have met many idols of mine throughout my life. One of the most fun and memorable of those times was when I met Adam West at a convention. I’m pretty sure this photo was taken in 1995 and my dad secretly snapped a picture of me. The best part about meeting Adam West was that he is still Bruce Wayne/Batman. As a kid I always related Batman to Adam West so it was that much more exciting to get to meet him.

Adam West is a friendly guy and he loves to converse with his fans unlike many TV and movie stars who feel they are too good for us plebians. When I walked up to Mr. West he started pretending he could hear the batphone ringing and he said it was for me! Adam West aka BATMAN was telling me that Commissioner Gordon was on the Batphone and he wanted to talk to me! ME!?!? What could he possibly want with me? In a moment of utter nirvana, Adam West handed ME the Batphone. What a moment. It’s one of those moments that if Vh1 did a “I Love Jay’s Life” special then they would definitely riff on this moment. I bet Michael Ian Black and Hal Sparks would have a ball with it.

**Remember to click on the Dark Knight countdown button on the right side of the page to win a copy of Batman on Blu-Ray!

The Chronicles of the Jersey Shore: The Boss, The Boardwalk, and the Batman Poster

Posted on July 8, 2008 by sexyarmpit

Despite rumors you might have heard around the country, there’s nothing really great about the Jersey Shore. Except for a few sections of extreme wealth, the Jersey shore has always been pretty shitty truth be told. Now don’t all you Jersey Shore Enthusiasts get all upset now, admit it…in the back of your saltwater-logged heads you know I have a point.

One of the main attractions for families to head “down the shore” has always been the boardwalk and the amusements. I’ll cut the crap, you’ve never seen shittier rides. You might as well dangle your kid from the landing of your 3rd floor walk up because that’s about as exciting as it gets. Not to sound like a PSA, but often it does get as dangerous. I’m being overly critical mind you, since I’ve been lucky enough to experience Disneyland, Disney World and all the related parks, Universal Orlando and Hollywood, etc. The list is long and distinguished and I don’t doubt that most of you reading this are able to say the same and then some. Once you’ve been to IMAX movies, mountain climbing, and met Nikki Sixx you’ll have no chance of rousing your spirits at the Jersey Shore. But you can clog your arteries with plenty of funnel cake and sausage sanwhiches, and fried oreos. (When did Satan buy stock in the Jersey Shore?)

Sure go ahead, call me a Jersey Snob. I live here, I work here, so why am I going against the legendary iconic Jersey Shore? Because of how I was berated by Linda the middle aged, overly tan, overly fat, heavy, heavy smoker, who owns a small one bedroom plastic monopoly game sized house in Belmar, with the gigundo gold necklaces, wreaks of tanning oil and sounds like Donald Duck.

LINDA: Hey Yooh! (like she was a husky butch lesbian mafia member) Wasn’t ’da great Bruce Springsteen sprung to stahdom heeah (here)? Wasn’t the first Gweedo spotted heeah (here)?

So talk to da hand!

ME: Yeah, but does that really matter? I mean you can look at pictures of the Stone Pony on the internet.”

LINDA: Oh no you didn’t you sunavabitch! You think yaw funny don’t yooh? Well you know who ain’t think yaw funny? The Chairmen of the Bawd that’s who. Now what? You wanna say sumthin? I didn’t think so you scumbag, I was in ‘Nam, why do you think I’ve gotta an aircast on my right ankle and I walk with a limp? But that won’t stop me frhum kickin yaw ass ya sunavabitch!

Back to your regularly scheduled program,

put the needle on the record…

…The board walk and rides were nowhere near as cool as the big boardwalk in The Lost Boys, which seemed so grand almost like a carnival type atmosphere. I used to want to visit the city of “Santa Carla” just because I secretly wished we had a setup as cool as theirs. But I doubt I’d be able to stomach all the damn vampires. How great was the comic store Sam (Haim) was browsing at? There’s no comic book stores on our Boardwalk! Just a ton of lame gift shops and the occasional pizza, and ice cream joints. Not even a good haunted house!

What we do have a ton of are the games of chance like the spinning wheel and the water gun/balloon game. Those are the games that you rarely win anything that cool. At the corner there’s always a spinning wheel game that for some reason gives away full cases of candy and snacks. It’s like the folks who run the game just went to Costco to buy there giveaway prizes for the night, and they were so damn lazy to open the cases of candy that they just figured they’d give each winner a full case. I can say that I’ve won way cooler stuff from those same games in Six Flags then I have at the Jersey Shore. Actually the Batman poster pictured above is the only great thing I’ve ever won at the Jersey shore.

Almost 15 years this Batman poster hung in my room. I can’t remember if a family member won it for me or I won it myself, but either way I was thankful to get this poster. It originally came in a wooden frame that I still have housing a collage of photos. There were a ton of Batman posters to choose from at that Boardwalk game, but I zeroed in on this one. I loved the colors of the background and the building. The artwork is well done and I appreciate the fact that Batman is wearing the blue and gray, since everywhere you looked that summer had Batman in his new black costume.

