Holy Hamilton Comic Con, Batman!
Robin the Boy Wonder is coming to town!
At 72 years of age, Burt Ward remains The Boy Wonder.
It’s been 52 years since Ward was cast as Robin in the iconic “Batman” TV series that ran 120 episodes from 1966 to 1968.
But the kitschy show is as popular as ever. Reruns air in 50 countries around the world. You can still catch an episode on CHCH every weekday at 4 p.m. “Same bat time, same bat channel.”
Ward is in demand, too. Each year, he makes appearances at about 25 comic conventions across the continent, sometimes one a week, with fans willing to dish out as much as $100 for an autographed photo. It’s not uncommon for hundreds of people to line up just to meet him.
He’ll make his first trip to Hamilton this weekend to participate in the fifth annual Hamilton Comic Con Saturday and Sunday at the Warplane Heritage Museum.
The following week Ward will head to New York for the opening of the new animated film “Batman vs. Two-Face.” Ward, of course, plays the voice of Robin. Adam West, the other half of TV’s Dynamic Duo, plays Batman. It was West’s final performance before he died in June at the age of 88.
Ward, on the phone from his home in Riverside County, Calif., takes delight in noting that William Shatner, the Canadian actor who will be forever known as Captain Kirk, takes the role of the villain Two-Face.
“Here you have the actors from the two most iconic television shows in history — ‘Batman’ and ‘Star Trek’ — working together,” declares Ward, noting that the DVD version will also contain a film biography called “The Wonderful World of Burt Ward.”
You’d think Ward might regret his decision at age 20 to take on the role of Robin. In terms of acting, it was all downhill from there. He was hopelessly typecast and found himself playing in low budget dreck like “Scream, Evelyn, Scream!” and “Beach Babes from Beyond.”
Only the occasional reunions with West — like 2003’s “Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt” — seemed to work.
But Ward has no regrets. Indeed, he still revels in the role of The Boy Wonder, tights or no tights.
“We did something on television that no one else had ever done,” he says. “It was the first time in history that a television show actually played with its audience. We put on our tights to put on the world. All of the things we did had double meanings.”
Children took the show seriously, while adults ate up the shlock, all those “kapows,” “bops” and “zonks,” not to mention the count-
less “holy” puns. Actually, someone did count them.
“There were over 378 puns in the show and when you add in the movie, there were more than 400,” Ward states with the accuracy of an accountant.
And the show began a lifelong friendship that ended with West’s death.
“I met him just before we screen tested in July 1965,” Ward recalls. “In 15 minutes we were laughing because we got along so well. And we laughed together for more than 52 years. He was my best friend.”
Now you may think Ward is a bit bat-obsessed. But you’d be wrong.
If anything, Ward is dog-obsessed. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to get him to stop talking about dogs, especially Great Danes, the bigger the better.
At any one time, he has about 50 of the beasts living on his five-acre property. For the past 23 years, Ward and his wife, Tracy, have operated Gentle Giants Rescue and Adoptions, which shelters largebreed dogs from all over the world and finds them new homes.
“Since 1994, we’ve rescued more than 15,500 dogs, 8,200 of them Great Danes,” he says. “It costs $14,000 a month just to feed the dogs, 600 pounds of food a day.”
Gentle Giants is a nonprofit charity, largely funded by The Boy Wonder. Ward says that every dollar he makes at a comic convention goes to the charity. It keeps the dogs in food.
“I was the caped crusader and now I’m the canine crusader,” Ward says.