I liked how this documentary not only covered Adam West's entry into the series, but also covered in the context of the Golden Age superheroes, the decline in pupularity in the pre-code era, Wertham's homo-interpretation of Batman and Robin in Seduction Of The Innocent, and Batman's declining comics sales leading up to the network's purchase and conceptualizing of the series. And that it bombed in the pre-screening! But that the network had invested so much into the series already that they rolled the dice and broadcast it anyway, to unexpected success.
And that the lightness of the Adam West series resulted in a reactionary return to the character's darker creature-of-the-night roots after the TV series ended.
There are so many things that have become cultural icons that we thought were inevitable successes, that were actually repeated failures, until the right actor by some whim fell into place, or a book or comic or song or series that hadn't sold for years finally emerged at the right time. Batman obviously emerged at the right time with the right actors.
The part about Superman being their first choice, but being unavailaable for licensing as aa series at the time because of the Superman broadway play was a detail I'd never heard of before either.