Birthday Cakes and Batman

Posted on July 7, 2008 by sexyarmpit

Birthday cakes have always been a bit of a sore subject for me. Every year since I could remember I wanted Cookie Puss for my birthday. It took about 8 years or so but I finally got him and he was the most enjoyable puss I ever had. For some reason, I never got big birthday shindigs or elaborate specialty birthday cakes. I guess it wasn’t in the cards for me. Dionne Warwick told me that when I called her up as a kid. She said almost exactly that: “Jay you’ll never have a great big party or a personalized character cake for your birthday.” I used to ask my mother why I didn’t (“How come ma?”) and it seemed there was no reason. “How come ma?”

Birthdays, especially in March, (like mine) seem to just creep up on people and then disappear like they never happened. In like a lion, out like a lamb as they say. Even though that doesn’t really pertain to this scenario, it sounded good. So I never really had a kickass cake until cookie Puss and that only happened once. About a year later my mother pulled a few slick moves and got Batman put on my cake. My father and I have birthdays that fall within 2 days of each other so both of our names were on the cake. I didn’t mind that at all since I was reasonable. I’ll share the sugary icing of a spotlight with my dad as long as Bats is on my cake. That definitely surprised me because it showed that someone was finally listening! A small part of me really wanted some little Batman and Robin figurines running on the icing backdrop of Gotham City, bat-signal and all, but I would take what I could get at that point! More than 10 years later, my girlfriend at the time created an amazing Batman cake for my 20th birthday. Cutting it up and eating it was the hardest part. Who would want to cut up Batman? Besides, The Joker!

I think birthdays in general should be fun and different than any other day. If your own birthday isn’t somewhat different from the norm that would suck. I’m not the type to ask for people to make a fuss over me but it’s sure nice when they do it on their own! I know if I was a kid right now, I’d be begging to have Batman parties, Pirates of the Caribbean parties, Hulk parties etc. When I was a kid I had everything from Super Friends plates (pictured) to WWF napkins but ne’er a Hulkster cake.
I think Birthday cakes should be personalized, although I understand the painstaking work that goes into them. A couple of years ago I took a crack at it and made my girl a Marvin the Martian birthday cake. For a guy who’s the opposite of Julia Childs I think I did a pretty damn good job. For a look at another cool cake related post check out Geektarded who has a really cool look at a MOTU birthday he had when he was a kid. How many bat-cakes have you guys had? Did you have any other cool cakes we should know about?

Batman Pez Dispensers

Posted on July 6, 2008 by sexyarmpit

Everyone I know seems to be candy crazy. I was never obsessed with sweets and I rarely go on sugar frenzies. Although I must say I do enjoy Reese’s cups, Snickers, 3 Musketeers, and peppermint patties every now and then. I definitely opt for a chocolate bar over a sugary candy like sweet tarts or airheads. I also have a disdain for anything too chewy or with a “gummy” prefix although the gummy raspberries and blackberries with the crunchies on the outside are highly enjoyable.

Throughout my life, Pez weren’t the most accessible candy out there. I couldn’t go to the nearest convenience store and pick up Pez. In my area of N.J they were readily available at toy stores and rarely anywhere else unless it was a holiday. Christmas and Valentine’s day brings Pez out to many stores in full force.

Pez were always a candy that I discovered every few months as a kid. I remember that I would keep my pez dispensers in a mini drawer in my closet. Whenever I broke out all my toys I’d open up my mini drawer and get my Pez paraphenalia ready to rock. In there I had stockpiled unwrapped pez candy that were waiting to be loaded into one of my many dispensers.

You can imagine how odd Pez tasted after a year or two even if they were still wrapped in their original package. I don’t think I realized that they probably went bad after a while. Regardless, I’d load the Pez candy into the Hulk head or the Snoopy head and then start popping them into my mouth like mad. I then realized how stale they were. They were fairly hard, I’m lying…they were break your teeth hard. They were also a bit hollow for some reason. But they still tasted like classic Pez pellets and aside from their stale state, they still had their unmistakable classic Pez flavor. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the actual candy but I still have many of my original dispensers.

Here are the Batman dispensers I’ve gathered throughout the years. They go in order of when I got them. The oldest on the left I got when I was about 8 years old! You can see the changes to the mold and the color modifications. The blue color changes slightly from the 1st dispenser to the 2nd and it’s not just old age, they actually have slightly different blue tones. The first one is probably my favorite because it’s classic but if the last two were combined! Holy Nightmare! The last one’s head sculpt is reminiscent of the comic book Batman. Switching the last dispenser’s navy blue for black would make one heck of a perfect Bat-Pez dispenser!

**After scanning Bat-Blog, I noticed there’s a new set of Batman Pez dispensers that have been released that include Joker, Riddler, Two-Face, and a Batman with a gray body and the same head as the last dispenser pictured here. These are such nice sculpts and are a Bat-fans wet dream!

Batman Fruit Snacks and Fruit Roll-Ups

Posted on July 5, 2008 by sexyarmpit

The good ol’ Dark Knight must be tight on cash lately because it seems as if he sold his soul to Betty Crocker. Not only has there recently been Batman fruit snacks but now there are Batman The Dark Knight Fruit Roll-ups on the grocery store shelves. Something about fruit roll ups changed throughout the years. It’s like the Jello-O pudding pops conspiracy where the pops that are available now taste almost exactly the same as the old ones except for a minor detail that I can’t pinpoint. When I was a kid fruit roll-ups seemed like they had more of a real fruit consistency and they were less plasticy and chewy than they are now. It’s like eating a slab of strawberry flavored vinyl. On the fruit roll ups themselves are faces of all the characters from the new Dark Knight movie. The pictures that are stamped on really suck. It’s not as easy as it would seem to figure out what the hell you’re looking at. It’s almost like looking at one of those Rorschach tests. (an ink blot…remember that in Batman Forever?!) The roll-ups come in strawberry and berry cool, both tasted sickeningly sweet to me.

As for the fruit snacks, personally I think you can never go wrong with fruit snacks even though I have my reservations about them also. Out of the fruit snacks and fruit roll-ups, the fruit snacks are the clear winner because of they taste better than the roll up and they are more fun to eat.

Batman Button Collection

Posted on July 4, 2008 by sexyarmpit

In New Jersey one of the prerequisites to living here is at one time growing up you owned a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off that was scattered with buttons of your favorite band, maybe we’ll even thrown a full patch on the back of let’s say Guns N Roses or Twisted Sister. (Is that a twisted sister pin on your uniform?!?!) I stress owned because let’s face it, something in the back of your head told you it was a bad idea to wear it. Even when those things were cool there was always a small group of people who though you were a total asshole, and they were probably right if I was going to let myself get caught wearing that shit. So in actuality, I’m merely dancing around the subject of outright telling you that I may possibly have been a person who may have owned one at one time or another but it’s not definite and I can’t confirm or deny it so don’t ask me to try and differentiate from which one is the truth and which one was fiction because you know what? at this point I don’t even remember what the fuck we were talking about.

Wow…did I just really totally spaz out like that? You know that happens every damn time I dig in my closet and put that old sleeveless jean jacket on for old time sake. Or could’ve been that I was rokken Dokken so loud that I became momentarily completely inept at deciphering what you were saying so I started making up my own questions in my head that I started replying to out loud. To get back to what I was saying..I don’t only have buttons of my favorite bands…I have ones of Batman, Tony Hawk, Vision Street Wear, and a Motley Crue patch on the back.

“What what’s that?… You like the Batman button on my jacket?… Hey right on, radical bro!”

***I’m sure this button collection pales in comparison to other people’s. I just figured what other purpose is there for these buttons other than hording them in mass quantities or pinning them to your ’80s sleeveless jean jacket that you still put on occasionally fire up the memories?

Batman Playing Cards

Posted on July 3, 2008 by sexyarmpit

In my Christmas stocking for a few years I found sets of Batman playing cards. I used to think that since I wasn’t a big card player except for my big win in the “Go Fish Tournament of Champions” in ’86 that these cards were pretty useless to me. Considering almost every other thing in my room is Batman related these playing cards probably felt terribly neglected. You would think because these were such badass card sets that It would’ve made me want to play more cards, right? Well, that wasn’t the case. Recently I came to terms with these cards and realized that they are merely an addition to my Batman collection. If I were to play cards, let’s say, on my converting gaming bar that I never use, I highly doubt I’d whip these babies out for everyone to get their slimy hands on. Yeah right! Don’t underestimate my analness! I’m much more paranoid about my collectibles than that. Of course I have a regular set to play with that are NOT Batman, so relax!

For some reason it seems that every set of Batman playing cards was top quality. The cards were glossy and weren’t thin and flimsy like alot of card sets. The Animated Series set was by far the best because all of the cards featured almost the entire cast of characters in the show. The more recent “The Batman” card set runs a close second since every card has artwork from the show, but not enough of Batman’s rogue’s gallery! The Batman Returns set only featured photos on the face cards so that was a bummer. The Joker card in the Batman Returns set wasn’t even Joker since he wasn’t in the movie, so they slapped one of the skeletal members of the Red Circus Gang on the front of it. I don’t own the card sets for the other films but judging by these cards, I’m sure they were well done also. My dream playing card set would include Ace the Bat Hound on the ACE card, Matches Malone on the JACK card, King Tut on the KING card, and Marcia Queen of Diamonds on the Queen card. Who would you pick to be featured on your set?